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My view of the solution is for customers to stop playing these reward-based games. I agree, there appears to be a bait-and-switch ploy ongoing here. The rewards offered are relatively meaningless virtual trinkets, devoid of any real value. The idea that the ultimate prize award would be glitched by bad game code is intolerable, and I can understand the frustration.

This is another issue that SDS isn't caring to fix. Your experience isn't the first time this sort of outcome has been reported.

Again, I recommend folks stop playing these games. SDS won't respond to anything except loss of sales.

@tjh420_PSN said in uploading a logo:

@dap1234567890_PSN I understand. The uniform builder in The Show is a dinosaur. They need to get with the times and allow users to upload svg files like in CFB25 and Madden 25.

I have not used those options in those two EA Sports games, so I wasn't sure. I suspected the option was there since everything else in the EA products seem far more refined and user friendly, especially with respect to options for customers to create custom content.

So, your confirmation doesn't surprise me at all. It seems that SDS is well behind their competition in this regard also.

@rgainer3_MLBTS said in uploading a logo:

how can i upload a logo? i used to use the MLB and MLiB uniforms so this is my first time creating my own

Add this to the long list of doable things that have been asked for over these many years. However, since it was released several years ago, logo creator has never been updated. It seems the natural option to take an image, scan it as an electronic image file, and then importing that image to logo creator is something SDS is not willing to support.

You can use their creator to create a logo from scratch, but not to design it yourself using a far more robust image editor and then import.

Folks here have initiated over a dozen threads on the chronic server issues, and SDS has not made one single substantial comment on the issue. In short, SDS has totally ignored the issue, acting as if it doesn't exist.

Thing is, it isn't merely an online issue. Within the last month, I have also noticed in RTTS offline play, there are brief freezes when at bat while the pitch is delivered. While the pitch is traveling to the plate, the game experiences a brief freeze up lasting about a fifth of a second, but it throws off the timing on the batter.

It happens once or twice every game now. Often, it causes the button command that would initiate the swing to be ignored by the game code, allowing the pitch to travel for a called strike.

Up to this point, I haven't even mentioned the issue here because I realize SDS doesn't care about the quality of the game and isn't willing to level with their customers about issues in the code.

The basis of the problem is not what you think it is. The problem is the notion that there should be virtual trinkets as reward for playing out vignettes filled with baseball history. Was your only motivation to play out these storylines merely to collect a baseball card and DD player at the end?

If that was your entire motivation, then I submit you have missed something very vital. Now, you are not entirely to blame for that. The limited scope of the storyline vignettes themselves feed into the play for trinkets mindset.

What SDS has missed is the immersion of making the dive into history an entire season, played out among all the teams that existed back in that era, played in all the stadiums that existed in that era, and with the equipment standards present in that era.

Whether the origins of barnstorming teams in 1865, immediately after the end of the Civil War, all the way to the formation of professional teams and leagues, with the creation of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players in 1871. The missing element is the total lack of immersing the customer in options to play out baseball from any chosen era.

This has been done before. Long before online games became a viable thing, many baseball video games allowed options to play games in setups from decades past. The current League game mode should allow those who set up the private leagues to select fully fleshed out time periods and play it out.

It seems to me at least that there is a reward out there far more significant that the virtual trinkets SDS currently provides -- a total immersion into the origins of baseball, leading to an increased appreciation for the game. You choose to play in the Deadball Era and a perfectly struck ball with the bat might travel 330 feet! A legendary clout might travel 400 feet, but would only happen once or twice a season played out among 20 teams!

With the loss of the home run blast, you'd have to learn how to play small ball and feast in stadiums that rewarded line drives that didn't roll to a wall because that wall was located 480 feet from the plate and the ball would stop rolling before reaching that wall! But, in getting close you would see an average runner have a stand up triple, and a fast one notching an inside-the-park homer. It would, as the legendary Ty Cobb would say, be "an honest game of baseball."

So, I agree with your premise -- "What a waste." Indeed, you are on the money, but not in my view for the reasons you stated.

Cheers!

Folks, this is a theme I have driven home many times, but adds itself to the long list of good things for this game that SDS has ignored and will never agree to.

Baseball remains unique among American sports in that it reaches back over 150 years into the history of a nation that has existed for only 250 years. The NFL, NBA, and NHL do not come close to this level of reaching back into American history.

So, any baseball game that misses the boat when it comes to giving customers a legitimate option to reach back into history and play games from historic venues, seasons, and rosters has truly run aground. SDS cannot see past the thin concepts of virtual baseball cards, skimpy themed releases of these player cards, and fancy board type games linked to baseball play.

SDS is trapped in this marketing created climate. It isn't merely historic venues that are missing from the game, it is the wholesale abdication of historic team rosters, the lack of effective options to play out seasons from generations past using historic venues these teams played in. This is the cherished reality of baseball, and it is one that SDS doesn't comprehend and seems to care nothing for.

It is their loss, and in turn our loss, since SDS has the monopoly on MLB-licensed baseball video games.

@SaveFarris_PSN said in More old stadiums and more variety of uniforms to choose:

3 cookie cutters?

Just use Shea and your imagination.

As sensible as you saying someone should dig a ditch in their backyard and imagine it's the Grand Canyon! Sometimes, when one has nothing of value to say, it is best to remain silent!

Folks, this is another example of SDS mailing the effort in, using the least expensive options possible for introducing what they claim is "new content," when in truth all SDS does is wicker up a new fixed virtual baseball card graphic, and then linking it to the same player model already in the game, with the sole change being to tweak the numbers in their player attribute categories.

The new virtual baseball card takes the most time. Tweaking the attributes takes about 30 minutes at most.

Sarge,

I continue to use the option to modify the baseline and backstop wall panels and put new stadiums in the vault. I just did one where I used this freedom to create a very accurate version of South End Grounds, which was the first ballpark that the team that became the Boston Braves played in from 1871 until 1914.

I posted screen captures along with historic narratives over at the Reddit sub-forum devoted to custom stadiums: https://www.reddit.com/r/mlbtheshowstadiums/comments/1nt3y6t/south_end_grounds/

I defy anyone to form a rational explanation for why this freedom should be denied to the customers who desire most of all to create historic stadiums to expand the level of joy customers can have in playing this MLB The Show game title. I defy SDS to offer up one reasonable explanation for their actions in this regard.

Prior to this option to modify the baseline walls, it would have been impossible to replicate the historic park, which featured baseline walls that extended almost perfectly straight until reaching into left and right center field. The park was almost a perfect rectangle.

The game of baseball plays vastly differently in stadiums that featured such original designs. This adds life to MLB The Show, allowing customers to play games in accurately rendered historic ballparks. The way the ball reacts to such radically different wall layouts goes far beyond mere curiosity, and extends to allowing people in the year 2025 to gain some insight into how baseball was played before the turn of the 20th century. Only fools would act to stop such freedom, but that is exactly what SDS has chosen to do, and since doing so, have acted with an extreme degree of arrogance and aloofness.

In short, SDS acts like the customers do not matter, that we should just shut up already and gratefully pay for what they provide us and be happy with it. I imagine they are shocked that we just are not as grateful as they think we should be. They just don't understand why we refuse to "behave ourselves," and be happy with what they release.

For those few here who think I'm unfair with SDS, this is another case where I deliberately delayed reply to this very understandable question until I gave SDS plenty of time to form a reply.

I'm not in the least surprised this question was ignored.

Why it was ignored is the same reason why all these many things (domes included) have been asked for and ignored for as Sarge rightly wrote for over five years now.

They are ignored because SDS deliberately wants Stadium Creator to be a severely degraded game mode. SDS does not want the community creating stadiums that look as natural and realistic as the stadiums they as a company create.

To go deeper and try to explain why SDS would be motivated to do this, that requires we read the minds of corporate executives who jealously guard their plans, actions, and motivations.

Fortunately, most corporations are not run this way. Imagine if you will, that DuPont paint was made available only for the auto makers, but if you wanted to repaint your car you were forced to purchase degraded paint. Of course, that isn't the case at all. If anything, you can purchase paint even better than what the makers use and repaint your car as you wish.

But, for SDS, as it is with a lot of video game companies, they are run by people who value control over all other considerations. In my view, it's emblematic of people who grew up behind office cubicle walls for too many hours and suffer from not getting out more and interacting with people enough in real life.

All the customer content control game modes are mail-in budget basics, and all have gone years without any upgrades to speak of. One of the most popular options was Sounds of the Game, and that option was ripped out of the game entirely. You have to admit, a company that doesn't even want its customers to choose what songs play during the games is a company with it's eye firmly planted on control over customer happiness.

Given recent events, in a month of so this thread will be locked so that it atrophies out of existence. My guess is Stadium Creator won't even be a part of future MLB The Show releases.

SDS won't let you create domed stadiums (nor retractable roof stadiums) because they want you to play their stadiums, and consider their game to belong to them and you just pay for the privilege to play their game as they tell you it will be played. You color in the lines they establish and if you dare go outside the lines, then you'll see SDS intervene to make those lines impossible to exceed.

SDS's decision today to lock a half dozen threads, none of which violated any TOS, and none of which received SDS feedback, was another clear indication of where things stand.

I know for a fact I have purchased my final game from SDS. But, I also think SDS is closer to their end than they think they are.

@SDS_JoeK_PSN said in Really don't understand??:

@PriorFir4383355_XBL I would take this opportunity to remind everyone that we welcome all types of feedback -- both positive and negative -- as long as it's offered respectfully and constructively.

Yes, and as a company, SDS has most assuredly chosen their option to ignore practically all of it! BTW: Ignore for the purposes of making the game better means more than acknowledging the presence of the complaints, but also requires that the bugs and other shortcomings actually be fixed!

@DrBear100_PSN said in Really don't understand??:

@PriorFir4383355_XBL said in Really don't understand??:

You are free to celebrate this company, but you won't find much support for it. The customers are not happy with the shape of this game title. SDS has largely rested and bankrolled their monopoly status for several years now, mailing in yearly titles with little to no significant improvements in how the game looks and functions. For this, they earn their rebuke

You don't rebuke companies by words you rebuke them by not purchasing their products. These people who complainan and are nasty about it have legitimate points but they are not rebuking SDS, they still purchase their product. By how vehemently nasty these complainers are I would bet they are still spending money on micro purchases and are left feeling they got nothing when the game freezes, disconnects, swing timing inconsistencies, etc. Instead of coming on here and spewing out their vitriol, turn the game off, uninstall it and stop purchasing their products if it's that bad to them. Someone said on here and I'm probably not quoting it right so please forgive me, the definition of insanity is to keep coming back to something and expecting it to be different. So true is that.

People have the personal right to rebuke in whatever manner they choose and you are in no position to decide that with the sole exception of how you choose to do so, or if you choose to do so. You are showing some nerve thinking yourself qualified or authorized to tell other people how they choose to voice their complaints or feedback to a company.

Not even remotely close to the reality of the situation. People are constantly losing server connection despite having high quality broadband ISP's. SDS has done their single worst in-season job of fixing reported bugs and making upgrades to the game.

By your definition of content, which is very limited, all SDS has to do after initial title release is to throw out new virtual baseball cards. This is very weak. It is the cheapest level of game "update" that can be done. All SDS has to do is wicker a new baseball card graphic, tweak the player's performance levels, and use the exact same player model that was already in the game.

However, a deeper dig into the situation reveals the scope of the multi-year problem. All three of the remaining game modes that focus on custom customer created content have gone without any upgrades, not only this year, but over the course of the last several.

No one can debate this. Uniform creator and Logo creator are both exactly as they were when first released. Worse, several significant bugs have gone years of constant customer report without any fixes. The last names and uniform numbers have had a four year bug where the color hue used in the game is darker than the hue that was selected from the color pallet. When one of the most critical aspects of a uniform design is color, it is inexcusable that the color hues would be off in the first place, and nothing less than condemnable that the bug would go years without SDS fixing it.

Other bugs? In custom stadiums, for the last three years now if a known between innings video vignette is played, when the game action returns all the seats in the stadium have their color reverted from what was assigned when designed to a shade of grey. Have you ever seen a baseball stadiums with the seats painted grey? Nope, neither have I, and one questions the dedication of SDS to customer service when this bug is reported and never fixed.

On the subject of upgrades, Stadium Creator has had a multi-year list of sorely needed upgrades that SDS has ignored. Simple things that are easy to implement, and worse, options that are already coded up in Stadium Creator that SDS has deliberately nuked by layering lock-out code to prevent their use. Stuff like being able to snug the stands up close to the walls, having small stand sections that can be snapped together to create more customized seat layouts, yellow stripes on the walls, wall distance markers, the option to change the orientation of the seats and baseline walls, more letter props so that realistic signage is possible, and so much more.

You are free to celebrate this company, but you won't find much support for it. The customers are not happy with the shape of this game title. SDS has largely rested and bankrolled their monopoly status for several years now, mailing in yearly titles with little to no significant improvements in how the game looks and functions. For this, they earn their rebuke.

This has been a multi-reported bug in the game code since MLB 22 was released. Especially the AI pitchers on the CPU team seem totally impervious to injury, including getting drilled by a hit ball.

Asking SDS to fix this is a waste of time. This has been reported by hundreds of customers hundreds of times over four years. SDS hasn't even seen fit to provide an honest reply about it, much less fix it.

The Tigers have a magic number of one. Due to the tie-breaker over the Astros, they have to win just one of their two games remaining and the Astros have to sweep. This is because the Astros have to finish a game ahead of the Tigers due to the tie break.

Both teams are backing up -- not a good way to go into the playoffs. But, one of these two teams will barely make it.

The Tigers are in better shape than just their record indicates. The only AL team with a realistic shot at tying them is the Astros and the Tigers only played them in one three-game series and swept them. So, since that's the first tie-breaker, and the Tigers have a one game lead, they in effect have a two-game lead.

The other factor in that race is neither team is playing well. Both are backing their way into post-season and the Astros have to win two of their five games to have any chance and the Tigers have to merely win three of their remaining five to clinch it, less for every loss the Astros suffer.

The reason for all this is that SDS has fallen into the lazy trap of having a multi-year monopoly. There is no competition to force them to treat customers with respect, much less to busy themselves with fixing bugs that the customers bring to their attention. This is because SDS has zero fear of customers choosing to go with another rival baseball video game because there are none endorsed by MLB or the MLBPA.

This is a gaming concept that somehow has gained traction in many sports games. It is the philosophy that regardless of the selected difficulty level, repeated success must be punished. Somehow, game managers think the software must implement such a strategy to keep the game appealing.

The foolishness of such a concept should be easy to grasp. It makes one wonder then why so many games feature it. Is it really an effort to retain interest by making some games particularly challenging? Or, instead, is it some other motivation?

Speculation is that game studios do this because they don't want anyone to pull off a run of success. It's like an ego thing. The game must be challenging and if you become so good as to reduce the challenge, then the game code will implement some foolish contrivances to make defeat inevitable.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was a famous American jurist, an early sitter on the US Supreme Court. He wrote a treatise on the basis of what constitutes good laws. In it he essentially says that even a dog can tell the difference between being tripped over vice kicked!

How does that apply here?

Customers can accept losing a game (versus CPU or human) if the game conditions meet reasonable standards of behavior. But, when the game code so totally messes with common sense to impose a loss then the customer is left with more than just an empty feeling. In truth, the experience harms the quality of the gaming experience, and for many people it results in less game play.

In MLB The Show, in RTTS (which is exclusively versus the CPU), I call it the ten-game rule. If your team wins ten games in a row, the game code implements the punishment. Suddenly, pitchers with a 3.00 ERA for the season vomit 8 runs in two innings, or surrenders a string of five runs in a single inning to lose the game.

The problem isn't losing the game. The problem is the clumsy way that the game code decides how that loss will play out. If the game code does it in a way that preserves the integrity of the game, then the experience doesn't feel poisoned.

I'll provide two of the more infamous examples and likely the single most condemned part of the Madden NFL genre -- the infamous snow games and monsoon games. It is the game where during the "snow globe" game you literally cannot as the QB see more than ten yards in front. Receivers running a route disappear into the snow. That's not how a real NFL game in snowy conditions looks. The closest was one game in Chicago that was singularly infamous, but even then players on the field could see 30 yards downfield. It was the TV coverage that suffered because they could not see what took place on the field from the sideline and endzone cameras that were 50 yards from the field.

The monsoon game in Madden is about as bad, with receivers on your human team constantly running routes and falling to the ground from slipping, and fumbles happening constantly with your otherwise sure handed running backs (same in the snow games). However, as in the snow games, the CPU team just cruises along normally, scoring and defending as they normally do like they are playing in the sunshine!

This is criticized because the game coders write the code in such a clumsy manner as to make the game more an in-your-face experience than a sports themed game. It is the coder telling the paying customer, "I'll put your arrogant *** back in its place and you'll like it buddy!"

In real life, you treat a customer like that one-on-one, you'll get fired every single time. But, game coders and their managers somehow think they have a presumed right to carry out vengeance against their customers. It results from too much time spent in an office cubicle and not nearly enough time spent in the real world interacting with people!

I wouldn't hire a coder without seeing on his resume an extensive amount of time spent working in settings that required daily interaction with paying customers, demonstrating the ability to empathize with a customer and deliver on promises made without bankrupting the company, without ever treating a customer disrespectfully.

@Demadrio_PSN said in They abandoned us:

There's also the possibility that they're being directed to put all the '25 fixes into MLB The Show '26 so if we want the bugs corrected, we're forced to buy the new version...

I'm torn. I love the new token system and its freedom to choose what to upgrade on my player and when, but between all the bugs and the lamentable music selection I'm starting to feel like maybe I should just stick to RTTS '24 until SDS sorts itself out.

I wouldn't count on that logic or goodwill. There are dozens of bugs that were first revealed with MLB 23 and 24 that carried over into MLB 25. What SDS doesn't seem to grasp is that the longer things go with reported bugs going without correction, the more customers conclude that the company isn't interested in pursuit of outstanding customer service.

I'm probably being too charitable. Many have concluded that SDS isn't interested in the barest of customer service. Whatever level of support keeps them out of court for misrepresentation is pretty much the threshold for them!