In a shocking development, Out of the Park Developments and Front Office Football’s Jim Gindin have parted ways after working together for more than two years on the much anticipated Front Office Football 9. Fans had been eagerly looking forward to a marriage of Front Office Football’s statistics engine and Out of the Park Development’s graphics and UI.
In a statement, Out of the Park Developments cited a change in direction for the studio and a lack of resources to continue dedicating to the project. Jim Gindin partnered with Out of the Park Developments in February of 2018 and has been working on the newest iteration of Front Office Football ever since.
Despite the optimism, the project had been plagued with a lack of communication and long development times. At the time of their split, the game still does not have a release date. Out of the Park Developments has seen a lot of recent success and have moved to a yearly release model for their most popular franchises which include Out of the Park Baseball and Franchise Hockey Manager.
The good news is, Out of the Park Developments released all of the code for Front Office Football 9 and the naming rights back to Jim, the original owner. Jim Gindin and Solesmic Software have been releasing critically acclaimed football manager games for years and this project should not hamper those efforts. The game might not look the way fans had imagined when the two first teamed up but as of now, there is still hope for a release of the next Front Office Football game sometime in the future.
Simply put, we won’t be able to allocate the resources we need to deliver the Front Office Football product up to the standards that our fans expect and deserve for a long time, so we’ve chosen to go in a different direction. Jim Gindin is and will always remain a good friend, and we expect that whatever he decides to do next with his franchise will be extraordinary, and we will support him the best we can. We gave him full ownership to the current FOF9 code and wish him all the best moving forward.
(Markus Heinsohn, CEO OOTP Developments)
You can read the full statement by Out of the Park Developments here.
You can follow up with Jim’s blog here.
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