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Inflation in Football Manager


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OP has a point

If Ronaldo is earning lets say 10 M per year in madrid in 2011

in 2040 a player in his calibre would earn something like 25M

due to inflation

Money never stays the same.

50 years ago people could buy bread or other stuff for less than 25 cents...

but now even homeless people dont care about 25 cents...

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Global headline inflation over the last decade has been between 3% & 4%. Core inflation between 2% & 3%.It is surging towards 5% because of the economic crisis and will probably remain high for the foreseeable future . Inflation in the football world is much higher than the rest of the economy so I am being very conservative with a 3% figure.

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Introducing something into the game that is volatile and unpredictable would be silly IMO. You are just opening yourself up for a fall. In theory it may look clever but it is not very practical. To play devils advocate, football could get a wage cap for players or clubs etc etc. You can only go on the current FM (year) and apply it to the future. I think Miles and SI have commented on this before and they have said they will not do it. Its not their area of expertise nor will they start to predict the future!

And as the saying goes, they have more important areas to concentrate on. It may be a very minute area, but it would send out the wrong signal for me.

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Don’t be ridiculous! Do you have any idea what you are talking about?

yes, but throwing random figures just so the value of money goes down over the years is pointless, and worthless, no one knows how the worlds economy is going to turn out, taking wild guesses will do FM no good.

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How would including an inflation figure improve the game?

Changing values would help make the experience feel like you are passing through time with each season, rather an just repeating the same year over and over, increasing emersion in the game world.

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yes, but throwing random figures just so the value of money goes down over the years is pointless, and worthless, no one knows how the worlds economy is going to turn out, taking wild guesses will do FM no good.

It is the lowest realistic estimate for the foreseeable future. A game world with 0% inflation is just plain weird.

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This is a really bad idea, it will not help the game at all, just make it more confusing for those of us who play long term games. We would have to constantly be thinking, "Hang on, they want £40m for this player, but is this really £40m or actually the equivalent of £20m in today's money? Is he worth it? Best get the calculator out again"

Because we rattle through 20 or more seasons in less than a year it will get messy.

This is still a game, and while I am all for some realistic elements to it, I would rather not have this sort of thing as it does not add to the enjoyment one iota.

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Inflation would make the game more realistic if this feature could be realistically implemented. Given that a static inflation rate through the years is unrealistic, and a randomically created dynamic inflation rate would be unrealistic too due to the fact that we can't really predict what events will happen in the global economy in 20 or 30 years, I say that this could be a nice feature, but it definitely has to stay out of the game because it can't be implemented properly.

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This is a really bad idea, it will not help the game at all, just make it more confusing for those of us who play long term games. We would have to constantly be thinking, "Hang on, they want £40m for this player, but is this really £40m or actually the equivalent of £20m in today's money? Is he worth it? Best get the calculator out again"

Because we rattle through 20 or more seasons in less than a year it will get messy.

This is still a game, and while I am all for some realistic elements to it, I would rather not have this sort of thing as it does not add to the enjoyment one iota.

Then make it an optional when creating the game world.

Clicking on the ‘no inflation’ tick box would set the inflation rate to 0.

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Inflation would make the game more realistic if this feature could be realistically implemented. Given that a static inflation rate through the years is unrealistic, and a randomically created dynamic inflation rate would be unrealistic too due to the fact that we can't really predict what events will happen in the global economy in 20 or 30 years, I say that this could be a nice feature, but it definitely has to stay out of the game because it can't be implemented properly.

It really doesn't matter that we can’t predict the state of the global economy in 20-30 years. Nobody is still going to be playing FM2012 in 2032 to check. What does matter is that we know for a fact inflation exists and can make reasonable forecasts within a couple of percentage points as to by how much. The overall trend of money devaluation is what is important.

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This is a true problem of FM, we earn too money in big club but the prices stay the same anywhere. Unrealistic consequence : the battle to got a player is not about transfer price (like the 42 millions for Pastore where PSG beat Chelsea & co with its transfer price) but only about reputation and who give the best salary. Not an essential problem like AI or reputation system but it would be nice that SI increase the status of money with an algorithm taking into account the inflation in order to make the transfers more exciting in long saves.

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I don't know about you guys, but my long term games do tend to experience some degree of inflation. By the 2020's a good many clubs regularly splash out upwards of £45m for the best players, young and old, pumping more cash into the transfer markets as a whole. It may not be perfect or maybe even intentionally modelled to behave this way, but prices do go up over time if you play for long enough.

Plus, this is Football Manager not Football Chief Executive/Accountant/Bean Tracker.

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I know it isn't officially implemented into FM, but you do tend to see prices rise furthur into the game - although this is presumably for different reasons. For example, in a holiday game I once did, there were several transfers which cost well ove £120mil - Ronaldo's current world record transfer was about the 50th most expensive ever.

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I don't really want to include inflation because inflation is just the rebasing of the value of money. In addition, there is no guarantee the inflation in football will continue indefinitely - it might go into periods of deflation. It would hurt things like the most expensive transfers (and "adjusted for inflation" isn't something everyone understands). Then there's numerical overflow to worry about (a finite number of bits to encompass a possibly-infinite amount of money).

For "football inflation", however, where the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United spend large sums of money, driving up the prices of top players, this might be a good idea. The realistic way to implement "football inflation" is to ensure that clubs are somewhat able to apply the theories of supply-and-demand and their opinions change over time. For example, if a new billionaire arrives in town, the demand for top players will increase, so the price goes up, and even clubs who don't go for these players will be affected because the prices become skewed (as Arsenal are discovering, alternatively look in hilarity as Jordan Henderson single-handedly pushes up the price for average English midfielders with an ounce of technique). Conversely, if an implementation of FFP is introduced and this billionaire is forced to sell-up (say), then the market will be flooded with top players, reducing prices.

This might be a by-product already where a team who receives a lot of money suddenly starts resisting lower deals as they don't need the money, but I don't think it goes the full way since an AI manager always have similar expectations of a, say, £10m player - they don't expect him to suddenly cost £15m because Jordan Henderson moved for £20m, for example.

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I know it isn't officially implemented into FM, but you do tend to see prices rise furthur into the game - although this is presumably for different reasons. For example, in a holiday game I once did, there were several transfers which cost well ove £120mil - Ronaldo's current world record transfer was about the 50th most expensive ever.
One issue with this is that I'd imagine the current trend cannot continue as it is barely sustainable now for most clubs. It could be that clubs are making too much money, (top) regens are too good, clubs are overpaying, etc. I'm not sure this counts as "inflation" per se because inflation has to affect all clubs - £1k signings are still going to cost £1k. This might be an "unfortunate" by product if there really is too much money in the system, however (things like having debt getting too easily wiped out is an example).
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It would be a pointless feature. So players would get payed more, you'd also get more income from all sources. It would just even itself out and really wouldn't make a difference from a gameplay point of view at all so why bother?

Though I guess most people here would consider it more realistic and immersive so who knows, could happen someday.

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I don't really want to inflation because inflation is just the rebasing of the value of money. In addition, there is no guarantee the inflation in football will continue indefinitely - it might go into periods of deflation. It would hurt things like the most expensive transfers (and "adjusted for inflation" isn't something everyone understands). Then there's numerical overflow to worry about (a finite number of bits to encompass a possibly-infinite amount of money).

For "football inflation", however, where the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United spend large sums of money, driving up the prices of top players, this might be a good idea. The realistic way to implement "football inflation" is to ensure that clubs are somewhat able to apply the theories of supply-and-demand and their opinions change over time. For example, if a new billionaire arrives in town, the demand for top players will increase, so the price goes up, and even clubs who don't go for these players will be affected because the prices become skewed (as Arsenal are discovering, alternatively look in hilarity as Jordan Henderson single-handedly pushes up the price for average English midfielders with an ounce of technique). Conversely, if an implementation of FFP is introduced and this billionaire is forced to sell-up (say), then the market will be flooded with top players, reducing prices.

This might be a by-product already where a team who receives a lot of money suddenly starts resisting lower deals as they don't need the money, but I don't think it goes the full way since an AI manager always have similar expectations of a, say, £10m player - they don't expect him to suddenly cost £15m because Jordan Henderson moved for £20m, for example.

I pretty much agree with this, though I think Andy Carroll has been the main influence in the recent insane prices (and, by extension, Ronaldo and Torres- Ronaldo's value raised Torres' value, Torres' fee allowed Liverpool to pay a stupid sum for Carroll).

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This is a really bad idea, it will not help the game at all, just make it more confusing for those of us who play long term games. We would have to constantly be thinking, "Hang on, they want £40m for this player, but is this really £40m or actually the equivalent of £20m in today's money? Is he worth it? Best get the calculator out again"

In the real world you have this problem too, new records overwrite the old ones without considering inflation. Some random inflation with normal distribution and mean about 3 would be a nice step towards realism.

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I pretty much agree with this, though I think Andy Carroll has been the main influence in the recent insane prices (and, by extension, Ronaldo and Torres- Ronaldo's value raised Torres' value, Torres' fee allowed Liverpool to pay a stupid sum for Carroll).

Be careful with Carroll transfer.

For earn more commissions, there are also secret (and surely illegal) agreements between clubs like recently the triangle Newcastle-Liverpool-Chelsea or PSG/Palermo (Palermo sell their goalkeeper half price in order to PSG increase the price for Pastore). It will be good if we can do these secret agreements in FM but it is surely unnecessary.

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Actually I think you will find that inflation, in essence, does occur in Football Manager 2012 - precisely because no inflation is factored in.

Transfer amounts do increase year-on-year because teams turning a profit essentially build a stockpile of cash. In real-life the money they saved previous years is in effect negated by inflation and rising costs etc.

Keeping inflation static actually adds an element of inflation-like behaviour.

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In the real world you have this problem too, new records overwrite the old ones without considering inflation. Some random inflation with normal distribution and mean about 3 would be a nice step towards realism.

Sometimes realism can make the game better.

This is not one of those times.

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it would just be pain trying to figure out what the inflation was and how it was effecting prices and wages, the way it is now you can quite easily make comparisons and decide on value for money based on that, if it was too complicated it would ruin the game for me, im no accountant.

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it would just be pain trying to figure out what the inflation was and how it was effecting prices and wages, the way it is now you can quite easily make comparisons and decide on value for money based on that, if it was too complicated it would ruin the game for me, im no accountant.

It would ruin the game for me too, and I am an accountant!

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I don't think this should be in FM at all. At the start of the game there are 37 players earning over 120k a week in 2029 there are 66, there are also 7 players at the start earning more than 200k a week but in 2029 there are 15 on my save. I know it's not inflation but player wages do rise quite a bit as the game progresses.

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One of the issues with Football Manager Live was its "Inflation Model" as the Gameworlds progressed. New managers came in with 500k budgets to buy their team, but 500k would by them next to nothing, where as if you joined the GW on launch day, 500k would buy you loads. I would say this model would need SO much tweaking and testing... its well worth being left alone.

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I don't think this should be in FM at all. At the start of the game there are 37 players earning over 120k a week in 2029 there are 66, there are also 7 players at the start earning more than 200k a week but in 2029 there are 15 on my save. I know it's not inflation but player wages do rise quite a bit as the game progresses.
I've wondered whether there's far too much money within FM's system, personally... I've seen screenshots where the top transfers dwarf Ronaldo's £80m transfer, for example. That would only happen if there was huge demand for a player like Ronaldo, which suggests that there are far too many rich clubs.

On the other hand, it could shadow what is to become in the future in reality...

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I think it is too easy to stockpile money in FM. in real life most clubs seem to be struggling to brake even. Even with a small stadium and modest crowd you often run at a profit in FM. I thinks it's probably true that the increasing transfer fees you see in long saves are down to clubs siting on large piles of money. SI have tried to combat this but I complained about their method for doing it (letting agents know your remaining wage allocation and setting their wage demands accordingly)

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There is no need for inflation in FM with regards to transfers. Average transfer fees rise and fall with demand, supply and the flow of cash from club to club. In case the OP hasn't noticed transfers don't increase inline with the world economy.

Maybe with regards to wages and running costs it could work, but to ask for it with regards to transfer fees smacks of naivete on the part of the OP.

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I think it is too easy to stockpile money in FM. in real life most clubs seem to be struggling to brake even. Even with a small stadium and modest crowd you often run at a profit in FM. I thinks it's probably true that the increasing transfer fees you see in long saves are down to clubs siting on large piles of money. SI have tried to combat this but I complained about their method for doing it (letting agents know your remaining wage allocation and setting their wage demands accordingly)

I agree, there are 2 solutions :

- SI made inflation more realistic and apparent

- or SI reduce the quantity of active money in clubs, too easy to made billionaire a club despite debts.

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  • 5 years later...

This game needs inflation, it is totally unrealistic at present without it.

I remember Ultimate Soccer Manager had it way back in the day. And it actually turned out quite accurate as with 30 year games you had 50-80M transfers, even when back then the transfer record was around 10M mark.

Playing FM, when you get to 2030 and you are still getting 30M bids for your best players, it takes away from the experience.

This is meant to be a simulation so it should be included, even as an option. Should be very simple to implement.

I would go further and add a slight ranomisation on top of the inflation, to things like kit deals, the TV rights, ticket prices etc. Would make the game more interesteing - and as it is mentioned there could simply be a  tick box to undo it.

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Is inflation realistic? YES
If implemented, is it going to make my game complicated after some in-game years? YES
Do I, personally, want it? DON'T KNOW
Is it true that clubs in FM can make a profit every year and have big piles of cash to spend? YES
Is that realistic? NO

At least that's my personal opinion...

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  • Administrators

It's something which has of course been discussed internally but given the complex nature of inflation and how it could work in game, we feel the current financial model works well within FM and there are no plans to drastically change it. 

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I'm a good bit out of touch on the latest FM - still plying away with FM12. However, currently I play long term saves, and over the years I've amassed a sum of £500m in the transfer kitty for Werder Bremen, with a weekly wage of £5.25m. I'm the richest club in the world. 

Basically, I can bid for any player, not necessarily sign them if they're not interested, but I have no limits.

With inflation, there has to be deflation, recessions, and all sorts of things. 

There really is no basic model for economical structure. But the average wage in 1960 for a footballer as £20 a week, and 50 years later it is approx £38,000 a week. 

I often go through 50 years in a career save, I've even gotten to be 100 years of age - and the wage structure stays the same - the AI never bids more than £55m for a player etc. 

 

It would be nice to see a small increase in transfer bids over the years, wages going up etc. costing more to sign players, AI upping their bids and going above, but only for the World Class players etc. 

A bit more flexibility would be nice in the structure of the clubs.

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It would be a welcome feature for those of us who like to play a single long save but as we're the minority (iirc average save is something like 5 seasons) I understand why overhauling the current model is not seen as a priority, that being said I do look forward to the version that does add more dynamic elements to the financial model.

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On 14/08/2017 at 08:34, Neil Brock said:

It's something which has of course been discussed internally but given the complex nature of inflation and how it could work in game, we feel the current financial model works well within FM and there are no plans to drastically change it. 

I do find it strange that you say the current financial model works well. Having played at least 20 seasons in all your games par Fm17, I would say it works well to begin with for first 3-5 seasons.

The game has an extremely static financial environment, which does not change over 30years or beyond. Little changes in the balance of power of leagues, let alone clubs within leagues. Players move for pretty much the same amounts, ask for pretty much the same wages.

This side of it gets dull after the first 10seasons. I would arge this is a major part of football and this is for me one of the bigger things missing with FM.

Adding more randomness to this environment would surely add to the experience? The sugar daddy takeovers is the only thing that seems to come close, but even with that I have not witnessed it bring a new team to the fore.

 

On complexity, that would surely depend on how deep an inflation model you would build, adding something around the 3% suggested on this chain could work well with a small random factor. Of course you can go as complex as you want with interest rates for each currencies bringing FX changes into play. But I don't think that is what is being requested, if USM could do it in their game all those years ago (with almost unbelievable foresight - hell I used to think it was a bug... was only 13 so didn't quite understand the nuance of what they had done), surely a complex simulation such as FM could bring it into play?

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

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Inflation in Football is very different to that of the rest of the economy and can vary greatly between countries. SKY has been the biggest driver of it, who knows if SKY can handle another tv deal as big considering it's subscriptions are falling. How can SI predict the next deal, it appears it just sticks with the current deals or differs considering the competitions reputations.

But if Harry Kane for £102,000,000 to United on June 2017 in my save is anything to go by then there appears there is inflation in the game.

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  • SI Staff

I would argue that, aside from the complexities of implementing a reliable inflation model, it would potentially mean saves become less relatable to the User.

We all have an intrinsic notion of value, in FM terms this is usually linked to the real footballing world. So if the AI offers you £40m for a player you have a rough understanding of how much that is worth according to the current real world prices. But if inflation were introduced it would not take long for a save to no longer compare to reality when it comes to transfer fees, wages, ticket prices, stadium costs, etc. and as such would lead to the User becoming less confident in their assessment of value.

For me at least understanding whether a player is worth £200,000 p/w relies a lot on my current understanding of the real footballing world. If during an FM save £200,000 p/w becomes the new £30,000 p/w I am going to lose this point of reference and as such a tool in my decision making process.

We are currently experiencing some quite rapidly inflating prices in real world football and pundits, fans, clubs, etc. are clearly struggling to maintain a grip on real value and what any particular player is actually worth. In FM you can progress 1 year in a single week, so a similar surge in prices would have a much greater impact on ones perception of value.

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I disagree, in the first few years the values are okat but as a long save progressess & clubs gain increasing levels of cash reserves the amount they are willing or even required to spend on fees & contracts should increase.

One other impact of the current model is that super clubs such as Bayern, Real, Barcelona & such like are unable to maintain their financial dominance as they already sit at the top of the ladder while other clubs grow to join them at the top rung, irl as those below spend more the super clubs simply spend more than they did before.

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  • SI Staff
2 minutes ago, Barside said:

I disagree, in the first few years the values are ago but as a long save progressess & clubs gain increasing levels of cash reserves the amount they are willing or even required to spend on fees & contracts should increase.

One other impact of the current model is that super clubs such as Bayern, Real, Barcelona & such like are unable to maintain their financial dominance as they already sit at the top of the ladder while other clubs grow to join them at the top rung, irl as those below spend more the super clubs simply spend more than they did before.

I don't agree that the solution to that is inflation.

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