MLB 2K11 News Post

MLB 2K11 Developer Insight #1 - Marketing Looks Back at MLB 2K10

02:41 PM - January 14, 2011 by jeffy777

2K Sports just posted their first MLB 2K11 developer insight. Not a lot of information here, just marketing looking back at MLB 2K10.

Quote:


	"Traditionally speaking, our Developer Insights are written by a member of the development team. But this time around 2K Sports is kicking off the year with an update from marketing on the heels of announcing that we have brought back the $1 Million Perfect Game Challenge. My name is Mike Rhinehart and I am a senior brand manager at 2K Sports. I am fortunate enough to have been working on our sports lineup since the launch of the Dreamcast in 1999 (yes that makes me one of the salty, old marketing guys here) and I can say hands down, 2010 was my absolute favorite year in marketing for 2K Sports. Specifically, the MLB 2K10 Perfect Game Challenge was by far the craziest, most challenging and rewarding promotion that I have ever been a part of. And, I can say without a doubt, we could not have pulled this off without tremendous help from several groups of people. So many, that if I listed everyone involved it would take up a good portion of this diary, so I�ll leave it as a huge thank you to everyone involved in making this happen, including Twin Galaxies for being our third party judging entity and to everyone that participated in the challenge to make it the success that it was."

Game: Major League Baseball 2K11Reader Score: 5.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: NDS / PC / PS2 / PS3 / PSP / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 17 - View All

Major League Baseball 2K11 Videos

Member Comments

# 21 Blzer @ 01/14/11 05:53 PM

This is kind of hilarious if you think about it.

Quote:


	Our reasoning for cooking up the challenge was pretty simple. We were coming off a pretty tough review year with MLB 2K9. That said, we knew early on that MLB 2K10 was going to be a much better experience and that 2K Sports needed to give gamers a reason to come back and try our game.

So then why are they doing it this year? Same reason? It's just tough to trust them haha.

# 22 rock85 @ 01/14/11 06:29 PM

Great insight info i was intrigued the whole way through

# 23 bonannogiovanni @ 01/14/11 06:41 PM

The first developer insight is from a non developer and it's not an insight. I got bad feelings for the future.........

# 24 bigfnjoe96 @ 01/14/11 07:21 PM

Well it is what it is.

Sent from my FRESH EVO 3.5 via tapatalk

# 25 YanksFan4Life @ 01/14/11 07:30 PM

I don't understand how 2K can afford to give away a million dollars.... i mean that money given away has to affect them somehow as a company...

# 26 rudyjuly2 @ 01/14/11 07:40 PM

I'm not a baseball junkie but I like getting one game to play until NCAA Football comes out. Football is #1 for me no doubt. I'm starting to get the itch for baseball though and just popped MLB 2K10 in for the first time since last July lol. The commentary and atmosphere are really good. But some things like the overly accurate pitching, lack of cpu power, lack of sliders, lack of errors and injuries just keep the game from satisfying you over the long haul. There is a real lack of overall polish to this game but it would only take a few changes to really improve the game. That's why I'm interested in hearing about the changes and new features only to be let down when they announce news is coming and it's crap.

# 27 WazzuRC @ 01/14/11 08:52 PM

Wow. This game is set to release in a month and a half and we virtually have zero info on it, except who's on the cover.

# 28 myghty @ 01/14/11 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WazzuRC


	Wow. This game is set to release in a month and a half and we virtually have zero info on it, except who's on the cover.

And that they are giving away a million dollars...

Yup, pretty dissapointing so far but I did not expect any more than this. Its the same every year. Other companies advertise months & months in advance, you would think they would follow suit.

# 29 jeffy777 @ 01/14/11 10:35 PM

The 1st Developer Insight last year was relatively fluffy as well, then the 2nd one got into the meat and potatoes of the game, and they were pretty good from then on. So I guess I'm not really surprised that it's kind of the same this year. 2K's marketing does drive me nuts because it could be so much better, but as Joe said, it is what it is......As long as the game is good, I can live with their lame marketing.

# 30 SevenTwentyNine @ 01/15/11 12:01 AM

So their first commercial was footage from last year and their first insight is looking back at last year?

# 31 ryan36 @ 01/15/11 02:10 AM

The 1 mil comes from an insurance company, if it's anything like other promotions...not 2k. They pay 200,000 give away 1mil

# 32 Spanky @ 01/15/11 03:48 AM

Great insight there, guys.

I can't help but feel they are hiding something. Or trying to. Like they have a disaster on their hands and they keep delaying information.

And quit patting yourselves on the back for this $1 million nonsense. Except for the guy who won, nobody cares.

A 1 in 10,000,000 chance of winning of $1 million isn't going to make me want to buy some piece of junk game, if that's what this title turns out to be.

# 33 jeffy777 @ 01/15/11 04:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanky


	I can't help but feel they are hiding something. Or trying to. Like they have a disaster on their hands and they keep delaying information.

I wouldn't read too much into it. They do this with NBA too. For some reason, they just like to save all the real info for the last few weeks. As we've discussed several times before in other threads, it's a pretty lame marketing strategy, but it's just 2K's way.

Here's how Ronnie put it on twitter:

Quote:


	Ronnie2K @TrentSouth Late stream of info on all our titles, just the way we roll. We don't want to give away everything so far ahead of launch

Yeah it sucks, but it's just how their marketing does it, no matter what the game is like.

# 34 Dazraz @ 01/15/11 06:09 AM

What are you doing 2K???

If you want to have any chance whatsoever of challenging Sony for sales then you need to match them for the amount of information & video highlights that are coming out on an almost daily basis. All we've had is a few, undoubtedly, touched up screenshots.

Is 2K's lack of response due their game not being ready to show or have they seen the videos for MLB the Show 11 & thought, s**t, we better do the $million thing again to garner some sales because our game is not that good again.

I hope I'm wrong because I really liked the way MLB 2K appeared to be heading. The MLB Today feature made The Shows commentary feel old while the pitcher/batter interface was also impressive.

# 35 rudyjuly2 @ 01/15/11 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ryan36


	The 1 mil comes from an insurance company, if it's anything like other promotions...not 2k. They pay 200,000 give away 1mil

After someone got $1 million on the first day last year there is no insurance company who would cover that this year. There has to be a win for them to do so.

There was a local fishing contest where someone got $100,000 if they caught a specially tagged fish on the day of the contest. An insurance company covered it and someone won. The company was pissed and went and saw a stats professor of mine asking how likely that would have happened as they had obviously hoped it would have been harder. He simply said, "Given that someone did it I would expect the odds of winning to be pretty high." He kind of laughed that the insurance company didn't like that response.

Those insurance policies only makes sense if the number crunchers see an expected profit. I think there is a 99% chance someone wins $1,000,000 again which means no insurance company would touch it.

# 36 DaveDQ @ 01/15/11 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayhawker


	That said, I was pretty disappointed that this was the first info we got. But really, it's not a big deal. What the devs tell me will have nothing to do with how good the game is. It's just another part of the spin. It's not good or bad. It just is. It's kind of sad how entitled many of us act here.

That's it in a nutshell for me. I know we are in times when information is so easily obtained, so the style in which 2K puts out info is odd to some, but there is a very unhealthy gaming culture these days that expects a great amount.

Gone are the days of me driving to the mall on release day and watching two TVs suspended from the ceiling in Babbages showing the most recent release. I can remember trying to persuade them to put different titles up there.

# 37 econoodle @ 01/15/11 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveDQ


	That's it in a nutshell for me. I know we are in times when information is so easily obtained, so the style in which 2K puts out info is odd to some, but there is a very unhealthy gaming culture these days that expects a great amount. Gone are the days of me driving to the mall on release day and watching two TVs suspended from the ceiling in Babbages showing the most recent release. I can remember trying to persuade them to put different titles up there.

Damn, u just went really old school. lol

I remember the days

but yea, its 2k strategy.
But they have such bad will with people over the baseball franchise, plus it sells like junk, which makes me think they should rethink the marketing strategy for this game.
Its different for the NBA game which has the fans wrapped around their finger. They could release a trailer and people would buy it.

This game? they need to turn it up a notch and try something different, give the fans way more then they expect.

for the final month i would do something called, Once A Day, All The Way.
Thy could put out a piece of info every day all the way to release.
Could be as something small as focusing on announcing changes down to a feature in franchise.

# 38 Doormat @ 01/15/11 12:05 PM

...Less than 2 months 'till release date and all we have as "info" is Roy Holladay as the guy in the cover, a few screen shots, a little more better animations for fielding, and... another 1 million dollar reward.

# 39 bigfnjoe96 @ 01/15/11 12:22 PM

This is how 2K Markets. It's been this way every year since the Next-Gen jump. Why are people acting surprised? That's why yesterday I posted

"It is what it Is"

I know people want info but I've also learned to be cautiously optimistic with the MLB Series. I've also learned to take anything Ronnie says with a grain of salt.

I'm also from the ol school that "No News is Good News"

# 40 YanksFan4Life @ 01/15/11 01:38 PM

i betcha 2k11 is just 2k10 with new lighting and player models.....

« Previous 123 4 Next »

More Links

MLB 2K11 Developer Insight #1 - Marketing Looks Back at MLB 2K10