Blaseball’s Boom
Musicals and Music video, fan animations and artwork…. for a fantasy baseball browser game?
It’s indeed the case!
Blaseball is an absurdist online baseball game that was split into “seasons” (a la Apex Legends) with a rulebook with chunks that are redacted for the player. There’s a shop with in-game items purchased with in-game money won by backing teams, similar to various irl fantasy leagues.
The trick with this game is the unusual stats, the ability for you (as a player) to vote on actions of the teams or rules of the game, and “blessings” (random powerups) get randomly assigned to the blaseball players on the teams, like “performance enhancing demons” and “bloodlust”.
The trick is both in choice making, and knowing the players enough to decide which teams to bet on.
For fans, the joy is in the story telling, the characters, the competition, and the eagerness of waiting for your team to win.