[Suggestion] Rethinking All Media

[YKW]

This is a difficult and complex idea to get across, so I’ve done a quick mock up of a screen that could help make it easier to understand and relate to.

Main Objectives:

• More interesting and less repetitive media interaction
• A more compelling context for media and opportunity for long term strategy
• More compelling impacts of media interactions and potential long term impacts
• A format that could still yield surprises 10-20 years into a save.

Here is the screenshot, which I’ve titled The Media Centre. Like Dynamics and Medical Centre it would be another recent addition deserving of a sidebar of it’s own. I’ve tried to make the screenshot, the Overview screen, hint at a lot of the different features at play. The situation is based on taking over at Man United with a low reputation.

First I’d like to focus on the three pie-charts which represent the overall sentiment towards my club in recent media reports. At the moment they are titled “Newspapers & Magazines,” “Television & Radio,” and “Social Media.”

Newspapers and Magazines

The example in this screen says “Most football writers are hugely unimpressed with your appointment.” 

Television & Radio

Two examples here. “Paul Pogba’s recent television interview went exceedingly well,” and “Your relationship with some pundits has had a slightly positive effect recently.”

What this is supposed to show is that in-game characters (players, managers, chairman, agents, etc) have the ability to appear in the media. In this case it was Pogba who did a television interview, such as Football Focus or Soccer AM. It could also have been Karen Brady writing an article for The Sun, or Raymond Verheijen causing a storm on social media. For more Television and Radio examples you could have an ex-player of yours appearing as a pundit for one of your televised matches, or a current player ringing up Talksport. Anyway, in Pogba’s case the event went well, which would be determined by factors like Morale, Current Media Issues and random chance. This is represented in the pie chart as an increased proportion of positive coverage.

The second thing hinted at is that you could have relationships with pundits and that these relationships could influence the proportion of positive/negative coverage that you or your club receives. Some players would retire and become full-time pundits, giving you a permanent boost to your coverage within his area of media. Of course if you dropped the player and forced him to retire early then you may have made a powerful enemy.

Social Media

Three examples here. “Rival fans have been mocking our manager,” “Our players’ social media profiles are not considered either controversial or entertaining,” and “we have one of the biggest fanbases in the world.”

The first thing here is that Social Media would be much more heavily influenced by fans opinions. In this situation Man City fans have been laughing at United hiring such a terrible manager. They may also mock us successfully if they win a derby, especially one in the latter stages of a cup, or if they do better than us come the end of the season. Of course the opposite could also be true and we could be “winning” the social media war, which would then be represented by green text and an increased proportion of positive coverage. 

The second thing here is that (some) players would technically have social media profiles (although the specific tweets would almost never be shown.) Some of the following would have to be Newgen specific, but I think you could also see negatives here such as “(high ambition) player X has been vocal about leaving the club,” or “(high controversy) Player Y got in an argument with Miers Porgan.” 

The third thing is fanbase size would be more important to social media, and a large fanbase is really a positive on it’s own. 

 

The next thing I’d like to focus on is the three bars in the bottom right hand side which are in the section called “Current Coverage.” 

As you can see there is a bar for the board, the manager and the players. In this example the text says “Most people are blaming the manager for the current state of the club.” The manager bar, which is red and almost full, shows that there is a lot of coverage about the manager and it is mostly negative. In comparison, there is very little coverage about the board which is neither positive or negative. Some people are talking about the players and mostly positively. 

These bars would change over time depending on how the game world unfolded. Is the chairman a tycoon? Is he stingy? Have the players been overperforming? Or underperforming? Is the Manager the next “special one?” Or could anyone do it with the players he has?

If one of these bars gets “fully red” then the associated person or people become highly under threat. If it is the board then there could perhaps be a hostile takeover attempt, or boycotts and demonstrations by the fans, calling for blood. If it is the Manager then your job could become untenable as the media mock you and the fans call for your head. If it is the players then it could cause a very hostile atmosphere at matches and immense pressure on the players.

The bars could also get “fully green” which would be awesome. For the board - boosts to attendance, merchandising and season ticket sales. For the players - more likely favoured personnel, icons etc, electric atmosphere at matches, more likely to pop up in media in the future. For the manager - more likely icon, legend etc, more power in board requests, more chance of stadium being named after you or even just a single stand within the stadium being named after you, etc. Fully red or fully green bars would also come with unique Events and Media Items that would play out in the game and/or have a special news item appearing in the "Media Digest" section.

Each of these three groups should have a slight preference towards being seen positively and so it should be assumed that this will be at least one factor influencing their actions and choices and also their opinions (should they have a media appearance.)

My Media Interactions (explained later) would have knock-on effects on these bars for obvious reasons. If my perspective is that the chairman shouldn’t have been so stingy, and I happen to say that, then in some cases that could destabilise the chairman’s position. That choice could either lead to me getting fired or lead to me getting the money I want in future. Or perhaps the perspective that I express is that the players haven’t been giving 100%, which could shift some of the blame on to them. This may make them work harder, or may make them dislike you. Perhaps an ex-player speaks out, pushing the blame back on to you. Etc. 

The next thing I would like to focus on is the bottom left section called “Current Issues.” The text says “There is currently a great deal of interest in our club but most of it is negative. Most people think that the decision to appoint you as manager is a joke.”

As you can see from the bars the main source of interest right now is “New Manager” and you can also see that the discussion is mainly negative. There is also some interest in “New Signings,” with no judgement yet passed, and some interest in “Attacking Play,” and “Recent Successes,” both of which are mostly positive.

Other ‘Topics’ which you could see appearing here could be: New Manager, Under-Fire Manager, Player Power, Iron Fist, New Signings, Lack of New Signings, New Owner, Tycoon Owner, Attacking Play, Defensive Play, Unsporting Play, Team Overachieving, Team Underachieving, Unbeatables, Whipping Boys, One-Man Team, Recent Successes, Recent Failures, and many more. Each Topic could have its own triggers and effects.

One of the major impacts of these issues would be the effect on player confidence/morale/pressure/motivation etc. Generally speaking, the more interest there was in a topic then the more pronounced the effects would be. Using the above example where there is a great deal of negative interest in “New Manager,” I could find that the players are under too much pressure to perform, or perhaps aren’t interested in performing because I am being undermined by the media. The fact there is some lingering praise for our “Recent Successes”(Europa League win) may cause the players to have more confidence. 

My Media Interactions would allow me to try and influence the level of interest and overall tone of the discussion, ideally to my benefit. 

 

Playing The Media

Finally I would like to focus on the calendar near the top of the screen. This shows upcoming media events that you may attend. In this example I’ve used ‘Global 24/7’ who were the fictional outlet used in the FM18 hype video. Ideally these could be real outlets, or at least modifiable using workshop content. 

The vast majority of media interactions would NOT involve specific questions. Instead you would use the “Press Office” (at the top next to the Overview button) to see your Press Officer’s summary of upcoming media obligations and the likely issues that will be raised/addressed, before selecting your GENERAL APPROACH to the issue. 

Let’s say that the Global 24/7 media event is a short feature that will be broadcast on their football show. My Press Officer tells me that they are likely to focus on “New Manager” and “New Signings.” 

My personal perspective is that there is too much negative discussion about my appointment. So in the Press Office I could select this Topic and then choose to “Play Down Significance.” The broadcasters will want a story, so perhaps I select the “New Signings” Topic and choose to “Build up Significance.” 

In my head by making these choices I am saying something like “It’s not all about me, we’re a team and we have to all work together blah blah blah. We’ve also added quality over the summer, blah blah, I think people will be surprised how good they could be, etc.” 

If things go as planned (and they would not always do so) then hopefully I could end up with something like this:

The level of interest in “New Manager” has decreased, in the short term keeping me away from the dreaded full red bar. I’ve also successfully increased interest in the “New Signings” topic AND caused it to transition into a green, rather than grey, bar.

Other Random Bits

There would be a variety of Media Events. These would range from an interview on the morning football show to actually being invited to do punditry work for a televised match or International tournament. For punditry you would be taken to the match flow and similarly to the above you would select your general approach to the proposed issues. This could be the poor form of one of the teams leading into this game, a bad refereeing decision, or the performance of a player who is rumoured to be leaving. This could affect your relationships with other players/staff and also cause you to be viewed more favourably.

As in the Pogba example, many Media events would be happening in the background that you had no control over. For scheduled events such as an appearance on Soccer AM you would be alerted by the Press Officer ahead of time. For random events such as a player winding people up on Social Media or ringing up TalkSport you would be alerted after the fact and informed of the fallout. 

In some cases you may be required to select 2 or more players to fulfil a Media Event. This could be a charity gameshow or a video for the Official Youtube channel. You may choose your best players, or the players of a certain nationality, or two players who are friends, and then receive a brief summary of how it went and what the fallout is like. 

When the Current Interest bars completely fill up then this is when you might be approached by journalists with specific questions and also you would see special and unique media items in the Media Digest section. There is so much I would like to add to this as a lot of it needs other areas of the game to improve. One of those areas is the Manager Profile and Personality which I had an idea for here:

If something like that were also implemented then it would open up a lot of avenues for further depth here. For example, highly controversial managers could be much more influential and vulnerable to the stories of the media, while more reserved characters may not be influential but may also avoid intense scrutiny.

Thanks for reading.

[dewhirst]

Hire this man! Bravo!

[lukefitch]

This is exceptional! I feel like FM have never quite known how to make the media engaging and this could definitely be the route to go down. Seriously well thought out.

 

I think the standard interview could still be implemented into this though. Just needs to be less repetetive... a seperate tab like this would give it a bit more framework though and make your answers feel like they're doing something tangible.

[CFuller]

@YKW You've put forward some excellent, well thought-out ideas over the last year or so. This, I have to say, is another. Making the media more substantial and less generic in FM is something I would quite like to see.

Also, your use of the word "exceedingly" is enough on its own to get you a like off me. 

[enigmatic]

This is an exceedingly good suggestion, well thought out and presented.

Particularly like the idea about completely voluntary press conferences and punditry, and being able to abstract away from all the repetitive and detailed (and often misplaced) questions with a general approach (rather than delegate to an assman who the game allows to completely screw it up for you)

Even some of the small things in here could be implemented. I'd actually like to see tweets mocking the manager in the social feed (maybe they're already there and I'm just too scared to look at it after I've lost!)

[Pablotapiav]

Fantastic idea! currently Social media is useless, I don't even open that tab. But this revamp could change a big portion in a FM save.

[ferrarinseb]

You have just given the starting point for the FM future versions when they decided to add / revamp the Media element even more.

 

 

[ilkork]

On 11/24/2017 at 08:59, ferrarinseb said:

You have just given the starting point for the FM future versions when they decided to add / revamp the Media element even more.

 

 

Exactly my thought!

[YKW]

Thanks a lot for the comments guys. 

On 23/11/2017 at 20:09, CFuller said:

@YKW You've put forward some excellent, well thought-out ideas over the last year or so. This, I have to say, is another. Making the media more substantial and less generic in FM is something I would quite like to see.

Also, your use of the word "exceedingly" is enough on its own to get you a like off me. 

Thank you very much mate. I think that the introduction of this Feature Requests forum is a brilliant move and I think everyone has been making the most of it. 

My first thought was to say that the interview went "dabbingly," but I settled on "exceedingly well" because it just felt much more "FM." Of course, if anyone would like me to use more common terminology then I have no qualms. 

[ilkork]

8 hours ago, YKW said:

My first thought was to say that the interview went "dabbingly," but I settled on "exceedingly well" because it just felt much more "FM." Of course, if anyone would like me to use more common terminology then I have no qualms. 

When you think to yourself "hey, despite being Greek, I speak english fluently" and then you see those alien words .

[Fer Fuchs Ake]

This is incredibly well put together. Would be a great addition.

[DMATOS01]

That's great!

[lukefitch]

SI make the dream real

[DizzyNewHeights]

This is a great idea! Now watch as SI completely ignore it.

[kandersson]

Pay the guy!

[YKW]

Here is my interpretation of what the Media Digest screen could look like. Again there are quite a few things hinted at in the screenshot.

 

The first sub-section is on the left and is a breakdown of the hottest topics currently being discussed throughout the media. 

This shows a few different topics with each highlighted as green, red or grey depending on the overall tone of the reporting of that story.  In the TV & Radio section you will see that Charlie Adam's violent conduct is being talked about negatively. Assume that Charlie Adam broke someone's leg with a terrible tackle in a match that happened the day before. Mirroring this you can see that Charlie Adam is a hot topic on Social Media, where he is also being discussed negatively. This sort of thing could happen with a variety of significant match events as shown by "Paulinho vs Getafe" being a trending topic on Social Media, presumably with videos of his amazing goal being shared.  

Clicking on a topic would allow you to see more in the panel on the right. In this example I have clicked on Yinke King-Williams in the Social Media Topics (indicated by the white tab,) and this is what I may see:

This would include a brief summary of the Topic and the Media source, a brief description of the overall issue and a familiar pie chart showing the overall sentiment.  In the right hand box there would be a cool little elaboration on the story, in this case a specific tweet made by someone who looks like a Man City fan. What I think is really important here is the number of retweets and likes, as this would vary and give me an idea of how strong the wave of ridicule was at that moment in time. 

If you clicked on "Paulinho vs Getafe" then what you see could be a tweet praising Paulinho, or it could be a "youtube" video of the goal itself. Clicking on "Charlie Adam" may also show a tweet being abusive towards him, or perhaps it would be a video of the tackle, or perhaps a tweet from someone wishing his victim well. Hopefully there could just be lots of small possibilities that could surprise me.

 

The final section would show who the most popular and most criticised people or clubs were at any given time.

 

In my example I've used Ivica Strok, but depending on what is happening in your game the Darling and Victim would change over time. For example if a Leicester situation were to unfold then the Media Darling may be that entire club. You may see characters like Kane, or Kante, who have their turn at receiving huge amounts of praise from all quarters, or characters like Balotelli or Joey Barton who are never far from being the public enemy number one. 

You can see that alongside the Media Description there is also a Social Media Description. This would just be a little bit of a fun and could hopefully have a slightly more light-hearted set of descriptions.

Thanks for reading, and for the comments. 

[wkdsoul]

Nice!! i wonder how the rep of the manager and status of the board/club will play into it.  for example, Ferguson refusing interviews, Mourinho not caring at all about what the press think.  a smaller club trying to expand its base so will tow the line and use the media to best effect.  Can you get away with more press theatrics in the eye of the board/fans as long as you win on the pitch....

The possibilities of this manipulation is excellent. so many possibility to a frankly neglected area of the game.  superb work.

[tiago_wakabayashi]

@YKW you take the Social Media part to another level. I loved your suggestion. Media is very important today, for any kind of job. 

[jemo]

dear genie, i wish to use my first wish on implementing this in fm asap

[frenchdog93]

Not only would this make the press side of the game interesting but it would also inject some much needed life into the social feed.

[Kranzberg]

Great Input, mate!

[YKW]

Here is my interpretation of the 'Current Issues' screen. My feeling is that it looks too busy so just focus on the information rather than the appearance. 

At the top you have the Press Officer giving a brief summary of the situation.

In this case you can see that she is saying the same thing that appeared in the summary in the Overview screen. I also added a small '2' icon (much too small it turns out) to the Press Office tab to show that there is something in there that needs a response.

The summary of each current issue is split into two main sections.

First you have the Topic and the level of interest, as before, followed by a brief summary of what the issue is and an assessment of the overall concensus. Below this you have a log of significant events that have in some way contributed to the situation. I've filled these boxes to demonstrate the kinds of things you might see, so you'll have to ignore the continuity errors. In this example we recently beat Man City 5-1 which appears in green to represent its positive impact. 

Alongside mention of my poor reputation and experience you can see that "a club legend has spoken out about my appointment." This is in a darker red to indicate that it is more severe, and in some ways a "special" event. It was probably Gary Neville.

Secondly you have a brief summary of the impacts of the media's coverage of the issue.

In the bottom right of this box there are links to 'Board Confidence' and 'Dynamics.' This is because there are a variety of ways that the media can potentially impact your club, some of which relate to the board and some of which relate dynamics.

The first bullet point indicates that the board don't like the cub receiving coverage which is negative but as they have just hired you it's no problem for now. Bullet points 2, 3 and 4 show that the issues could impact on individual players and on the factors listed on the Dynamics screen such as "Dressing Room Atmosphere" and "Managerial support."

The last bullet point is positive and shows that one of my players has reacted well to the situation and is determined to fight for me. In situations where this attitude was the main one within my squad then I could manage to introduce a "siege mentality" which would harness negative reporting as a unifying force within the club.

Ideally no situation would be innately positive or negative, and different Issues and levels of interest would suit me at different times.

Thanks for reading, I'm off out. Happy New Year.

[YKW]

And this is my interpretation of the Press Office screen. 

Using the calendar at the top you could click on the icon representing a media obligation which would then 'open' in the boxes immediately below. This could include a brief summary of the outlet and the nature of the event, such as this:

In this case I'm imagining something similar to Soccer AM. 

Your press officer would then give their opinion on the topics that may be covered and invite you to outline your approach. As I'm presenting it, you could choose between three options, the coloured speech boxes. This is very simplistic but in my opinion this would be a better way of representing the more "day to day" media obligations, with a greater focus on the end result and context and a lesser focus on repetitive dialogue options. 

HOWEVER: it could also be possible that this right hand box could contain a question and answers, in the same style we are used to now. One addition would be the grey/red/green colour scheme that could perhaps be applied to the answers to understand their impacts in the context of the issue. 

The other factor with being asked specific questions could be the level of media interest. Once the bar was to become completely full then you would likely see specific questions appearing more often, as part of the media circus. These could each have unique impacts depending on the issue that they had resulted from. The existing press conference questions could be used, and be far less annoying and boring simply because they are rare. 

In the bottom area you have a summary of the club and the standard of their media department. There is also a description of the reputation of the club and how this ties in to the expected level of media interest. 

This would be one of my favourite screens when taking a small club up to the top level. It consists of a world map (copied from the Scouting Knowledge) that would represent the reputation of my club in a visual way. Essentially it is the "Home" and "World" reputations, but expanded so that I have a reputation in each country. (The popularity spillover feature from Total Extreme Wrestling could be a cool mechanism to try and replicate here.)

On the left of the map you have a figure for global kit sales and social media reach. In my head you can then click on a country and this information on the left changes to be relative to just that nation. 

Below that you then have Belgium as being "on the rise" and South Korea as seeing a "possible decline." This could be because Lukaku is doing well, or we played a pre-season tournament there or something. South Korea could be declining because it's been a long time since Park Ji-Sung. 

 

I would just like to finish by saying that it is obvious that managing Man United and managing Nuneaton come with very different experiences of the media, particularly in terms of impact. In lower leagues there is only so much interest that there will ever be in your club and in most cases achieving more than 50% media interest may be almost impossible. However, how sweet would the feeling be to perform a huge giant-killing as part of a momentous and against-all-odds cup run, and suddenly realise that your club was on everyone's lips? What a boost to the reputation of the club that could be... What a boost to your own personal reputation it could be.... 

Thanks for reading!

[kandersson]

Just hire this guy SI!

[tiago_wakabayashi]

12 hours ago, kandersson said:

Just hire this guy SI!

you took my words, each post of him improves the suggestion. 

[BuryBlade]

Apologies for digging up an old thread, but I’ve only just seen this. My goodness, the work here is incredible! 

Current media interactions are boring and repetitive. Your ideas are refreshing and would keep it interesting, even on long term saves if implemented correctly.

Real shame not to see any improvement in this area again for FM19.

[Amarante]

Can someone at SI really take a look at this. This is the best suggestion i have seen so far to make the media in the game more lifelike more realistic. 

I'm seeing where the media will hound out a manager who isn't sticking to the club philosophy think Jose at United now and the fall out with the players and the fans. 

This thread needs to be seen by SI. This is a well thought out well planned and the implementation isn't anything crazy. Its a complete revamp of how media is done and it adds life. 

[toffee71]

IRL I don't do any social media at all, but after reading through this thread last night and again now, this would add a whole new level to the game, as a fairly hard taskmaster in game I get problems with players, and this would add to that so much I would love it. Think SI could only do it for regens, for real players it may be an issue with image, but sure it would then be modded, I would then also like the ability to maybe leak something about one of my players if I don't like him or want him to work harder

I'm normally a lurker on sites I enjoy and there's a few, I can't recall a better put together topic, I doth my cap to you @YKW

[Rossums]

I love pretty much every suggestion you've made so far and this is no different, there's so many features that SI have added but have done practically nothing with them.

The current media set-up (or lack thereof) gets tiring within a few hours as you're asked the same questions over and over and over with little to no variation and if Reddit or the forums are anything to go by the current media features are quite literally a joke to the community.

It's good to see someone put a lot of thought into fleshing out the underdeveloped and underutilised areas of the game and making everything a lot more useful whilst adding more flavour and variation to playthroughs.

[frenchdog93]

Was slightly disappointed something like this didn't get implemented. Hopefully next year will see a media overhaul! 

 

(am going to keep bumping this every now and then until it's acknowledged by someone at SI  )

[YouReds]

Just picking up on this now, this is EXACTLY what FM needs to make the press conferences and news articles more interactive. At the moment it's far too easy to blindly do press conferences without even looking at the full question because it's too repetitive

[Armistice]

I’m a micromanager type of a player and like to get through all the things in the game, even the Press Conferences. But they are so dull that I have to skip them and send the Assistant for me. This idea would certainly spice things up and I really hope it does not go unnoticed.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed (which took us a while to do! ) so locked.