Will There Ever Be A Football Manager NFL American Football?

Hello all, just like the title says, will there ever be an American Football Manager? NFL style. Thanks for any input.

There's already the ice hockey game and out of the park baseball is very similar to fm so I'm hoping an American football game will get made eventually. If it was done right it could be great.

I dont know but the best football simulator by far is STRAT-O-MATIC....... check it out... But I do wish that this company would make it... cuz it has both great graphics and realism.. stratomatic is mainly for realism and not much graphics at all

Doubtful because EA has the exclusive NFL license. But it would be great if they did.

try front office football by solecismic software

its a really good text based sim

and they offer free updates every year

Blasfemy! Kill the heretic!!

Don't think there will be anything like FM in terms of the NFL.

The Americans seem to hate this sort of game.

I read some reviews and NFL Front Office really didn't go down well with them.

I used to play a Dos based game called Head Coach which was purely text but was addictive. I still have it somewhere but it will not play on Vista even using a dos emulator.

Yes that kind of thing won't sell very well over here... games like that have came on different consoles and such. It just never has sold that well. Stuff like Madden will always sell better which is a shame, that genre could have a lot of potential.

Don't think there will be anything like FM in terms of the NFL.

The Americans seem to hate this sort of game.

I read some reviews and NFL Front Office really didn't go down well with them.

Oh, really? We do hate "this sort of game?" That's news to me. OOTP does quite well here in the States, which kind of proves your assertion wrong. And FOF "didn't go down well with [us]" because it sucks, not because it's a management simulation.

It was a bit clumsily put, but it's a fair point. There's never been a management sim in the USA that's even approached european levels of sales of CM / FM. The reasons for that are varied, of course.

It's unlikely that SI will ever make an American Football game , I would suggest.

SI has an ice hockey game?

How about a rugby league game? Or if they reckoned the target market was too small, how about tagging on a little bolt on with Union [spits] on it as well?

I have Russell Crowe on Messenger and he said he would do the advertising campaign for it free of charge if you let him wear a Bunnies hat.

SI has an ice hockey game?

Had. Eastside Hockey Manager, endorsed by the NHL, was released in two versions by SI, one in 2005 and one in 2007. Like Out of the Park Baseball, it was around prior to SI picking up the development of it, but was rebuilt around the same sort of system as FM. OOTP baseball continues as an independent production, whereas EHM died a death after two iterations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastside_Hockey_Manager_series

^^ Thats a shame I was thinking bout getting the hockey game

^^ Thats a shame I was thinking bout getting the hockey game

It's still worth getting, and you can get it cheap, too! As far as I know, there are still folks making data updates for it. Its on a technological par with FM06 or so, I would say, with a 2d match engine, good scouting system, good newgen system etc.

I've always wanted a Rugby Manager

I've already asked Miles about an NFL game, it would be far too dear to buy the licenses from EA Sports. I used to play Mike Ditka's ultimate Football years and years ago, I only needed 3 or 4 attacking and 3 or 4 defensive tactics and I would never lose and would always rack up huge scores in the process. It's still available online however, I had had trouble managing to download and run it. Just doesn't seem to want to load up on Windows 7, it's a game you need to load up in DOS

If anyone is actually successfull in downloading and able to get it to load up, then please let me know how you managed to do it as I would love to play this game again !

The only thing that comes close is Head Coach 09. Has some issues, but is generally a really good game. Not sure if you can get it outside of the states. Takes a few goes to understand what to do, but it's worth it. The players and teams abilities are a bit dated, but the worst team (Dophins) can be taken to the superbowl in about 3-5 seasons if you manage the draft well.

eastside hockey manager was really good, and had huge potential i think. i think if they had continued the series it would have gained a buzz. it would be awsome to see with a 3d engine, but what irritated me was that the games were so many that it got monotonous

Not relevent, but I'm loving Starters Orders 4, a horse racing management sim.

The only thing that comes close is Head Coach 09. Has some issues, but is generally a really good game. Not sure if you can get it outside of the states. Takes a few goes to understand what to do, but it's worth it. The players and teams abilities are a bit dated, but the worst team (Dophins) can be taken to the superbowl in about 3-5 seasons if you manage the draft well.

Didn't realise there was a head coach 09 - might have a google of that and have a look at it - cheers

Just googled it and it is a PS3 game and not out on PC - never mind

I've always wanted a Rugby Manager

I had Pro Rugby Manager 2 back in 2004 whilst the graphics were good the actual management side and transfer system seemed awful and after a few attempts it went back in the box never to see the light of day again, shame really as I thought it had some potential if developed properly.

I would certainly be all for SI branching into this market after all Rugby is a increasingly popular sport here, Africa, Australia and New Zealand so I imagine that it would have a decent enough interest and the sales I bet would be very good especially in the southern hemisphere.

deleted. t'was rhubarb

eastside hockey manager was really good, and had huge potential i think. i think if they had continued the series it would have gained a buzz. it would be awsome to see with a 3d engine, but what irritated me was that the games were so many that it got monotonous

I bought the 2007 version (I think) after playing the demo that came on the fm game. I really enjoyed too, shame it didn't last.

try front office football by solecismic software

its a really good text based sim

and they offer free updates every year

After installing this game, It won't get past the opening new game screen.

This thread gave me an urge to play EHM. Unfortunately, I traded my copy in some years ago. Some amazon rummaging has tracked down a copy of EHM 2005 for £1.50, which i have ordered and hope to be playing within the week.

I used to play a 'Boxing Manager' game for the Amiga which was great fun. Anyway, the likes of the Madden franchise have surely cornered the market in such a way that it would be hard to break into it in with a purely strategy game...

I used to play a 'Boxing Manager' game for the Amiga which was great fun. Anyway, the likes of the Madden franchise have surely cornered the market in such a way that it would be hard to break into it in with a purely strategy game...

I loved World Boxing Manager,

http://www.squakenet.com/computer_games/839/World-Championship-Boxing-Manager/download.html

It was a bit clumsily put, but it's a fair point. There's never been a management sim in the USA that's even approached european levels of sales of CM / FM. The reasons for that are varied, of course.

It's unlikely that SI will ever make an American Football game , I would suggest.

Not really, no, since there's no real comparison to make. American football is still a heavily regional sport with few, percentage based speaking, fans outside North America, so I would expect the worldwide FM series to outsell a regional American football game based on the same concept.

And what is the best sports management simulation? Is it not this franchise? I believe so, and I've played quite a few. If there was an American football simulation that could stack up with how well this game is made, I'd wager it would do very well here in the States.

On EHM, I'm still very, very bitter about that series ending. I played it when it was freeware and was deeply saddened the series wasn't renewed. In fact, it was EHM that got me introduced to sports management sims in the first place. I've tried football, which have all sucked including the horrid Head Coach EA game, but the best up to date management simulation outside of FM is OOTP.

I just received an email that my £1.50 copy of EHM 2005 has been dispatched. FM2011 will be put on the back burner for a few days once I get back into the Carolina Hurricanes and Newcastle Vipers like the old days (the presence of the British league was one of EHM's selling points to me, I was a regular at Vipers games when I lived in Sunderland, so knew their players better than most NHL rosters))

I've thought for years that a dual code rugby management game should be released to maximise the market and with FM being by far the best setup as far as Football management games go I would have thought that the basic crossover from football to Rugby would not be too difficult.

The main problems I see being the 3D side but that would not be expected in the first couple of editions and the other major problem would be implementing the different codes rules but being an RL fan I think having a game based on FM where you can coach in RL or RU would appeal to a fairly broad market and the club/players/staff etc would be the exact same setup as FM.

I think it would pay for itself as I know RL fans both here and in AUS/NZ are crying out for a quality game and i'm sure RU fans are to so by making it one game 2 codes allowing for players to crossover.

There is a RL game called rugbyleaguemanager 2010 already out there and its not a bad little game for a one man band organistion but if it was taken over by SI/SEGA then it could be the basis for an RL/RU game as the maker is looking to implement 3D in if not the 2011 version then certainly the 2012.

I know it will never happen but if Miles was to pawn his awards and believe then dreams would come true for any RL/RU fan

I've thought for years that a dual code rugby management game should be released to maximise the market and with FM being by far the best setup as far as Football management games go I would have thought that the basic crossover from football to Rugby would not be too difficult.

The main problems I see being the 3D side but that would not be expected in the first couple of editions and the other major problem would be implementing the different codes rules but being an RL fan I think having a game based on FM where you can coach in RL or RU would appeal to a fairly broad market and the club/players/staff etc would be the exact same setup as FM.

I think it would pay for itself as I know RL fans both here and in AUS/NZ are crying out for a quality game and i'm sure RU fans are to so by making it one game 2 codes allowing for players to crossover.

There is a RL game called rugbyleaguemanager 2010 already out there and its not a bad little game for a one man band organistion but if it was taken over by SI/SEGA then it could be the basis for an RL/RU game as the maker is looking to implement 3D in if not the 2011 version then certainly the 2012.

I know it will never happen but if Miles was to pawn his awards and believe then dreams would come true for any RL/RU fan

Was just going to mention RL Manager too...surprised it doesn't get more of a mention here given its similarity in style to FM. Premiership Coach 2010 is a reasonable attempt at an Australian Rules sim despite its very fiddly interface.

I know that the exclusive lisence that EA has would be a huge hurdle, but I believe a game like this would in fact sell. EA's NFL Head Coach is just a terrible game and that is why it did not sell. One thing that makes it so bad is, it is only the NFL. No college or high school teams to build up to. I would love to see a game, like FM, where you can start at the college level and move up to a huge football school (Ohio St., LSU, Alabama, Clemson) or even up to the NFL. Or maybe even start as an offensive or defensive coordinator and move up. I think going to the high school level is going to be hard, but I would have never thought that FM would have as may leagues as it currently does.

A well made American Rules Football game would sell in the USA.

I would LOVE a really good american football management game-, it would definitely need to feature college football too imo - I would love to be head coach of Notre Dame with the fight song blaring out!!

Get to it S.I......

http://www.sportsmogul.com/

They're an independent small company who made their name with Baseball Mogul in the 90's (that's how i found out about them). Recently they've made football mogul as well - if you like management games and drafting prospects i highly recommend them. Their baseball simulations are a lot deeper than the football ones but i've bought both titles and have racked up tons of hours with each.

I used to play a Dos based game called Head Coach which was purely text but was addictive. I still have it somewhere but it will not play on Vista even using a dos emulator.

I played it too, it was on C64 though.

I know that the exclusive lisence that EA has would be a huge hurdle, but I believe a game like this would in fact sell. EA's NFL Head Coach is just a terrible game and that is why it did not sell. One thing that makes it so bad is, it is only the NFL. No college or high school teams to build up to. I would love to see a game, like FM, where you can start at the college level and move up to a huge football school (Ohio St., LSU, Alabama, Clemson) or even up to the NFL. Or maybe even start as an offensive or defensive coordinator and move up. I think going to the high school level is going to be hard, but I would have never thought that FM would have as may leagues as it currently does.

A well made American Rules Football game would sell in the USA.

That is how I imagined an american football manger game would be. Not just NFL, but all College teams....FBS, FCS, Div II, and Div III teams all included. I reckon it would be brilliant to work your way up from the basement of College football to Super Bowl glory as a coach. High school football would difficult to put in, cause of the shear amount of depth that would be needed, but not impossible. You would just be able to select (like in football manager) at the start of the game how much detail you want.

It certainly would be a hard game for SI to make, what with the amount of research that would be needed for teams and players, as well as the tactics, and match engine, they would have to set up a whole new american task-force to get a game that would be really worthwhile. But the overall feel and look of the game I have always imagined would be very similar to the way football manager is now and it is potentially a game that would be as good as FM. The depth of american football in the U.S is such that it would certainly be a worthwhile project.

sigh........to bad it will remain a dream

American football, you serious? most boring game ever to be made.

American football, you serious? most boring game ever to be made.

Well then why post in this thread? I am not a massive fan of it myself (might get me hung here in Texas if it gets out!) but to be fair, you can make that statement about every single sport out there. Some won't like it. What's wrong with people liking American football and wanting a management sim of the sort of excellence FM delivers? OOTP does well, and is great, but I bet there are plenty of folks out there, you are probably one, who thinks that baseball is boring.

Why is it called Football in America when they very rarely use thier feet is it because thier minds just did not have the capacity to think of a different name for the sport.

Why is it called Football in America when they very rarely use thier feet is it because thier minds just did not have the capacity to think of a different name for the sport.

Another rocket scientist joins the thread! The game has evolved a great deal over the decades. Kicking used to form a much larger part of the game back when it was first played. And, speaking of using mental capacity, the word is "their" not "thier"

I genuinely don't know the answer, but how much can a coach actually dictate in American Football? I'd always been given the impression that the game revolved around the qualities of the runners, and most importantly, the brain and arm of the quarterback. Is there the same level of strategy that there can be in football? Likewise for rugby, really- you may be able to say "use the forwards" or "use the backs", but you can't really say "use a slow tempo" or "play lots of mispasses".

Another rocket scientist joins the thread! The game has evolved a great deal over the decades. Kicking used to form a much larger part of the game back when it was first played. And, speaking of using mental capacity, the word is "their" not "thier"

No offense was meant by my comment for some reason my wink face was missed on the end of my quote when I clicked submit. It was meant as a general question as I understood it American Football gained its roots from Rugby during the 19th Century and has evolved from there to the modern game we see today, as such the ball has always been an oval shape and quite difficult and unpredictable when simply kicking.

This is why I ask why call it Football ?

Why is it called Football in America when they very rarely use thier feet is it because thier minds just did not have the capacity to think of a different name for the sport.

Sorry, can't help it...

No offense was meant by my comment for some reason my wink face was missed on the end of my quote when I clicked submit. It was meant as a general question as I understood it American Football gained its roots from Rugby during the 19th Century and has evolved from there to the modern game we see today, as such the ball has always been an oval shape and quite difficult and unpredictable when simply kicking.

This is why I ask why call it Football ?

Sorry, the wink was missed, and I ought not have wrote what I wrote anyway. My apologies back at you.

To the history of the sport, it started as a blend of Rugby and Association football in the mid 1800s. The balls originally were mostly round, so kicking was much more easily done. In the late 1800s, some of the more modern rules were adopted including changing the shape of the ball to make carrying it easier, but that of course made the kicking less useful.

SCIAG- the strategy is different of course, but my god it can be detailed like you wouldn't believe. In comparison, I believe a footie manager or head coach does far less actual "managing" over the course of the game. For example, playing high school football, we had a play book about as thick as War and Peace. Every player's role and instructions are dictated at a micro level, and most often, the coach reads the other team and sends in his plays based on the formations he sees, player positions, and other cues. The strategy is different in that because the plays have definite starts and stops you don't get the flow and shape like in footie. But there is a lot of the same things going on: "that cornerback looks weak, lets run at him," that sort of deal. The tempo in each play is pretty much the same, so it's style that gets managed- running up the middle vs. short passing game vs. wide runs vs. long passes etc.

At least that is my poor attempt at trying to make a comparison. I don't watch or play anymore, so this is old school 1980s stuff I am talking about, but I don't think it's changed at the core much in 25 years.

Don't think there will be anything like FM in terms of the NFL.

The Americans seem to hate this sort of game.

I read some reviews and NFL Front Office really didn't go down well with them.

I think you mean NFL head coach?

I don't think it's that Americans dislike management sims, I think it's just that all of the ones we get are crap. NFL Head Coach was pretty boring and clunky, while MLB Front Office Manager was pretty much a disaster. We do have things like Baseball Mogul or Out Of The Park Baseball which are good, but they're made by smaller companies who mostly distribute online. Further, those indie management sims lack the depth that FM has or, to be entirely honest, that FIFA Manager has.

The issue is that the major sims (i.e. the first two I mentioned) that Americans get are made by huge companies who are more interested in sales than making a good game. I wish a smaller company who care about the sport (such as SI or something similar) make a great management sim and then get published by one of the big guys to make distribution and marketing easier.

Personally, I probably wouldn't play an NFL management game unless it were very, very good as I don't care much for the NFL, but would definitely play it if you could coach an NCAA team. I definitely would like to see an FM-style baseball management sim and am thirsty for one- I loved Baseball Mogul but after playing FM you can see how lacking it truly is, and I played MLB Front Office Manager which was a waste of money. I also would love to see EHM come back, as it was a decent game that had huge potential. I wouldn't play a basketball management game, either, but that is something that I don't think has been tried at all and could be very good.

Sadly, I don't see any of the things I mentioned above happening due to all of the damned exclusive licensing agreements American leagues have with game companies. Sure, those companies may well make management sims, but due to the lack of competition and their only major goal being the bottom line, Americans look to be stuck with mediocre product for the forseeable future.

I genuinely don't know the answer, but how much can a coach actually dictate in American Football? I'd always been given the impression that the game revolved around the qualities of the runners, and most importantly, the brain and arm of the quarterback. Is there the same level of strategy that there can be in football? Likewise for rugby, really- you may be able to say "use the forwards" or "use the backs", but you can't really say "use a slow tempo" or "play lots of mispasses".

I think you'll find most American football fans would disagree 100%. The sport is far more tactical than football, I'd say player ability is more important in football than it is in American Football, where coaching/play calls dictate the winner.

This is why I ask why call it Football ?

With the term football applies to both sports because they evolved out of the same game (as did rugby, Gaelic football, Aussie football, etc.). Originall predecessors of all of these games were called "football" because they were played on foot as opposed to on horseback like other popular sports back in the day (hunting, racing, polo). Thus, American football can still be called "football" because it is played on foot, and evolved from the same games that other codes did.

Further, touchdowns in American football used to be rarer (thus why they are worth 6 points as opposed to three from a field goal). Most of the scoring a long time ago was had through field goals, touchdowns became more common after the introduction of the forward pass. Therefore, a long time ago, feet were much more important than they are now, but, as I said earlier, that isn't the true reason why it's called football.

All of that being said, I must say, that your football is much better than ours!