Nostalgic '90s PC game Backyard Baseball is coming to Steam on October 10th, 27 years after its original release, for $10.
Arcade-style baseball games have become cult favorites among sports fans who grew up with the game, many of whom are now in their 20s and 30s (including MLB All-Stars, like Bobby Witt Jr. and Trea Turner). Though they're aimed at kids, they have their own unique charm: Who would have guessed that a pizza box could serve as home plate, that wacky outfields are sometimes built around swimming pools, and that neighborhood kids defy the laws of physics when they throw pitches that suddenly burst into flames.
Even Jason Kelce, a former NFL player and brother of Taylor Swift's boyfriend Travis Kelce, said on a podcast that he had considered buying the rights to the Backyard Sports franchise and rebooting it. But contrary to internet sleuths' hopes, another buyer named Playground Sports beat the Kelce brothers to it.
Humungous Entertainment, the original backyard baseball company, succumbed to the fate of endless mergers and acquisitions, its intellectual property dumped into a holding company like an extra $10 million expense, and now the rights to iconic characters like Pablo Sanchez are owned by Playground Productions, a children's media company founded by former public school teacher Lindsay Barnett.
“This is the game I loved most as a child, and while we're already working hard toward the future of Backyard Sports, I want to start by paying tribute to the past by bringing back the game that started it all for me and so many others: 1997 Backyard Baseball,” Burnett said in a press release.
Rebooting Backyard Baseball isn't as simple as buying the IP. Because the game's original source code has been lost since 1997, Playground approached Mega Cat Studios to remaster the game. Mega Cat hacked a copy of the game on CD-ROM and remade it to be compatible with current PCs. With the remaster's success, Mega Cat and Playground plan to work together to re-release other fan-favorite games in the franchise.