Imagine Sports announces the end of Diamond Mind Baseball

Well, many people thought it was coming, since IS bought out DMB and never actually advertised or promoted DMB.  They are moving to an all on-line model.  They say they will still release season disks for DMB V9 for the foreseeable future, but only as long as it makes sense.

This isn’t really baseball news, but a lot of Primates are DMB players/owners/lovers, so it’s relevant.

I understand that many DMB owners will want nothing to do with the new incarnations of DMB, as they hate IS for killing it, and don’t want to give them another cent.  That’s a fair viewpoint.  That said, there are certainly some positives with moving to an on-line game:

For example, we have just completed a new version of “Diamond Mind Live” - a server-based version of Netplay that now includes league play … with the ability to set your own league schedules. Not only does this avoid the connectivity, IP addressing and firewall issues that can afflict Netplay, DML will enable you to play your Diamond Mind leagues in an orderly yet flexible manner without going through the hassle of having team owners sending line-ups and settings to the commissioner who runs the games for centralized leagues, or emailing results to commissioners and waiting for the latest stats in distributed leagues - that is all automated. Gone will be the fear of cheating, so if a team gets hot during a homestand, you’ll know it’s legitimate. Also, your opponents will no longer be able to look over your manager profile for an unfair advantage. And, backups are maintained on Imagine Sports servers, so if your hard drive crashes or is wiped out by a virus or you just bought a new system, we’ve got you covered. You’ll always be playing with the most up-to-date ratings and data because we’ll be maintaining it for you.

That said, it will come down to the ability to customize a league’s format and the cost of playing in leagues (I’ve long said that one cool thing about playing DMB is that I just buy one season disk each year, but play three leagues with it).  And the afore-mentioned attitude towards IS.

(more commentary and quoting, including an offer for free play, if you click the Comments link)

I do think it’s worth pointing out that IS is trying to do do right by DMB owners (or, depending on how you see things, trying to take advantage of their brain power):

We are now testing this DML League product, and we invite the PC game community to be a part of that testing and provide us with feedback that will enable us to craft the game to meet your needs and desires. We will also be forming a customer advisory group of DMB-PC customers to help provide us with further input and feedback as we build out the online game. We have already gotten some great ideas from you, and we look forward to more. If you would like to volunteer, email Pat at Info@diamond-mind.com to sign up.

In the meantime, we would like to offer you a free 12-month subscription to Imagine Sports, which includes unlimited live game play. This offer is available only to our current registered DMB PC customers who are not yet subscribers of the Imagine Sports online games and will expire on June 30. Email Support@imaginesports.com to sign up.  (Emphasis added)

I will try out the new on-line game, and am open to moving to it.  Like I said, there are some definite positives with a game that is managed on-line.  I understand the people that feel they’ve been sold out and don’t want to even give it a chance, though.