Falling out of love with the game

Where to begin? I don't know really. Simply put, I guess I'm just not feeling the love for the FM series any more. It's more than that really though. I'm feeling disillusioned by the game, fed up, frustrated, and tired of it.

It's been like this for a while. Maybe if I had to pinpoint the time, I would say when FM11 was announced. I found myself enjoying FM10 and I didn't get at all motivated to make the switch over to FM11. None of the new features interested me really, apart from maybe DLR (but then you don't need that for the leagues that I normally play in: England's lower leagues or the Italian leagues!). In the end, I found some of the new stuff a bit clumsy or poorly implemented. I just didn't fancy mucking around with it all for the sake of features that I mostly didn't really want anyway!

I know it sounds really negative but it's probably also about where I am in my life as well. I'm (supposed to be) quite busy with my work right now. I'm married now and my life has changed a lot in the last few years. I still love football and I still love the idea of Football Manager but I don't really have the will to learn anything new and to try to get into a new game. For a while, I was really happy with FM10, after being so disappointed with FM09, so I just decided maybe what I needed to do was to skip FM11 when I found out that it didn't hold much interest for me and I didn't feel like I had the time or energy to put into a new game.

I have to say that FM10 was a return to form as far as I was concerned. Even though I've just said that, I find myself falling in and out of love with FM10 regularly. Most of the time, in love, but sometimes I just get irritated and frustrated with it. Often, it's an anger directed towards certain features like the team talks, the training, the press conferences and so on and so forth. Things that, at their worst, feel counter-intuitive, illogical even, and just like a chore more than a fun way to spend your leisure time. Finally, I realised that I'm just getting tired and fed up of compromising over some of the unwanted/poorly implemented/annoying features in the game.

I started to realise that maybe I just have to face up to the fact that FM has started the process of ceasing to be the game I want it to be. I know one thing for sure, and that is the fact that I have never felt less like loading up a save on the new FM. Somewhere along the line, 'half-arsed' features like match preparation have wound me up too much, while I've also become frustrated at some of the boring bloated stuff like agents, press conferences and 3D graphics.

The truth is that somewhere along the line, I feel as if the fantasy and imagination has gone out of the game. It's just my personal opinion but that's how I've been feeling lately. Instead of all of the addictive fun I had in the early CM and FM days, I now find myself having to try really hard to get that feeling back again. I just don't have the same connection with the game. It doesn't excite me as much as it used to. Sure, half the time I'm still addicted, but I don't even think I'm addicted to the game any more, but instead I'm addicted to the idea of it, the fantasy of being a football manager, winning matches, buying players, having fun in a fantasy world. The reality is that this doesn't seem to be satisfied by the latest FMs any more. Maybe I'm still addicted to the game but it isn't a fun addiction any more.

I could write here a list of the things that I'm disappointed with and that frustrate me. Chances are I'd bore most of you to death and you can probably guess what most of them are anyway. When I started writing this post, I did plan a massive rant about team talks, press conferences, training, tactics etc., but I think that it's all been said before, to be honest. All I will say is that somewhere along the line this game is losing the fantasy and imagination factor that I have loved about the game ever since I first bought CM2 and fired it up back in 1995! It's a simple as saying that I'm just not having fun any more. I can no longer pick this game up and play it for enjoyment like I did in the old days.

To finish with something positive, I'm going to quote from a post I made in the 'what age are you, and when do u think its the right age to quit this game for good' thread:

I wonder how many years I've been playing CM/FM? Let's see, my first version was CM2, which apparently came out in 1995. I've bought every version since without exception and played on each one. I've only had intermittent breaks from the game and they have usually lasted for a few months. So that's 16 years of my life playing this series of games!

I don't think I've been dedicated to anything as long as that. Maybe I've been dedicated to supporting the England national team longer than that (I've wanted England to win something for as long as I can remember) but other than that, nothing in my life has lasted so long. My tastes in books and music has changed, even my tastes in football clubs, but I still love playing football manager games.

Even when everything else in my life has changed, I've still bought another CM or FM, fired it up, and played! TBH, I'm not even a video games person. I had a Mega Drive when I was a kid and that's about it and I mainly used that to play Sensible Soccer.

I'm 28 now and sometimes I do worry about the amount of time I play on FM but then other people have really crappy hobbies like watching reality TV programmes! Football Manager is my guilty pleasure and we all need at least one guilty pleasure in our lives, don't we?

The only thing that will make me stop playing the series is if I just fall out of love with the game itself but I suspect, even then, that I would still casually play some form of FM (possibly just stick with an old version). The desire to imagine what it might be like to manage a football club will never leave me. I absolutely love narrative (I'm a bit of a book worm) and FM always provides a compelling narrative in so many different ways! At its best, FM has the feeling of being a 'page turner' and that's why I love it so much.

I've enjoyed being part of this community, getting involved with the game, talking about it with so many different users on here. I know my current user profile says that I joined in 2007 but the reality is that I have been a part of the SI forums since at least CM01/02, just under different user names (I was fairly inactive online around 2005/06 so started with a fresh user name in 2007). The passion for the game amongst the users on here has always been incredible and just goes to show how loved it is by so many people.

The reality is that maybe I, personally, have reached the point where I have fallen out of love with the game. Maybe this game is just no longer right for me any more.

Feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions below.

first of all let me say: wow, that's some post.. i imagine it takes a serious disappointment in the game before even considering writing something of this magnitude

i have to say i can relate to this.. i keep playing the game but it doesn't bring the same enjoyment as before.. i remember myself knee-sliding across the room when i won an important game or signed a fantastic player, but that enthusiasm somehow faded

although i do think it's just because we've been playing the game for so long..it becomes more of a habbit than anything else..i don't think it's because of the game itself perse

quitting for a couple of months sometimes works for me

crouchy you probably need a break from the game. As much as I love FM, I've always taken some breaks, either forced (school ) or I just need to get away from FM for a bit, whether it's a day off or a week or two. I'm quite refreshed when I come back. FM is such a love/hate relationship that these breaks are vital.

Or maybe you just need to play in a league other than England or Italy. I just love the different experiences in all my FM journeyman saves because I've done something different, managing in different leagues, different clubs, not going for the same players. And I have goals in each save, some at a club, some at a national team, and some general ones.

Try something new crouchy, or just take a break from the game.

Don't leave us crouchy, you're one of the few sane posters around here hope FM12 surprises you and brings the joy back

Take a good break, and come back more motivated than ever!

Yeah, I would suggest taking a break. I only played CM/FM sporadically between 03-09, skipped 10 completely, and then fell deeply in love with 11, which I think is easily the best in the series, a few quirks and tactical limitations aside.

I've probably played more FM in the last month than any time since 1998-2002.

i too feel the same way recently i have struggled so hard to get into an enjoyable save. its like i dont know what i want to do wether its continue with my long term save with 1 club or do i do a journeyman and when i do that i seem to get bored. It just seems to become very reptitive for me. I was even thinking of removing FM11 and reinstalling fm07 to see if that could rekindle some of the love i had for FM but something tells not to bother as i wont settle into it.

I fell out of love with it in 2007, I was absolutely in love with the series but they produced such a poor game that year, so full of bugs it was obviously untested, barely functioned, and SI simply didn't care.

I took a break and didn't play again until FM2010 after trying CM2010, both games being a marginal improvement and thinking maybe in another year or two they might get it back on track again. Now I've been given a copy of FM2011 I see things haven't changed, and any bug reports are "we'll look into it for next year".

It's just overhyped marketing and lack of competition, I'm not swayed by "look we have agents now". I'd rather see a better match engine, more reasonable transfers and contract demands, more realistic injuries rather than 2 broken legs a season + several other long term injuries. Less straight red cards for violent behaviour amongst players with no history of violence and low agression, and then discipline having no effect.

Random events are fine and expected, but can we have some more common sense with them?

You'll probably find a lot how you feel towards FM is how you feel towards football in general and can be in some ways related to your own teams performance. I play FM far less when Stoke are doing badly irl, I still come on here and post a fair bit but with our last three results I've been off football in general. I didn't even pay much attention to last nights champions league and haven't bothered to turn on the play-off matches. After watching some less than endearing performances from your side the summer almost becomes that necessary time off to prepare you potentially for it all again next season. Stoke didn't have it too bad, we're in europe next year and we did actually have a pretty decent season only 1 win away from a top half finish to go with it.

FM09 was Stokes first year in the premiership and every point and win was something huge and I was burning through the FM seasons at a rate of knots, same with FM08 when we got promoted. Not just with your favourite team but in general, when the main reason you follow football is good everything associated with it is good. I'm not saying this is a 100% dead on cert for everyone, but it certainly follows that way for me.

If you've got a decent PC and want to be more infuriated get the Witcher 2 and get wound up at how you can't parry an attack from slightly to the right until you get a talent to parry from any direction. Wound me up no end

Thanks for all the replies so far guys.

I will try to respond to some of you below. It's split into a few posts due to the smiley limit.

first of all let me say: wow, that's some post.. i imagine it takes a serious disappointment in the game before even considering writing something of this magnitude

Yeah, you're certainly right there LilSaint!

although i do think it's just because we've been playing the game for so long..it becomes more of a habbit than anything else..i don't think it's because of the game itself perse quitting for a couple of months sometimes works for me

Maybe you're right. I do play the game a great deal and maybe it's just natural to get to a point like this. I'm sort of 'burnt out' on FM, perhaps?

crouchy you probably need a break from the game. As much as I love FM, I've always taken some breaks, either forced (school ) or I just need to get away from FM for a bit, whether it's a day off or a week or two. I'm quite refreshed when I come back. FM is such a love/hate relationship that these breaks are vital.

Or maybe you just need to play in a league other than England or Italy. I just love the different experiences in all my FM journeyman saves because I've done something different, managing in different leagues, different clubs, not going for the same players. And I have goals in each save, some at a club, some at a national team, and some general ones.

Try something new crouchy, or just take a break from the game.

Thanks for the post Rancer. Again, perhaps you are right and I just need a break or to start something fresh. I don't know. I can't help feeling that there is more to it than that though.

I do tend to enjoy the game much more when playing at lower levels away from the top flight. Perhaps managing in a smaller nation would give me the feeling of being 'Non-League' or 'lower league' for longer and thus bring more enjoyment. I don't know but I do think that some of my frustrations are related to playing my St. Albans City save in the Premier League. Now I'm in the future and playing at the top of the game, I've started to see so many faults with everything all of the time (e.g. things like quality of newgens, transfer intelligence from the computer, bugs involving players always wanting 'bigger challenges' and changing their minds all of the time and so on and so forth).

The background to this post was that I was trying to casually pick up my St. Albans City save again and got really angry with it. I had just played a casual season with Hellas Verona and won the Serie C1 title, which is quite easy considering they are one of the favourites when you start the game. Then I decided to go back to the Saints save and aspects of FM started to drive me crazy again! I think it was all particularly highlighted by that particular save in a way.

Don't leave us crouchy, you're one of the few sane posters around here hope FM12 surprises you and brings the joy back

Thanks Bracken. Kind words... well sort of anyway! I hope Fm12 surprises me too but I just feel that maybe the game is moving in the wrong direction for me personally.

Take a good break, and come back more motivated than ever!

Cheers Khriztian. I'll give it a shot.

Yeah, I would suggest taking a break. I only played CM/FM sporadically between 03-09, skipped 10 completely, and then fell deeply in love with 11, which I think is easily the best in the series, a few quirks and tactical limitations aside.

Cheers for the comment Shake Appeal.

i too feel the same way recently i have struggled so hard to get into an enjoyable save. its like i dont know what i want to do wether its continue with my long term save with 1 club or do i do a journeyman and when i do that i seem to get bored. It just seems to become very reptitive for me. I was even thinking of removing FM11 and reinstalling fm07 to see if that could rekindle some of the love i had for FM but something tells not to bother as i wont settle into it.

I go through stages like that as well. I long to play the older games that were simpler, more accessible and more fun. I just want to get back to that core of the game: the tactics, the transfers, the players, playing the games! I always think back to older versions and remember how I felt a greater sense of immersion in the game, back when the game played out at a quickish pace and felt really fun to pick up and play. Whether this is just nostalgia or something more than that, I don't know.

Some of the things I really miss about the old game include the old 2D, which was so much smoother and looked so much better to me than the new 2D classic or the new 3D views. I also miss the arrows, which I don't think have been adequately replaced since they were taken out back in 2009. Finally, I can safely say that I would not miss press conferences and that kind of thing if I was to go back to playing an old version of FM!

Was it much more fun on older games or is it just my rose-tinted glasses?

I fell out of love with it in 2007, I was absolutely in love with the series but they produced such a poor game that year, so full of bugs it was obviously untested, barely functioned, and SI simply didn't care.

I took a break and didn't play again until FM2010 after trying CM2010, both games being a marginal improvement and thinking maybe in another year or two they might get it back on track again. Now I've been given a copy of FM2011 I see things haven't changed, and any bug reports are "we'll look into it for next year".

It's just overhyped marketing and lack of competition, I'm not swayed by "look we have agents now". I'd rather see a better match engine, more reasonable transfers and contract demands, more realistic injuries rather than 2 broken legs a season + several other long term injuries.

Back in the day, I would have argued with you about this passionately in favour of FM. Right now, I find myself nodding in agreement with some of it. There are bugs and things that need to be improved and that have been there since FM07 or FM08 but are still in the game. It's so frustrating!

You'll probably find a lot how you feel towards FM is how you feel towards football in general and can be in some ways related to your own teams performance. I play FM far less when Stoke are doing badly irl, I still come on here and post a fair bit but with our last three results I've been off football in general. I didn't even pay much attention to last nights champions league and haven't bothered to turn on the play-off matches. After watching some less than endearing performances from your side the summer almost becomes that necessary time off to prepare you potentially for it all again next season. Stoke didn't have it too bad, we're in europe next year and we did actually have a pretty decent season only 1 win away from a top half finish to go with it.

FM09 was Stokes first year in the premiership and every point and win was something huge and I was burning through the FM seasons at a rate of knots, same with FM08 when we got promoted. Not just with your favourite team but in general, when the main reason you follow football is good everything associated with it is good. I'm not saying this is a 100% dead on cert for everyone, but it certainly follows that way for me.

Could be. I've felt more and more disillusioned with some aspects of modern football recently. Plus the club I follow in real life have had an awful season, especially due to off the field issues, so this could be a factor, I suppose.

It's always like this for me: Play it after it's released until January, then I get tired of it and I start in February again and play until June. Get tired of it again until next release. And always like that in circle.

It's become bloated with complexity, rather than being streamlined with simplicity.

That's the only quick way I can put it.

It's because of the way the game has evolved that I'm constantly finding myself switching versions and can't settle with one.

Play something else

I am a massive Crytek fanboy, I have no shame in saying it. I played Crysis to the death (ironically I have worn out the disk so it won't even install now!) I played over 2000 hours on it. That is nearly 100 days straight on the game. I know it was stupid and probably cost me several grades but oh well. It was my way to relax. During the time I played I meet some wonderful people, I have spent so long talking to them that it feels like we are old friends even though I have never seen them face to face. This summer I might head to Leeds to meet up with some of them and have a general **** up, I'm sure that if I go it will be great and it will feel liking meeting old friends.

Surprisingly, considering I'm 18 (nearly 19) Crysis wasn't the first thing I was evolved with, I had spent nearly 300 hours on CS: S previously being part of another community. There is a strong trend throughout my gaming history, no matter what I played I had to be part of some community.

Even when I am playing FM I spend my time talking to other FMers, or I chat with other people that I have met in my past gaming history. I feel that this is the key to really enjoying a game. I hate going on a game and not being able to talk to someone. I have struggled to spend more than an hour at a time on CS: S recently, why? I have no one to game with and find it boring.

I don't know if many people think the same way as I do but I feel that gaming is a distraction from reality, an escape if you like. That is why I play, I enjoy being someone I can't be in real life. When playing a team based gaming being able to talk to people adds to the immersion and makes you feel so much more desensitised. I have often being talk and playing and completely lost track of what the time is, or not realised when someone has walked into the room 3 feet away.

I would now like to thank and apologise to those who have read half of my life story but it sums up the way I view games and there effect on the lives we live. If you haven't read it all: community is the key to an enjoyable game.

Half the people who feel the same way you do, but don't have the patience to write a post that long would be, not insulted exactly, but close .. you should feel "blessed"

I go through stages like that as well. I long to play the older games that were simpler, more accessible and more fun. I just want to get back to that core of the game: the tactics, the transfers, the players, playing the games! I always think back to older versions and remember how I felt a greater sense of immersion in the game, back when the game played out at a quickish pace and felt really fun to pick up and play. Whether this is just nostalgia or something more than that, I don't know.

Some of the things I really miss about the old game include the old 2D, which was so much smoother and looked so much better to me than the new 2D classic or the new 3D views. I also miss the arrows, which I don't think have been adequately replaced since they were taken out back in 2009. Finally, I can safely say that I would not miss press conferences and that kind of thing if I was to go back to playing an old version of FM!

Yeah i agree totally and do feel all these things like tactics and set peice creator, Which dont get me wrong a lot of people like this but its not really my cup of tea. Press Conferences well no need to go into that as its a common moan on here and well i wouldnt miss them i think the only press conf i do in my whole career is the first one then my ass man does the rest. I prefer the older fms back to when it was CM originally because it felt so straight forward. Transfer budget..spend...pick tactics and team play game sort of thing. Now it seems more technical with these shouts and things like that. I never watch 3d only commentry and always have so im not sure about the 2d area of the game.

Maybe you just need a break of the game for like a couple of weeks, sometimes i'm about to start a new season and just don't have the patience to look for new players,etc and i stop playing for a couple of weeks or a month and when i come back it's all fresh and new.

I must say that SFraser's threads on the tactics forum also inspired me to play the game a different way, to look at it as you are really managing a football club and not just trying to beat/win the game and it feels a lot more fun this way.

Also playing another type of game might help as well.. i played all the CM's until 03/04 then started playing more shooters like CS:S,RTCW and only came back to FM on FM10..

Thanks for the post Rancer. Again, perhaps you are right and I just need a break or to start something fresh. I don't know. I can't help feeling that there is more to it than that though.

I do tend to enjoy the game much more when playing at lower levels away from the top flight. Perhaps managing in a smaller nation would give me the feeling of being 'Non-League' or 'lower league' for longer and thus bring more enjoyment. I don't know but I do think that some of my frustrations are related to playing my St. Albans City save in the Premier League. Now I'm in the future and playing at the top of the game, I've started to see so many faults with everything all of the time (e.g. things like quality of newgens, transfer intelligence from the computer, bugs involving players always wanting 'bigger challenges' and changing their minds all of the time and so on and so forth).

The background to this post was that I was trying to casually pick up my St. Albans City save again and got really angry with it. I had just played a casual season with Hellas Verona and won the Serie C1 title, which is quite easy considering they are one of the favourites when you start the game. Then I decided to go back to the Saints save and aspects of FM started to drive me crazy again! I think it was all particularly highlighted by that particular save in a way.

Crouchy, if you're going to pick apart the game (or pick apart everything in life), you're never going to be happy. Maybe the game just isn't meeting your personal expectations, since you don't seem excited about any of the new features since they aren't relevant to what you want and how you play the game.

Take a break and try something new, whether in FM10 or FM11.

I know exactly what you mean about it not being the game you want it to be,and that you are in love with the 'idea' of Football manager, but manage expectations. I just delve into my imagination anytime i feel the game is becoming too repetitive. And it is repetitive. All i want is to be immersed into a fantastically real world of football management, but it's not gonna happen. When CM was out, it was very imagination-dependant. Now, we're all a bit older, and sometimes it is difficult to retain that sense of wonder. The new features are clumsy in implementation, but i think i'd rather have this stuff than not. The game would lack depth otherwise. CM, bless it's soul, would simply not old my attention anymore.

I can handle the ridiculous press conferences where questions are totally irrelated to the scenario, i can gloss over the horrible, cretinous agents, the bizarre, macabre player interactions, and frankly i have given up trying to work out if Match Preparation actually DOES anything. I can look past this, and fill in the gaps with my mind.

The only thing that truly brings me out of the game are the terrible AI decisions-transfers etc. I suggest just getting rid of your copies of FM, storing them in lock up if you don't want to trash them, deleting your saves, and then getting on with life. See how you feel in 6 months. FM may be over for you, it happens, and although it will have a massive emotional trigger for you because it's something you've loved since a little boy, it's fine, i understand-it's what made me return to FM after something like 10yrs away, but you'll get over it, possibly even find a better hobby. Then one day you'll see FM12 in a shop window, and give it a whirl. Fm isn't going anywhere, but life is. If you don't enjoy it, let it be

You are now where I was two years ago!

I don't believe it's down to overplaying, or getting older, or life priorities changing, or needing to take a break.

I believe it's purely down to the quality of the product.

Now, FM has more bang per buck than any other game out there. You get far more hours of entertainment for what you pay for anything else, but it still has limits and new releases and the new features it brings, the general buzz and excitement with online friends etc. helps to keep the joy alive.

It's not your job to find new ways of enjoying the game, it's SI's job to keep you interested. Ultimately, they are failing.

O'k can honestly agree with this op, playing the game from the start in 1992 i can relate to crouch sentiments.

The game has come on leaps and bounds since the start but the biggest changes since 2009 version have taken the fun aspect away from what should be a straight forward state of play, but it's not, to much emphasis on players agents and to much emphasis on team player interaction.

It's getting bigger with regards to scope and detail but for me it's too bogged down with to much red tape for it to be a easy forward way of play and that for me has killed the enjoyment.

SI released a brilliant straight forward online game called FML and that was how FM11 should have been, no boring press talks, no boring agent nonsense and most of all was a easy game structure, which previous to FM08 was the last time i loved playing the retail version of this game.

Trying to be a realistic football manager is becoming a chore instead of being fun, it's not a case of having a break, it's in-material for me.

Hope SI take note on listening to the old guard as we have been the ones from the start and hope to be there till the end, well jury out maybe on that last bit.

I had this feeling a few months ago Crouchy, had tried starting a new save but I wasn't getting into it, I had hit a wall, and decided I should focus my attention to other parts of my life. So I took a break and did other things but eventually certain things happened in my life which forced me to come back. I decided to smash through that wall and have clocked up some serious hours on the game recently, currently loving a game with Liverpool (just won the Premier League with a win at Goodison, it feels good).

Maybe you should take a break, and perhaps when FM12 comes out you with be getting serious withdrawal symptoms and come back, but maybe not.

Whatever you do though, don't quit the forums! As mentioned earlier, you are one of a rapidly decreasing group of sane posters around here!

This is how i feeled when i becane disillusioned with the 3D match bollocks, and FM09 and FM10 were both awful, I got this years addition on a whim it might be good, and so far (3 seasons in in my 2nd save) its been great. Take a prolonged rest, maybe skip FM12, and then when FM13 comes out (hopefully) there will be a marked inprovement and it will rekindle that long lost flame.

Got the same sort of feeling. I spend more time now editing the game than I do playing it, and when I do play it, I'll get perhaps 6 months and then just start again, I can't keep a game going. Managed to get one into the 3rd season a few months ago, got to September in-game and haven't played it since. The game itself definitely requires more thought and hard work than it did back in the days of CM 01-02 where all you did is click a couple of buttons and away you went. Don't think I'll be starting up a proper save (or at least attempting to) until September after the transfer window has finished, and by then it'll only be 4-6 weeks roughly until FM12 is out.

I like micromanagement... to a point.

Anything I do in FM needs to be worth the effort, and frankly, the press conferences, manager-to-manager interactions and to a large degree the interactions with players are best avoided because the risk of ruining everything is bigger than the benefits.

Most of the new features add nothing to the game, and meanwhile the same problems with the ME are unchanged year in and year out. Take throw-ins for example, the decision-making regarding those have been appalling since at least FM09 - why hasn't that improved? The same goes for indirect free-kicks. Why, after at least a year, probably two or three, is the free-kick specialist passing the ball to the guy standing next to him with 1 in long shots who then shoots? Why is the keeper stopping at the 16-meter line when he rushes out against an incoming forward? Why are the keepers panicking, clearing the ball on goal kicks? Why are players automatically clearing the ball away after the keeper has made a save or the ball hit the post even though they have control of the ball and are not under immediate pressure? Why is the keeper kicking the ball to the shortest and weakest of two strikers even though he is told to kick it to the big one, and continuing to do so no matter what you do... a "bug" existing at least as far as back FM10? Why is every sensible tactic creator turning off long shots when they create a tactic - the problem of terrible decision making regarding shooting from distance has existed for a decade or more but still isn't fixed. Why is it still possible to create tactics that produces ten or more one-on-ones with the keeper every game after 17-18 years of development?

There are many more of these, and my patience is wearing thin now.

Soon you'll have to click a button to have something to eat, and go to the toilet, and keep your marriage happy. After all, it's that level of realism and immersion that we really want!

Sorry, I know glib posts like this aren't particularly constructive, but it's a genuine concern of the way things are going!

Back in the day, I would have argued with you about this passionately in favour of FM. Right now, I find myself nodding in agreement with some of it. There are bugs and things that need to be improved and that have been there since FM07 or FM08 but are still in the game. It's so frustrating!

I agree. I remember recommending the game to everyone, and the bargain price it was released at when it started. Decent out of the box, and patched quickly. Simple but fun. But it went downhill fast, it became barely playable out of the box, and "we'll patch it in November"; then it was "well, we might as well wait until the January transfers".... I started thinking why do I pay so much for a game and wait so long just to play it properly? I found mistakes within 10 minutes and was frustrated. I wanted the game to be better, for SI to sort out the lazy decline because I missed playing a decent football game! Seems they have a big enough fanbase that lap it up anyways though, and just retort with "all games have bugs" and "next year will be better" etc.

I haven't brought the game since, I've focused more on real football and I've found other games to play instead - until my friend had a spare copy! B*stard. Now I'm craving a good football game again! I used to play non-stop, could get through 15 seasons (with two teams) before the next FM came out. Now I'll probably get Deadspace 2 and forget FM exists!

You touch on some of the larger issues with the concept of "lacking fantasy". You then touch on it again when you talk about enjoying the lower leagues.

The thing is, as your football knowledge increases, as your awareness of the intricacies of the game expands, a lot of that "fantasy" factor can be lost. You are more aware of some of the coding and decisions that run underneath the game. I lost the love when I started reading these forums, not because of the BUG! talk, but because of the discussions about pace in the match engine. It ruined a lot of excitement for me when I found that out. Indeed, I spent 7 happy (in game) years thinking my tactic of buying ultra pacy forwards only was some revolutionary inspired piece of management, rather than pushing the match engine. Sure, if I sat down and allowed myself to think about it, I'm certain I would say to myself "weeeell, pace is probably highly rated in the game..." but for a long time i held my suspension of disbelief and so the game came alive to me. Similarly with the corners. Bassongs 15 goal season at the back (with 10 assists) before I knew anything made me feel that bassong was becoming some larger than life super-player. He came alive to me. My knowledge now of the "corner bug" completely deflated that amazing season for me when bassong went rampant.

that's just one thing, but it goes further. knowing who the best players are etc. just corrupts all the fantasy elements of the game. i remember in vivid detail playing cm 01 02 when my football knowledge was limited to newcastle's first 11 and the top players in england. stumbling across ronaldinho and vieri were moments of utter joy and excitement. As I got older, my real world knowledge expanded, and the game lost that fantasy.

I think point A (understanding the layers beneath the game) is more damaging than point B because of the (excellent) playergen system. I now can't motivate myself to play FM until "the pace" and "the corner" issues are fixed (and maybe AI squad building) - not because they break the game, but because they have broken the fantasy game (and thus, all my enjoyment) in my head. as I get older, like you, it becomes harder and harder to just pass over these issues and deny them mentally for your own enjoyment, thus i need them "fixed".

One thing is certain. I will not be reading the forums when FM 12 is released. Its not the forums fault, it just changes the game from fantasy land into just that, a game. and I dont need FM is be a game.

I tend to take looong breaks in between playing for weeks in a row, usually when something I see during a game inspires me. Go out and do some real stuff before coming back to fantasy land, it helps.

Nostalgia, burnout and being the victim of what are likely financial decisions. The fact is, the game being a yearly franchise doesn't really do it any favours. The Development cycle is extremely short for a major video game. There isnt enough time, I'm sure, in the months after they finish one game to completely rebuild from the bottom. At least not every year. What is tending to happen now then, is that often some editions are merely expansion packs. It was easy to be revolutionary between CM2 and CM3, because the technology and their own ideas were advancing exponentially.

I tend to skip years, personally. FM10 for example had nothing that interested me. It was confusing and difficult to play. It was too time consuming. For me FM11 is a big improvement, as they made it a lot more accessible. The tactic creator is great. The way it highlights needed attributes for positions. How I can just switch a dude to defend instead of having to change a million sliders. If making tactics and changing a million sliders didnt bother you, then yeah, I can see why it wouldnt seem to interest you.

At the end of the day, it's a lot like politics. People get bored by the things you've been doing right for the last 5 years. Take a break, do something else, and maybe FM12 will call to you!

It's become bloated with complexity, rather than being streamlined with simplicity.

That's a good way of putting it. I think maybe that's true to a certain extent as well.

Play something else

Hi Flamers. I'm not really a 'gamer'. I don't play anything else!

I've only ever really played football games (sensible soccer, fifa, championship manager, then later PES and FM)!

Football Manager is the only computer game that I play these days.

I don't know if many people think the same way as I do but I feel that gaming is a distraction from reality, an escape if you like. That is why I play, I enjoy being someone I can't be in real life. When playing a team based gaming being able to talk to people adds to the immersion and makes you feel so much more desensitised. I have often being talk and playing and completely lost track of what the time is, or not realised when someone has walked into the room 3 feet away.

I would now like to thank and apologise to those who have read half of my life story but it sums up the way I view games and there effect on the lives we live. If you haven't read it all: community is the key to an enjoyable game.

FM has always been about fantasy for me. I enjoy being part of the community here and something like FM Career Updates has been a great addition to SI Games. However, I don't think I'm quite the same as you in this respect. FM, for me, has always been a solitary pursuit, all about the imagination factor.

Natural FMers, like so many of us on here, were the ones playing Subbuteo by themselves when they were kids, keeping league tables and 'simulating' games. We were the ones pretending to be football managers before we even got the game, making up our own 'games' using the fantasy football charts in the newspapers each weekend. That's the sort of thing we were doing as kids! Then CM came along and blew our minds! So you see, CM/FM has never been just another game to me, it has been THE game.

Half the people who feel the same way you do, but don't have the patience to write a post that long would be, not insulted exactly, but close .. you should feel "blessed"

Thanks, I think!

I must say that SFraser's threads on the tactics forum also inspired me to play the game a different way, to look at it as you are really managing a football club and not just trying to beat/win the game and it feels a lot more fun this way.

I've always tried to play the game like that. I've never been one for exploits or trying to beat the game. I've always preferred to treat it like real life and to do the things I would do if I found myself as a manager in real life. In a way, that might be part of the problem, because certain aspects of the game are so 'gamey'. For example, team talks, which are so 'gamey' that they drive me crazy! Half of the time I'm picking options not because that's what I would say in real life but because that's what works best in the game even though sometimes it doesn't even really make much sense.

I had this feeling a few months ago Crouchy, had tried starting a new save but I wasn't getting into it, I had hit a wall, and decided I should focus my attention to other parts of my life. So I took a break and did other things but eventually certain things happened in my life which forced me to come back. I decided to smash through that wall and have clocked up some serious hours on the game recently, currently loving a game with Liverpool (just won the Premier League with a win at Goodison, it feels good).

Maybe you should take a break, and perhaps when FM12 comes out you with be getting serious withdrawal symptoms and come back, but maybe not.

Whatever you do though, don't quit the forums! As mentioned earlier, you are one of a rapidly decreasing group of sane posters around here!

Thanks for the post Kenco. I'll definitely have a break from the game, I think, and see if the cravings come back!

Thanks for all of the posts guys. Some interesting points made and I'm glad, in a way, to find I'm not alone in feeling like this.

Im sure you will soon be clicking the FM shortcut on your Desktop soon lol

Just stop playing now and follow what happens around FM 12. It will get you fired up for it when it comes out and plus a lot of time will pass until FM 12 is out and then you'll play it like crazy.

Just stop playing now and follow what happens around FM 12. It will get you fired up for it when it comes out and plus a lot of time will pass until FM 12 is out and then you'll play it like crazy.

I dont think he will last that long with out loading up FM

I can see where you're coming from. I see this as more of a statistical challenge. In all honesty I don't care about football but FM keeps me working out numbers, and how my numbers can be used to beat the other teams numbers. I have come and gone from the series until FM10 when I actually sat down to have a proper go at it.

I am a gamer through and through, much to the annoyance of my girlfriend, but when I play a game I still think about it in the same way that I do with FM. How can I outsmart them.

And most of the features I gloss over now, I will rarely change a team talk from what my assistant says as he seems to know what to do.

I do hope you come back at some point, be it 1 month, 6 months or a year. When you have spent so long doing something it is hard to get away, I tried to stop gaming for 4 months after the computer decided that it had enough and I didn't enjoy it at all. The best thing to do IMHO is find a casual game that you find fun, it doesn't have to be some hardcore FPS that you have to spend 8 hours a day on to become good. In many ways I find flash based games as challenging but yet more rewarding.

I feel rather ashamed at the amount of games and time I have spent gaming when I write things like this. There are very few series that I haven't played at least one of the games in and virtually no genres that I haven't touched. If you every want me to recommend you a game in a genre I can give it a go

crouchie, I think you've done what most people in life try to avoid, and grown up.

We're all very proud of you

More helpfully, I kind of get where you're at. I go through spells where I look at FM and just think, I can't be bothered. It takes a lot of commitment for very little reward. It does at times feel more like a chore than a game, and perhaps that is just the end result of SI turning it into a simulation. Maybe it's a result of society as a whole looking for that "quick fix" of enjoyment as the newspapers love to tell me. Whatever it is, some time away from the game always helps. Normally, just a few efforts on FIFA and a mad dash on Forza does the trick, or maybe it's a few months away. Sometimes it's been until the next game comes out and I'm raptured by all the new features that come with it.

I had a somewhat fortunate opportunity this summer to travel round a while and disconnect myself from the laptop and the internet. After 3 months I finally caved and booted up a game of FM. Sometimes your brain does just find it too repetitive, and wants some new fun for a while.

edit: beaten to a supportive mid-length post by Flamers by a matter of seconds.

Natural FMers, like so many of us on here, were the ones playing Subbuteo by themselves when they were kids, keeping league tables and 'simulating' games. We were the ones pretending to be football managers before we even got the game, making up our own 'games' using the fantasy football charts in the newspapers each weekend. That's the sort of thing we were doing as kids! Then CM came along and blew our minds! So you see, CM/FM has never been just another game to me, it has been THE game.

I thought it was just me who did this!!

Agree with it being THE game. I have a PS3 and a Wii, so occasionally play games on them, but even when I do I have FM on in the background.

I don't think I'll buy another FM until the long term career games get some love. I feel like the game is aimed more at the market who just want to pick a big team, buy some big name players and play 4-4-2 and win things.

All the new features are the sort of things that make things in the short term more interesting, but become increidbly tedious and annoying when you're running through a season every week.

I don't think I'll buy another FM until the long term career games get some love. I feel like the game is aimed more at the market who just want to pick a big team, buy some big name players and play 4-4-2 and win things.

All the new features are the sort of things that make things in the short term more interesting, but become increidbly tedious and annoying when you're running through a season every week.

Couldnt agree anymore with you. I toowould love to see the long term part get some major love.

Completely agree with the OP, I too am in a period of my life where I simply can't be bothered to find out many new things about a game due to real life pressures. It took me 40 seasons to get good at FM2008 and although I'v gave FM2011 a good try, I think with all the new things FM2011 has introduced it has sorta diminished any opportunity to imagine things. Press Conferences? These are now in the game...3D Match Engine? This is now in the game.

Dont get me wrong, FM2011 is the game I have longed for since the early days of Championship Manager on the Amiga. It is a quality game but it's also got more difficult. I flit back to FM2008 and am inkling to give FM2011 a try...I love all the little things in the game such as announcing a stadium for the Champions League final etc. but it also pains me with the 'real life' things that SI have deemed to include such as the extorionaite stifling debt that whilst is in real life, doesent belong in a computer game.

I want to play a game where I'm given a few funds, i buy a few...do a bit of wheeling and dealing. If I do well then the club makes a profit and if they dont then i either get sacked or im not given much money next season. FM2011 just seems so ruthless sometimes. I was manager of Aberdeen for 4 seasons and each season I went into debt. I joined Reading who's main players were on loan, the season after i had to buy basically a new team and iv lost the first 6 games straight plus Im still losing 500k a month. Where's the fun? There is none.

SI need to maybe have a few settings before starting a new game where you can go full simulation mode (i.e. as it is at the moment) or allow the user to tweak a few things to make it more fun. i.e.

* Obliterate all the debt at every club

* Change the ratio of press conferences - This is not real life so i dont want to spend the precious 2 hours of playing to be spent answering stupid questions. Id set this to one press conference a month personally, others may turn it off completely.

* Match Preperation - I like the idea of this, somethign which gives you an extra edge in a game but shouldnt training do this?

* Speaking to coaches...this seriously gets on my nerves too. Can we have an option to turn this off please? I dont want them reminding me that I havent spoke to them in 2 years etc. Also I want to identify problems myself instead of essentially cheating by getting the computer to do my job for me.

Also if i do turn on any of the above things, I dont like the computer telling me that im not a hands on manager etc. Statements like this are negative and diminish any impact you feel you may be having on your game.

So thats it then, when FM2011 hits the mark it really hits the mark but in a world where time is of the essence and lots of original fans now have jobs and families, they only have a short space of time to play the game and to do that it must remain fun. Get it back to FM2008 levels of interactivity with the addition of the extra media stories such as agents offering you players and announcements of Europa league final venue etc. and add the excellent 3d engine too then take out everything else. Actually thats another point because since they introduced a 3D Match engine they had to make it realistic in the sense that players now had to turn with the ball...meaning you no longer got the pingy passing you get on the 2D View and if you watch via 2d? The game is slowed down considerably more.

edit: beaten to a supportive mid-length post by Flamers by a matter of seconds.

I do apologise!

@Steve have various "difficulties" (sorry couldn't think of a better word!) so you can have games with: no debt, less press conferences. Or a combination or similar? Or possibly all clubs have debt and you have to fight for survival, that could be fun!

I do apologise!

Don't let it happen again!

*backs away* ok

Given my post count, this post will probably be ignored, but I still want to say I was quite surprised to see there are many people who agree with the OP. Reading crouchaldinho's posts in this topic felt like reading something I wrote myself. In other words, I feel exactly the same way.

Every new FM release adds some details that make the game more like a chore and take away a bit of fun. The reason I loved the older versions (especially CM 01/02) so much is that they were focused on the core elements of football management; tactics and players (transfers). All the details that have been added over the years, like press conferences and team talks, add to the realism of the game, but at the same time nullify that feeling of joy when you have some spare time and decide to load the game. I see PC games as a means of fun and relaxation, not tedious and repetitive clicking on the screen in order to get to the fun parts.

I think it also has something to do with age, too. Teenagers who love FM have probably played the series for 3-4 years. In other words, they haven't experienced the simplicity and a feeling of quick, exciting fun that older football management games provided. I'm not old, either (24), but am old enough to know how much easier was to get fully into those old games.

What you need is FMH, crouchaldinho. It is superb on the iPad (not expecting you to have one) and it has just that core that you want. It's like going back to CM01/02 with the 10/11 DB and all the best improvements SI have made throughout the years. Or join the editing community (warning: you may not come back to GD for some time)

I dont think he will last that long with out loading up FM

Funnily enough, I've just removed the FM08 and FM10 shortcuts from my desktop. I've also given the CDs/DVDs to my wife to put away somewhere safe. It's going to be a proper break for me!

It's not just for the reasons outlined in this thread. I also want to 'unhook' properly from the game in order to focus on my MA research project for a while anyway.

More helpfully, I kind of get where you're at. I go through spells where I look at FM and just think, I can't be bothered. It takes a lot of commitment for very little reward. It does at times feel more like a chore than a game, and perhaps that is just the end result of SI turning it into a simulation.

Thing is, it's the chore aspect that's getting me down. I'm fed up of fitting football ideas into Football Manager. For example, I loved the new tactics creator at first, but now I'm sick to death of thinking about football in terms of 'defend', 'support' and 'attack' duties, or whether the philosophy is 'fluid' or 'rigid' etc. Or, another example, in training, shifting sliders around, up and down, until I get a combination I'm happy with. Or even the team talks, selecting from the same old options, like 'for the fans' and so on, which don't appear to mean anything half of the time.

When I think about it like that, the game feels like a nightmare at times! I've tried to get my brother-in-law into the game and he's always thought that it's bizarre. To be an FMer is to speak a special language half of the time! I'm maybe not explaining myself very well but part of the frustration is of feeling that I'm fitting shapes into holes all of the time and for 'gamey' reasons, not footballing ones. For example, it's not about how can I set things up tactically, it's about picking different duties and putting people into different slots, and it's not about selecting the team talk that's going to best motivate my players, it's about picking the option that works (but often doesn't make sense to me).

I thought it was just me who did this!!

No chance Kenco. I bet there are many more of us on here!

Agree with it being THE game. I have a PS3 and a Wii, so occasionally play games on them, but even when I do I have FM on in the background.

I've got a PS2 with PES6 on it. Actually, the Playstation is my wife's (she bought it to play some version of Sims on it! ) but the PES6 is mine. I put it on occasionally but very rarely. I've also got FIFA 07 but, in all honesty, I've never played it! I simply don't have any other games. The only games console I have ever owned was a Megadrive (I had Sensible Soccer and Premier Manager!) and that's it! Once I discovered CM2 and then began purchasing every game in the series, I didn't need anything else!

Given my post count, this post will probably be ignored, but I still want to say I was quite surprised to see there are many people who agree with the OP. Reading crouchaldinho's posts in this topic felt like reading something I wrote myself. In other words, I feel exactly the same way.

Every new FM release adds some details that make the game more like a chore and take away a bit of fun. The reason I loved the older versions (especially CM 01/02) so much is that they were focused on the core elements of football management; tactics and players (transfers). All the details that have been added over the years, like press conferences and team talks, add to the realism of the game, but at the same time nullify that feeling of joy when you have some spare time and decide to load the game. I see PC games as a means of fun and relaxation, not tedious and repetitive clicking on the screen in order to get to the fun parts.

I'm with you on a lot of that shirajzl. Got some of the same feelings at the moment.

What you need is FMH, crouchaldinho. It is superb on the iPad (not expecting you to have one) and it has just that core that you want. It's like going back to CM01/02 with the 10/11 DB and all the best improvements SI have made throughout the years. Or join the editing community (warning: you may not come back to GD for some time)

A lot of people recommend this or mention it. It sounds tempting to try it for a change. I don't have the iPad or PSP handheld thingy to run it on though.

A lot of people recommend this or mention it. It sounds tempting to try it for a change. I don't have the iPad or PSP handheld thingy to run it on though.

I'll send you mine 2nd class in a brown jiffy bag, just don't tell me that it never arrived.

When I saw the title I was mightily surprised to see that you were the author Crouchie. But because it was you I gave your post a proper read and guess what, I found myself myself agreeing with you more than once.

Maybe if I had to pinpoint the time, I would say when FM11 was announced. I found myself enjoying FM10 and I didn't get at all motivated to make the switch over to FM11. None of the new features interested me really,

I have to say that FM10 was a return to form as far as I was concerned

Often, it's an anger directed towards certain features like the team talks, the training, the press conferences and so on and so forth. Things that, at their worst, feel counter-intuitive, illogical even, and just like a chore more than a fun way to spend your leisure time. Finally, I realised that I'm just getting tired and fed up of compromising over some of the unwanted/poorly implemented/annoying features in the game.

The thing is Crouchaldinho, to answer one of your questions:

To finish with something positive, I'm going to quote from a post I made in the 'what age are you, and when do u think its the right age to quit this game for good' thread:

I am 27 and the answer is that FM10 is loaded up and played every day. The only reason I have not bought FM11 is because my current FM10 save is like having Cheryl Cole and Renee Zelweger fight over me.

Well maybe not quite.

I hear your points though. It's a difficult issue. On the one hand SI have produced a game I have never disliked, but on the other hand there is criticism. On the one hand FM10 was a level of genius that keeps me occupied even now because of the story I am involved in, on the other hand most rush to FM11 for the new features.

Lots of people argue and discuss and rant and rave over the next 3-D version, while people like me and you catch the fall out and talk football and FM at great length and in great depth. To whatever end.

On a personal level it is sad to see that yourself has fallen out of love with FM, but on an equally personal level it's difficult for me to understand why. Yes the new features are bloated, yes there is a lot more superficiality than there ever was, but at the same time the game seems to be delivering the greatest simulation of football yet from SI.

It's not perfect, by any means. And what is more it is incredibly hard to get into what has been produced.

When all is said and done I think FM suffers from two key issues, it has started to get side tracked away from it's soul and heart, but equally or above it is so damn unrevealing. Tacking on a few more 3-D models, a couple more animations, or any of that guff does not in any way actually move the game forward nor does it help to inform people about the game they are getting involved in.

THIS IS NOT FIFA 11

It might not be totally relevant to your thread but I think we will find common ground if I give my criticisms of the game.

1: By an absolute country mile the game does not offer the tactical ability and options that those that are deeply interested in real life football are aware of. If there was one crucial issue in the game it is that at the absolute key level of the Match it is only realistic up to a certain point, and that point is not good enough.

Crouchaldinho posts a thread about a wacky formation every month. I just want to play how Man United do. The tactical engine denies us both the ability to build these systems. It's not ignorance of the mechanics, it's a fundamental flaw in the game that has existed since the arrows were removed, and wasn't even really that possible with the arrows.

But that's not really the real issue, the real issue is the feedback. I'm SI's biggest fan because I am a micro management fanatic that started at a big club with quality players and maximum CF. I watch what I instruct in minute detail and eventually produce a team and style and system that is gorgeous to watch, and because of my interest in FM I write a few posts and it becomes the FM Gospel according to SFraser.

As much as I enjoy the primacy I enjoy the game more, and this utterly defines The Problem With The Game.

Most people don't know what the F is going on. Moar 3-D wont solve that problem.

Here is a head spinner for you SI, people want remarkable 3-D because they don't catch the craic. Forget about 3-D and all that guff, focus on making the game more realistic but above all else focus on making the GAME more obvious to it's users.

People don't buy this game because it looks good, and they don't avoid buying it because it looks bad. It's time for your awesome football simulator to have an assistant manager.

Hope you don't leave us Crouch, it would be a big loss. And I hope one day you can build one of those random formations you like so much