The Significance of MLB The Show 24 in Innovative Gaming Alternatives

Characterized by Sony San Diego/Sony Interactive Entertainment.

The 2025 DICE Awards provided a fantastic opportunity to witness high-profile developers openly acknowledge the achievements of their colleagues. Not only did it showcase the dozens, or even hundreds of individuals necessary to breathe life into expansive games, but throughout the event, the camaraderie for every single game nominated that evening was palpable.

This excitement was so intense that we took the opportunity to listen in as Bethesda Softworks’ creative director Todd Howard shared with IGN reporter Rebekah Valentine that one of his personal favorite games of 2024 was EA Sports College Football 25. Howard elaborated on how much significant, often unnoticed effort it takes to produce major sports games, typically catering to an audience that primarily engages with that specific genre (considering that Howard’s passion for Bethesda’s Wayne Gretzky Hockey helped him secure a position at the studio, his enthusiasm is well-justified)..

Shortly after he departed, Sony San Diego’s product development communications brand strategist Ramone Russell took the stage to present the Sports Game of the Year award for MLB The Show 24, marking a repeat triumph for the popular baseball franchise. With Howard’s comments still echoing in our minds, we were curious—what is something overlooked or undervalued in the sports genre that often goes unnoticed?

Related:MLB The Show’s Negro Leagues inclusion ‘essential to tell a story’

Russell (mildly surprised by the back-to-back victories) provided some insight into MLB The Show’s role within the Sony ecosystem. While it and other sports franchises are staples on the annual release calendar, he reminded us that large-scale triple-A development on a yearly schedule is “simply madness.”

Yet it is worthwhile, he asserted. “Many of these sports titles are the reason why other games receive the green light,” he explained. “If your sports game performs well, comes out annually, and has dedicated fans supporting it, it enables us and other companies to approve the development of other games that might not have been made otherwise.”

“Sports games are a crucial component of the video game ecosystem.”

Sports games can result in significant victories—or considerable setbacks—for studios

Russell’s remarks come at a particularly significant moment, as just weeks before sharing these insights, his counterparts at EA were grappling with a revenue shortfall related to EA Sports FC 24. “The franchise had experienced two consecutive fiscal years of double-digit booking growth. However, the franchise saw a decline as early momentum during the fiscal third quarter did not carry through to the end,” the company reported in January. (The publisher appeared eager to shift focus away from the unexpected downturn by repeatedly lamenting that Dragon Age: The Veilguard “fell short of expectations,” reaching only a modest, almost unimaginably low 1.5 million players).

EA’s layoff-inducing accountability game is profoundly disappointing considering what Sony San Diego has achieved with MLB The Show while tapping into annual spending from enthusiastic baseball fans. In 2023, the team introduced a new mode dedicated to The Negro Leagues, early 20th-century organizations that featured many talented Black baseball players, who were excluded from participating in the segregated major leagues. The studio didn’t just add players to the game’s roster; it launched a genuine marketing campaign titled “Storylines” filled with polished documentaries that articulated the histories of the leagues and the significance of their accomplishments beyond mere entertainment.

“We wanted to present a narrative [with this game mode] because 95 percent of our audience is unaware of what the Negro Leagues were,” Russell explained to us in 2024.

The fact that Sony San Diego could undertake such an ambitious initiative while progressing on the next annual installment in the franchise is remarkable, making this year’s accomplishment all the more impressive. The studio’s stellar performance lays a foundation for creative companies like Insomniac Games, Guerrilla Games, and Naughty Dog, adding further luster to its well-deserved trophy.

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