football sim popularity in US vs soccer sim in UK

[cyril]

why couldn't football sim gain the popularity in US like soccer sim could in UK? For years CM/FM series have been bestsellers in UK, yet here in US where fantasy football is widely popular, football (american) sim can only hold a cult following. Both countries have equivalent "arcade" versions of their favorite sports. What could be the reasons?

[gstelmack]

Perhaps precisely because fantasy football is so popular?

Also look at the feature set difference between CM/FM and the top-of-the-line football sim, FOF.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Also look at the feature set difference between CM/FM and the top-of-the-line football sim, FOF.

I think this is it. If there were a football sim with the kind of feature set and graphics that CM/FM has, it might just be a hit.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

I think this is it. If there were a football sim with the kind of feature set and graphics that CM/FM has, it might just be a hit.

you underestimate. if there was one, and if there was a console version, i think given enough publishing-power and advertising-push, it'd be the #1 selling game every year

[cyril]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Perhaps precisely because fantasy football is so popular?

Also look at the feature set difference between CM/FM and the top-of-the-line football sim, FOF.

I did not play CM back in the early days, but looking at screenshots of CM 97/98, they are fairly rudimentary compared to what they have now. certainly what they could do now is a result of establish popularity/ acceptance of the early, more primitive versions.

EA Head Coach has all the fancy stuff, even 3-d engines before FM does, but you could get one at $9.99 less than 3 months after it's released. despite all its shortcomings, it is a nice second trial. As powerful as EA is (compared to Eidos and Sega) the game just doesn't seem to go anywhere.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

The reason FM is so popular is that it is immersive. You grow very attached to those little pieces of data you think of as "players". It is pretty remarkable in that way.

Everything else is just window dressing. Great window dressing, but the immersion is the heart of the thing. I think, for me, that's true of all text sims. The more immersed I get into the world, the more I enjoy the game.

[DaddyTorgo]

i'm so immersed in FM it's sad. I had a stud DMC/MC who left me on a free transfer and went off to Arsenal. Subsequently I finished 2nd in the League and was knocked out of all the other competitions. So I went back to Arsenal in the offseason and bought him back for $75mil even though I had brought in replacements (2020 dollars, so some significant inflation).

But until I got him back I was muttering about it as I went about my day!

[molson]

I've always wondered that.

I've known a lot of football fans, but I've never known one that played or showed any interest in text sims. Maybe there's some closet users out there, but we're much more of a Madden culture. I've always thought of text sim users as weirdo fringe types (which of course, I only say with love).

Is it that way in the UK with soccer? Do guys at the pub talk about their CM games? I would be SHOCKED if I ever ran into an text sim player in real life. Is it more mainstream in the UK?

If there was a CM-caliber football game in the US, it'd surely be more popular, but its still somehow hard to imagine a ton of high school/college students playing it.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

Dated, yes, but a quick google result.

FM2005's first weekend was one of [UK sales tracker Chart-Track's] "top five fastest selling PC games ever"

Football Manager 2005 breaks SEGA sales records // News

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by molson

Is it that way in the UK with soccer? Do guys at the pub talk about their CM games? I would be SHOCKED if I ever ran into an text sim player in real life. Is it more mainstream in the UK?

When we were kids in high school around 13/14 years old, all we did was talk about CM. We even brough printouts of our teams and results to school to aid discussion. I don't know what the differences are between US and UK in that regard, maybe the fact that there is really one huge sport in the UK vs. the four major sports in the US? Or the fact that there are hundreds of local soccer teams vs the fact that there are only 30 odd pro teams in each US sport? Thinking about it we were all season ticket holders to Cardiff City, wonder if that has something to do with the reason why.

It's a very interesting question, and I'd love to know the reason why. I do think even the early versions of CM were light years ahead of what FOF does FWIW.

EDIT - to add that I just don't consider CM a text sim like FOF or OOTP is, which is very strange. But it definitely has a cult following in the UK that I don't ever see either of those two ever picking up. Put it this way, nobody is playing rugby, cricket or tennis text sims in the UK (at least not in significant numbers)

[Big Fo]

I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing or if it's down to the quality of FM vs. NFL management sims. It's not like the UK doesn't love action sports games, FIFA and PES are huge sellers year after year.

One thing worth noting is that PC/video games in general are huge there, even more so than they are here. The UK recently overtook Japan as the world's second largest market for games despite having half the population (USA #1 of course). Maybe the crappy weather plays a part in this as the other European countries aren't nearly as high up.

2008 figures I dug up from an old neoGAF post:

Country		Population	Av. market spend    Revenue 2008		Market Share

USA		306,088,000	$ 71.98		    $ 22,031,000,000		40.42 %
United K.	60,975,000	$ 111.95	    $ 6,825,961,080		12.57 %
Japan		127,433,494	$ 50.57		    $ 6,443,666,600		11.87 %
France		62,448,977	$ 66.46		    $ 4,150,274,560		7.64 %
Germany		82,060,000	$ 47.35		    $ 3,885,243,440		7.16 %
Canada		33,596,000	$ 62.21		    $ 2,090,000,000		3.85 %
Spain		46,157,822	$ 43.74		    $ 2,018,747,680		3.72 %
Italy		59,905,225	$ 29.72		    $ 1,780,501,620		3.28 %
Australia	21,700,000	$ 62.39		    $ 1,353,772,000		2.49 %
Netherlands	16,492,230	$ 56.67		    $ 934,657,620		1.72 %
Belgium		10,666,866	$ 56.57		    $ 603,368,720		1.11 %
Sweden		9,234,209	$ 52.36		    $ 483,540,820		0.89 %
Switzerland	7,700,200	$ 53.87		    $ 414,807,629		0.76 %
Austria		8,316,487	$ 47.12		    $ 391,907,720		0.72 %
Hong Kong	7,008,900	$ 37,24		    $ 261,000,000		0.48 %
Portugal	10,676,910	$ 22.97		    $ 245,294,760		0.45 %
Ireland		5,981,448	$ 34.28		    $ 205,025,472		0.38 %
Denmark		5,511,451	$ 30.95		    $ 170,550,000		0.31 %
Finland		5,330,150	$ 22.88		    $ 121,942,510		0.23 %
Norway		4,805,437	$ 19.77		    $ 94,996,280		0.18 %

[stevew]

I wish SI would translate the game into American football.

For something to sell large numbers it would need a license.

[BradS]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

you underestimate. if there was one, and if there was a console version, i think given enough publishing-power and advertising-push, it'd be the #1 selling game every year

This is the question, somewhat frustrating it is. A sport with such mass appeal that Football holds does not have an equivalent to Baseball (OOTP) or Soccer (FM). Could someone like a Markus (just an example) produce a new version of Football every year and make a living at it? To have all the options of OOTP but in a football world, would this sale and warrant a new version every year? OOTP and FM have added more realism over time, if Football followed same, why not?

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by BradS

This is the question, somewhat frustrating it is. A sport with such mass appeal that Football holds does not have an equivalent to Baseball (OOTP) or Soccer (FM). Could someone like a Markus (just an example) produce a new version of Football every year and make a living at it? To have all the options of OOTP but in a football world, would this sale and warrant a new version every year? OOTP and FM have added more realism over time, if Football followed same, why not?

Even FM pales in comparison to OOTP in terms of options, a new NFL sim doesn't necessarily need that level of customization. I'm glad SI are finally adding a competition editor this year though, it will be great to have a unified North American league pyramid with the option to get rid of some or all of the restrictive MLS rules.

[Tigercat]

FM and its brothern offer a depth of leagues and gameplay that their arcade counterparts don't. EA Head Coach is just a fancy window dressing of a coach mode for one league. If EA Head Coach had a universe that included an active college and HS system, it would have an increased popularity, no doubt about it.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by stevew

I wish SI would translate the game into American football.

For something to sell large numbers it would need a license.

they tried with Hockey. It wasn´t pretty ... (neither the game nor the sales)

[marc_rdfl]

I think the lack of promotion and relegation in Football hinders things. One of the biggest challenges in CM is to get a minnow promoted and ultimately in the Champions league, etc.

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by whomario

they tried with Hockey. It wasn´t pretty ... (neither the game nor the sales)

I thought they just distributed a small shop's game? That they did not give the big team development treatment to Hockey?

[whomario]

don´t really know about that, but it was a highly ambitious game with a ton of detail in terms of playable league and game universe (in which the NHL was not much more prominently featured than say the russian or swedish league) that sold for full-price and really didn´t capture the market, especially the american market from what i remember.
Damn, you could manage youth teams even.

They took the FM code and made it a hockey game, principally speaking, and didn´t build on the code for the freeware game.

Was an ok game, just not great.

My point is that this "translating the game into another sport" isn´t a very good idea as this was one of the main bad things about the game, it just didn´t feel like a unique game at all but allways kind of like FM on ice.

Football would be even more of a longshot as it doesn´t have nearly the global appeal that Hockey has. Yeah, the super bowl is watched by everone and their kittens, but that doesn´t mean there´s a market for a football sim outside of the US since there are no leagues or players to speak of.


I mean, hockey is the ideal sport for an FM like game with the global leagues, relative parity in strengths, the great flow of players moving from europe to the US and vice versa, the fact that College isn´t as big a factor and rather has youth leagues and european youth teams make for the majority of new players.
Actually it had a ton of potential that game, i mean managing a youth team ?


I agree that having a game combine College and the NFL would go a long way.

[Mac Howard]

Despite both being described as "text sims" I don't believe that FOF and FM (or any of the soccer management games - smgs) are the same game at all. I'm not an expert on FOF but from what I've seen it's better descibed as a stats game - interpretation and manipulation of statistics - which gives it limited appeal, whereas the smg is a role playing game where the immersion comes from the degree to which the game can convince you you're acting out the role of the real-world manager. That's a role we all play as we argue about team selection and tactics every weekend.

The smg is not a game you compete against but an environment in which you operate and where so much of the pleasure comes from the effort and imagination you put into it.

Perhaps there is a cultural difference factor - back in 1991 I was involved in the publication of a gridiron "management" game that was originally written by one of my customers (he sent it to me asking me to retail it for him) called HeadCoach V3. I converted the game for the Amiga.

In the UK the game was a big success both commercially and critically. I personally enjoyed the game enormously. One of the magazines included it in their "Hall of Fame" list. It was very much the smg in gridiron clothes.

The success caused me to offer it to Wizard Games (some of you may remember One Nil from them) and they were glad to publish it in the US for me.

It bombed completely there. Tris Schuler (some of you may remember him), who loved SaaP, savaged the game. I could never really understand why but according to Wizard he was only repeating what American buyers of the game were saying.

The contrast between the UK and US response was stark.

Although I bought the rights to the game from the author, the US reaction eventually caused me to shelve the game. It's a pity. In my view gridiron has far more potential than soccer for this type of "management" game. Two reasons:

1) the problem of illustrating in-match performance is lessened in gridiron by the prominence of stats which simply don't exist in soccer so you can judge the players' performances more effectively despite not having the quality of graphics that are needed to do that visually.

2) in-match play calling means the "manager/coach" has a significant influence over match results that is missing in soccer where influence over play is limited. There's a much more direct influence on match progress.

But I'm not convinced it's a cultural thing, what you guys may not know is that the smg was around for 10 years as a minority game in the UK before it finally made the mainstream charts. The original CM didn't appear until around 1992 whereas the first smg was 1982. What's more there were six or seven different designers all competing in a mail order market in that 10 years. By the time the Collyers managed to pursuade a mainstream publisher to put the game into the high street shops, there was a significant underground market for the game.

So there was a ten year incubation period for CM there which hadn't occurred in the US for HeadCoach V3. Despite this the first review of the mainstream CM went "This is the worst game ever to pass through this office".

It took just two weeks to take it to the top of the UK's game charts

But I believe there's a terrific gridiron "management" game to be made. Whether anyone will produce it - the problem is it will always be set against the soccer games which have a 27 year head start - I don't know. It would be quite a challenge and, I suspect, there'd be a lot of heartache for the designer before/if it became successful.

[DaddyTorgo]

thanks for the history lesson Mac. I think you're right in a lot of ways. I wonder if anyone could produce a great gridiron SMG now -- the "Maddenization" or "console-ization" of video games has so many people overly focused on flashy graphics that that's such a setback to a good SMG - not because it can't include them, but simply from a standpoint of how much resources a company has to allocate to them...the game then becomes all about the graphics (Madden) in a sense.

[Mac Howard]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

thanks for the history lesson Mac. I think you're right in a lot of ways. I wonder if anyone could produce a great gridiron SMG now -- the "Maddenization" or "console-ization" of video games has so many people overly focused on flashy graphics that that's such a setback to a good SMG - not because it can't include them, but simply from a standpoint of how much resources a company has to allocate to them...the game then becomes all about the graphics (Madden) in a sense.

Yes. The major hit the smgs always got, both from users and reviewers, was about the lack of graphics even in the 1980s when all graphics were poor.. I think a first attempt gridiron "management" game would have 2D graphics illustrating the results of play calling. They would get savaged today and I doubt the designer would get the support that came for the smgs from dedicated smg players.

[DaddyTorgo]

it's a pretty shitty catch-22 to be honest

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by whomario

they tried with Hockey. It wasn´t pretty ... (neither the game nor the sales)

Which game are you referring to?

[whomario]

"NHL Eastside Hockey Manager", they had 3 installments under the SI label working with Parts of the team and engine of FM (2004, 2005, 2007)

[RomaGoth]

Originally Posted by whomario

"NHL Eastside Hockey Manager", they had 3 installments under the SI label working with Parts of the team and engine of FM (2004, 2005, 2007)

I love that game, still play it on the occasion. It has a very hardcore following, but like any other sports text sim, apparently you either love it or hate it.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

you underestimate. if there was one, and if there was a console version, i think given enough publishing-power and advertising-push, it'd be the #1 selling game every year

I agree with this.

Originally Posted by cyril

I did not play CM back in the early days, but looking at screenshots of CM 97/98, they are fairly rudimentary compared to what they have now. certainly what they could do now is a result of establish popularity/ acceptance of the early, more primitive versions.

EA Head Coach has all the fancy stuff, even 3-d engines before FM does, but you could get one at $9.99 less than 3 months after it's released. despite all its shortcomings, it is a nice second trial. As powerful as EA is (compared to Eidos and Sega) the game just doesn't seem to go anywhere.

Where CM/FM has always excelled is in the immersion. I think this is the result of the confluence of good design, good polish, good accuracy and good gameplay and frankly few other sports sim games really put the package together the way CM/FM has since the mid-90s.

To me, CM 97/98 is still a better overall game (and more enjoyable) than the current version of FOF, and I enjoy both sports immensely.

The 3D engine is a good point. EA using the 3D engine is just them leveraging technology they already have, in part to cover over deficiencies in their game. FM added a 3D engine to an already excellent game as just another way to add immersion.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Is there a link anywhere to HeadCoach V3? I googled with no success. I realize its an older game, but I wouldn't mind giving it a whirl just to see what kind of immersion it had.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Mac Howard

Perhaps there is a cultural difference factor - back in 1991 I was involved in the publication of a gridiron "management" game that was originally written by one of my customers (he sent it to me asking me to retail it for him) called HeadCoach V3. I converted the game for the Amiga.

Heh. My first foray into utility writing was making a team generator, draft utility, and a set of aging routines for HeadCoach on the Amiga. I even talked to the developer at one point to help him repro a bug in the gameplay engine. It was a great game that I spent many hours on.

[Marc Vaughan]

I think there is a market for sports sims for all sports to a greater or lesser degree, some suit sports management games better than others and there is a huge requirement to tailor the games to the audience that you present tem to between the sports.

Soccer is a game which just 'naturally' suits the genre perfectly and that is imho partially why games using it have proved so popular - think of the main mechanics in an SMG.

* Transfer/Trade system
* Match Engine
* Media
* Characters & Individuals within the sport

Soccer has a nice blend for all these aspects, most notably the match itself which has just the right amount of 'events' (goals, goal chances etc.) and tactical alterations (substititons etc.) to balance nicely with peoples patience levels.

Other sports when played out take that little too long or make the user feel they're missing something if you 'skip' boring aspects of the match - whereas the low scoring nature of soccer leads to the user feeling they aren't missing anything much.

(in contrast if you did the same sort of 'time jump' in a basketball game that we do in FM between 'events' of interest you'd see the score move from say 10-9 to 36-20 and wonder what happened and why)

I STILL very much believe that all the (non-soccer) major sports in the world could easily support very good management games with a reasonable sized audience (between 25,000-200,000 units) however it will take time and a lot of effort to build up that sort of fanbase for a product.

PS - Peronally unfortunately the only sport I know indepth is football/soccer so that is the only sport I'll make sims for ... you NEED to be a fan of the sport in question to be able to do it justice and understand the needs and wants of the fans in question imho (which is why when I worked with Riz and Markus on their games I always let them make the decisions about how the games would be structured).

[molson]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

PS - Peronally unfortunately the only sport I know indepth is football/soccer so that is the only sport I'll make sims for ... you NEED to be a fan of the sport in question to be able to do it justice and understand the needs and wants of the fans in question imho (which is why when I worked with Riz and Markus on their games I always let them make the decisions about how the games would be structured).

Somebody take this man to a Dolphins game.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by molson

Somebody take this man to a Dolphins game.

but i thought you wanted to make him a fan, not turn him off.

[molson]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

but i thought you wanted to make him a fan, not turn him off.

I just figured it would be a better atmosphere than a Jaguars game.

[Toddzilla]

Originally Posted by cyril

why couldn't football sim gain the popularity in US like soccer sim could in UK? For years CM/FM series have been bestsellers in UK, yet here in US where fantasy football is widely popular, football (american) sim can only hold a cult following. Both countries have equivalent "arcade" versions of their favorite sports. What could be the reasons?

Because if you take the popularity if Football in the USA and multiply it by 100, you're still not even close to how popular Soccer is in the UK.

Not. Even. Close.

[SteveMax58]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

you underestimate. if there was one, and if there was a console version, i think given enough publishing-power and advertising-push, it'd be the #1 selling game every year

+1

Without getting into the nuances and silly deficiencies of the game(which are more a reflection on the MMO aspect of it)...I think Goalline Blitz has proven viability of a gridiron product. It isn't necessarily intended as a SMG per se...but it does allow one to play many aspects of such a game.

Yeah...an FM-type of gridiron game would yuuuge....yuuuge I tell ya.

[Ronnie Dobbs2]

It would be a big seller, but I don't think it would have the same pull as FM in England.

A Premier League manager recently complained about how people play the game and get unrealistic expectations about things he should be doing as a manager. That's clout.

Villa boss Martin O'Neill is no fan of fantasy game managers - MirrorFootball.co.uk

[gstelmack]

Fantasy Football fills that void here in the USA.

[cyril]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Soccer is a game which just 'naturally' suits the genre perfectly and that is imho partially why games using it have proved so popular - think of the main mechanics in an SMG.

* Transfer/Trade system
* Match Engine
* Media
* Characters & Individuals within the sport

Not to undermine soccer (I love playing FM) but american football has more "drama" in these mentioned aspects:
1. transfer/trade - NFL has the same trade deadlines plus NFL has a draft, which to many folks is the most exciting aspect of the game, a salary cap to balance, hindering the "rich get richer" syndrome. a roster limit to force gamers to weed out the weak (vs soccer you could keep buying and buying if you are a rich club). I personally think the transfer/trade system in football could be more challenging.
2. match engine - NFL certainly lacks the "sit back and watch" flow of soccer, but there are more decisions one has to make during the game, and i thought this would be appealing to gamers I don't know if a realistic match engine is more/less difficult to make than the one in soccer. maybe making a match engine that is both visually and statistically accurate is indeed much more difficult than i thought.
3. media/ characters - no need to elaborate here i guess, too bad no football sim tries to exploit this "great" american drama.

Given the success of civ series, or even the simcity series (I reckon there must be more people who want to be a football coach than a city planner) here in US, it's just perplexing that there is not a huge flux of indie developers trying to reach for the "obvious" pinnacle of making a great football sim. for pete's sake how many thousands of absolutely useless iphone apps are out there and how many programs are out there that do essentially the same thing?

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

PS - Peronally unfortunately the only sport I know indepth is football/soccer so that is the only sport I'll make sims for ... you NEED to be a fan of the sport in question to be able to do it justice and understand the needs and wants of the fans in question imho (which is why when I worked with Riz and Markus on their games I always let them make the decisions about how the games would be structured).

for years i wish SI would dip their toes in american football... sign... i guess that shatters my dream.... sign....

[Marc Vaughan]

1. transfer/trade - NFL has the same trade deadlines plus NFL has a draft, which to many folks is the most exciting aspect of the game, a salary cap to balance, hindering the "rich get richer" syndrome. a roster limit to force gamers to weed out the weak (vs soccer you could keep buying and buying if you are a rich club). I personally think the transfer/trade system in football could be more challenging.

Don't get me wrong - I think many sports have transfer systems and things like the draft which suit the SMG well, I mentioned it mainly because some sports don't at all (for instance Tennis in some ways would work as a sports sim nicely but doesn't have teams or transfers).

2. match engine - NFL certainly lacks the "sit back and watch" flow of soccer, but there are more decisions one has to make during the game, and i thought this would be appealing to gamers I don't know if a realistic match engine is more/less difficult to make than the one in soccer. maybe making a match engine that is both visually and statistically accurate is indeed much more difficult than i thought.

I actually like American Football and loved TV Sports Football (not sure if it was called that in America?) on the Amiga because you played it out in near real-time calling plays HOWEVER when you're playing through an entire season having to do that for every match will restrict a games fanbase somewhat as it'll put off the casual players.

(for example the percentage of people playing FM who watch every match fully as a real manager would is probably less than 0.01%)

This DOESNT mean I think that American Football isn't suited to sports management games, however its something which designers have to take into consideration and think about obviously.

3. media/ characters - no need to elaborate here i guess, too bad no football sim tries to exploit this "great" american drama.

Again most American sports have great characters and media coverage, but some sports don't because they emphasise their players being 'balanced' individuals (say Gymnastics) or simply because they aren't popular enough to get proper media coverage (say 'Handball' within UK/US - despite it being a HUGE sport in some other countries).

As I posted before - I think the potential for successful non-soccer sims is there, its just a matter of tailoring things to the fans of the individual sports and taking the time and effort to keep plugging away building up a reputation and a fanbase.

[DaddyTorgo]

i watch all of some of my most important matches...but you're right...it's long

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

It would be a big seller, but I don't think it would have the same pull as FM in England.

A Premier League manager recently complained about how people play the game and get unrealistic expectations about things he should be doing as a manager. That's clout.

Villa boss Martin O'Neill is no fan of fantasy game managers - MirrorFootball.co.uk

“If fans are happy they will show their appreciation and if they’re not, they will soon let me know.

“But most managers encounter this sort of thing nowadays.

“I didn’t realise until recently there is a game called ’Championship Manager’ - it made me laugh.

“There’s people up all night doing this and then they drop you a letter and want to know why you haven’t signed Jimmy McHagen from Real Sociedad.

“When in actual fact Jimmy died four years earlier and you could have got him for £2.5million when his price on the thing was £6.5m.”

That's just f'n gold

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by cyril

1. transfer/trade - NFL has the same trade deadlines plus NFL has a draft, which to many folks is the most exciting aspect of the game, a salary cap to balance, hindering the "rich get richer" syndrome. a roster limit to force gamers to weed out the weak (vs soccer you could keep buying and buying if you are a rich club). I personally think the transfer/trade system in football could be more challenging.

I think the "rich get richer" part of how soccer works adds to the fun of FM. Trying to take a team up the divisions or trying to win the Champions League with a team from one of the less popular leagues is a challenge that would be hard to replicate in an NBA/NFL/MLB game. One of my favorite careers in the series was taking FC Emmen from the Dutch second division all the way to the Champions League final in CM 2001-2 (lost 2-1 when David Beckham scored an 88th minute freekick for Man Utd).

Plus having so many different leagues going at once is great as well, moving your way up the managerial ladder starting in say the Belgian league, then taking over a team like Feyenoord before AC Milan wants you to come rebuild their team in 2013. In soccer there are domestic leagues, domestic cups, and continental competitions. Even if you don't win the EPL with your up and coming team finishing third puts you in the Champions League and your budget and reputation will increase. In American sports leagues you either win it all or win nothing, the big difference being where you draft the next season (or get fired). In a lot of ways the world of soccer is better suited to the genre imo.

[cyril]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

I think the "rich get richer" part of how soccer works adds to the fun of FM. Trying to take a team up the divisions or trying to win the Champions League with a team from one of the less popular leagues is a challenge that would be hard to replicate in an NBA/NFL/MLB game.

I agree that the league structure and the struggle to fight for promotion/against relegation is fun and is something that does not exist in american sports. however, i don't enjoy the fact that even after I successfully brought a league 1 team to premier league after years of struggle, i still face a transfer budget 1/50 of that of the likes of MU and arsenal and sooner or later, my "managerial talent" will be of no match to the vastly deep wallet of those teams.

Of course that's how real life works too but here's where subjective preference comes in - I don't like the fact that there are only 3-4 teams in a 20-team league that could realistically fight for the crown with everybody else either just fighting for a UEFA spot or fighting to stay with the big boys.

In a MP environment, I don't think the rich boys club structure will be as appealing as one that theoretically tries to provide a level playing field to all participants. Isn't that one thing that a lot of FM Live users complain about?

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by cyril

I agree that the league structure and the struggle to fight for promotion/against relegation is fun and is something that does not exist in american sports. however, i don't enjoy the fact that even after I successfully brought a league 1 team to premier league after years of struggle, i still face a transfer budget 1/50 of that of the likes of MU and arsenal and sooner or later, my "managerial talent" will be of no match to the vastly deep wallet of those teams.

Of course that's how real life works too but here's where subjective preference comes in - I don't like the fact that there are only 3-4 teams in a 20-team league that could realistically fight for the crown with everybody else either just fighting for a UEFA spot or fighting to stay with the big boys.

In a MP environment, I don't think the rich boys club structure will be as appealing as one that theoretically tries to provide a level playing field to all participants. Isn't that one thing that a lot of FM Live users complain about?

You make an excellent point regarding multiplayer and one that I hadn't considered. NFL/NBA style leagues with more fairness would be better for that. The only sports management sim I've ever played MP was OOTP with a single roommate in hotseat mode...

[rkmsuf]

if there was a decent football sim marketed properly it would work!

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Perhaps precisely because fantasy football is so popular?

Also look at the feature set difference between CM/FM and the top-of-the-line football sim, FOF.

See, to me, there are too many features in FM, and that's why I can't get into it. That's also why I'm not a big fan of the new OOTPs.

Sometime less is more.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Schmidty

See, to me, there are too many features in FM, and that's why I can't get into it. That's also why I'm not a big fan of the new OOTPs.

Sometime less is more.

I'm a great believer that you can't please everyone all of the time - what one person loves another will hate, such is life and when making a game you have to try and balance things to appeal to as many users as possible while trying not to put in features which might turn people totally off a product.

(incidentally this 'feature heavy' nature of FM PC is one of the main reasons why FMH PSP was created - that harks back to the days when CM/FM was a simpler beast to play - give it a whirl you might like it ...)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I'm a great believer that you can't please everyone all of the time - what one person loves another will hate, such is life and when making a game you have to try and balance things to appeal to as many users as possible while trying not to put in features which might turn people totally off a product.

(incidentally this 'feature heavy' nature of FM PC is one of the main reasons why FMH PSP was created - that harks back to the days when CM/FM was a simpler beast to play - give it a whirl you might like it ...)

I was initially overwhelmed with WWSM05 when I first gave the series a try. But I found a happy medium as far as keeping it fun while still having quite a bit of interaction. I'm still playing WWSM08 (plan to upgrade to WWSM10) and I'm in the year 2072. I played with my first coach until around 2050 and then started a second coach that I'm playing currently. I use the standard formations only. I enjoy the GM stuff more than anything. Trying to secure wunderkids and big stars and build a low-league team up. BTW, I do watch every single game, though I have it at a relatively high playing speed. It's a lot of fun.

[DaddyTorgo]

2072? zoinks! although I guess if I only upgraded every other year I'd be up somewhere around that too

[Blade6119]

Originally Posted by whomario

don´t really know about that, but it was a highly ambitious game with a ton of detail in terms of playable league and game universe (in which the NHL was not much more prominently featured than say the russian or swedish league) that sold for full-price and really didn´t capture the market, especially the american market from what i remember.
Damn, you could manage youth teams even.

They took the FM code and made it a hockey game, principally speaking, and didn´t build on the code for the freeware game.

Was an ok game, just not great.

My point is that this "translating the game into another sport" isn´t a very good idea as this was one of the main bad things about the game, it just didn´t feel like a unique game at all but allways kind of like FM on ice.

Just for reference, I know pirating was a major issue with this game in the Scandinavian countries, which are prime markets for a hockey sim. I think in numbers it did very well, its just that a large amount of those number were illegal downloads sadly.