football manager's got competion!!

[Awet]

Originally posted by the expert:

awet why dont you get a g.f and have a kid if thats what u want of even be a gay lol which u think is cool... then play football manager then u will get both of best worlds

The reason why i said it was cool is because u hardly see gay couples in games which would make the gay community happy and feel 'cool'

[Klimowicz]

Originally posted by Nomis07:

For christmas I got some vouchers for Game from a friend and I managed to get WOW, Fifa Manager and Championship Manager for £20.

Championship Manager was really pants and I realised why FM really is the king of football management games/sims. Fifa Manager was aithout doubt one of the worse football management games I have ever had the misfortune to play. It was repulsive to look at, it was full of quirky nonsense that somehow detracted from the already pathetic game play.

I gave it to one of my mates who always forgets to give games back and even he gave it back to me within a couple of days.

in the words of Andy Gray: "That's genius"

Awet, drop it, dude. there are more important things in a game to keep peoples attention than relationships (in general) in games. your opinion is valued by most here, but having a wife (or whatever) in a football game isn't really a selling point.

[croaker]

Havent played fifa manager before but i might give it a go next year simply because of player manager. (Big FIFA fan btw )

[pouncer]

I am an TCM and Fifa Manager convert.

In my early teens I would play TCM, I liked that sort of thing at the time. I bought FM and realised I'd grown out of the gimmicky rubbish which doesn't represent football in any way, and I had gone into a more realistic world....

[Awet]

Top 5 manager games are

1.Football Manager

2.FIFA Manager

3.Championship Manager

4.Total Club Manager

5.LMA Manager

Worst Manager game is ...

Premier Manager (it is a waste of shelf space in shops)

[turn it upto 11]

i loved PM 1998, then i played the newer ones on the PS2 and you have to talk to your staff face to face etc. very annoying, and the stats and everything, id rather go and get PM 1998 again. total club manager wasnt impressive, i used to be a fan of the lma series, then went off it. never played fifa manger, dont inend to.

[england2110]

OMG i wasted £30 quid on fifa manager 08, and to be honest its ba.llcrap. The 3D match is awful, the amount of times you see the same thing happening in one match is un-countable. The whole thing seems thrown together. The interface could have been better done by a 4 y/o. And most of all it is so easy, i won the league with wigan, first season, first time playing it. It is the most pathetic game i have seen. But i have seen one good feature, and that is the stadium editing, obviously it is not realstic, but they have put a hell os a lot of detail into it, basically thats the only good thing about it.

Keep playing Football Manager i give that 9.5/10

Fifa Manager 1.2/10

Honestly people dont buy it.

[Awet]

Originally posted by england2110:

OMG i wasted £30 quid on fifa manager 08, and to be honest its ba.llcrap. The 3D match is awful, the amount of times you see the same thing happening in one match is un-countable. The whole thing seems thrown together. The interface could have been better done by a 4 y/o. And most of all it is so easy, i won the league with wigan, first season, first time playing it. It is the most pathetic game i have seen. But i have seen one good feature, and that is the stadium editing, obviously it is not realstic, but they have put a hell os a lot of detail into it, basically thats the only good thing about it.

Keep playing Football Manager i give that 9.5/10

Fifa Manager 1.2/10

Honestly people dont buy it.

You should of downloaded the demo first

you could of used the £30 on Football manager 09

by the way FIFA Manager is not all bad

[Nomis07]

Originally posted by Awet:

by the way FIFA Manager is not all bad

I think it's more a case of Fifa being all bad compared to FM08.

Now there are lots of things that 08 needs to improve/fix and there are new features that have been listed in the wishlist that would make a massive difference, but it is still far and away the best available.

[Champion]

If SI put more effort on a realistic match engine, this will be enough to blow away any competitors to FM for years to come.

[YesYesOhYay]

evry game has something unique that other games do not have- if they dont, then simply, the just dont sell.

Yes, FIFA may have some decent aspects, but even though work needs doing to FM, it is (not sure about this) the best selling manager simulator, and so must be one of the best!

[Box]

I think competition is a good thing, and a serious contender for FM would really see the genre move in leaps and bounds.

As it is though, the only thing even close toa contender is Championship Manager, which still lacks the depth of FM.

FM is fantastic game, but I don't feel the game really advanced since the inclusion of the 2D match engine a few years back. A lot of otehr little changes but you cant tell me that the transfer, scouting, media, assistant and all these other systems within the game are honestly and better than 4 years ago!

Don't get me wrong, I love FM and appreciate SI's efforts, but sometimes I a little disappointed with FM seasonal releases. It's not the same as 10 years ago, when you had 1 or two seasonal releases between really big releases with REAL changes to the game. Seems like all that constitutes a "new feature" is a few lines of text added to the media config file and a new skin.

[AFC49]

Anything thats assoiated with sepp blatter has got to be turd! long live FM!!

[sthptngomad76]

It's not the same as 10 years ago, when you had 1 or two seasonal releases between really big releases with REAL changes to the game. Seems like all that constitutes a "new feature" is a few lines of text added to the media config file and a new skin.

Lets see...

I would say the first generation of CM/FM spanned from CM1(91-92) to CM 93-94.

The next generation was CM2, lasting from 95-96 release through to the 97-98 release

The 3rd was Cm3 (98-99) to CM 01-02.

CM4 lasted about two years, from 02-03 to the CM 03-04 release.

So on average we've had major advances every 3 or so years. Looks as though we are due for one quite soon, hopefully.

[Themistofelis]

FIFA is a very entertaining game to play, it focus mostly in developing your own players rather than looking at the transfer market .

Match engine is ok and even if you think something is missing it's files are in text format so you can go and edit.

Above everything FIFA knows that it is a game made for people to have fun, FM thinks it is a simulation so it can get you frustrated in no time.

*Becoming a master in golf will bring you better personal sponsors

[backpackant]

In light of this thread, I just played the Fifa demo. It's cumbersome, difficult to navigate and the match looks neither better or worse than FM.

The only things that are better IMO are the graphics (which are pretty much irrelevant) and match analysis, which is branded and can't be duplicated in FM.

Admittedly I only tinkered with it for an hour, but I will definitely be sticking with FM.

[anthony wright]

Should this not read Fifa Manager 09 as EA have just released some screenshots and a preview. Of course we don't know what features FM 09 will have but EA have been improving year by year and it cant be long before they have a serious contender for the FM crown

[Awet]

Originally posted by Themistofelis:

FIFA is a very entertaining game to play, it focus mostly in developing your own players rather than looking at the transfer market .

Match engine is ok and even if you think something is missing it's files are in text format so you can go and edit.

Above everything FIFA knows that it is a game made for people to have fun, FM thinks it is a simulation so it can get you frustrated in no time.

*Becoming a master in golf will bring you better personal sponsors

Thank you!!

I've trying to explain this to people.

Perfect explanation.

[Box]

Originally posted by sthptngomad76:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">It's not the same as 10 years ago, when you had 1 or two seasonal releases between really big releases with REAL changes to the game. Seems like all that constitutes a "new feature" is a few lines of text added to the media config file and a new skin.

Lets see...

I would say the first generation of CM/FM spanned from CM1(91-92) to CM 93-94.

The next generation was CM2, lasting from 95-96 release through to the 97-98 release

The 3rd was Cm3 (98-99) to CM 01-02.

CM4 lasted about two years, from 02-03 to the CM 03-04 release.

So on average we've had major advances every 3 or so years. Looks as though we are due for one quite soon, hopefully. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes that's kind of my point.

Previously there was a clear cut difference between generations/engines then, in it's most simple form of numbering releases. With each full priced 'major' release of a new engine (CM2, CM3, CM4) several seasonal update versions , using the same engine were released at a much lower retail price.

Now FM seems to be just banged out seasonally at the same price like EA style games with little change, we already had 4 releases of FM using the same engine (2005-2008), potentially 6 if u count CM4 and 04/05. It seems its done this way to disguise or play down the fact that each release is basically just a polished version of the one before.

This could be argued to be fair as technically we are buying a completely new game with each release, but in the end its really only newcomers to the series who are getting that completely "new game" - the real fans, who are buying every year are basically paying £25-£35 for the same game. My point was in previous generations of the game these would have been considered seasonal updates and would have been priced accordingly.

I don't want to make a big deal out of this though because I understand SI need these releases to continue to develop and to attract new fans and I also understand that we have the option NOT to buy each release if we feel this way and can simply sit a release out and buy every other year (as I will probably start doing ).

[cimbom89]

FM is the best game around you cant better than FM.

FIFA Manager is good but could be better..

PES is the best game around i have both FIFA 08 and PES 2008 on PS3 the FIFA08 gameplay is utter rubbish players cant run you cant shoot properly it is just awful. However EURO 2008 is better compared to FIFA 08 and could be said that it is better than PES 2008.

[cimbom89]

Oh another thing the best FIFA game was FIFA 98 road to the world cup it was such a brilliant game all the national teams could be played it was brilliant

[Awet]

Originally posted by cimbom89:

FM is the best game around you cant better than FM.

FIFA Manager is good but could be better..

PES is the best game around i have both FIFA 08 and PES 2008 on PS3 the FIFA08 gameplay is utter rubbish players cant run you cant shoot properly it is just awful. However EURO 2008 is better compared to FIFA 08 and could be said that it is better than PES 2008.

FM could get better aswell!

FIFA 98?

More like FIFA 08

And at least FIFA was around in 98

PES came in just in 2003

[Dreaded Walrus]

I think Awet is a troll, or works for EA or something. He starts out with this:

Originally posted by Awet:

Football Manager is a classic no doubt

But then less than 24 hours later has moved onto things like this:

Originally posted by Awet:

if Fifa took out those unessecary information and made the gameplay faster it would rwice the game as Football manager and to be honest everything Football manager has fifa has better

And then a day later,

Originally posted by Awet:

For years now SI have reapted the same steps over and over

New skin

Upgarding transfers

Player interaction

Talking to other managers

Hardly great changes throughout the series

Quite...

[Hershie]

Originally posted by Awet:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by cimbom89:

FM is the best game around you cant better than FM.

FIFA Manager is good but could be better..

PES is the best game around i have both FIFA 08 and PES 2008 on PS3 the FIFA08 gameplay is utter rubbish players cant run you cant shoot properly it is just awful. However EURO 2008 is better compared to FIFA 08 and could be said that it is better than PES 2008.

FM could get better aswell!

FIFA 98?

More like FIFA 08

And at least FIFA was around in 98

PES came in just in 2003 </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

FIFA Road To World Cup 1998 is the best in the series by far..

[Nene_Park_Faithfull]

Originally posted by Bongo-Bongo:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Awet:

i think Fifa adds realstic things having a family and a kid which could possibly being a manager and allows you to speak to agents, controlling finances although they put needless stuff like playing golf etc.

Football Manager is a classic no doubt

You say they add needless stuff like playing golf, but having an in game family is needless as well. In all honestly, what point is there in it being in the game? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Having a family gives you a chance to get your own son through the ranks, and having a partner, can create decisions as too do things like:

Attend an award ceremony to pick up manager of the month (just an example)

Or

Go out for the night with your partner.

This is good because it helps simulate some of the dilemhas faced by real life managers.

[Hershie]

Originally posted by Nene_Park_Faithfull:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Bongo-Bongo:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Awet:

i think Fifa adds realstic things having a family and a kid which could possibly being a manager and allows you to speak to agents, controlling finances although they put needless stuff like playing golf etc.

Football Manager is a classic no doubt

You say they add needless stuff like playing golf, but having an in game family is needless as well. In all honestly, what point is there in it being in the game? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Having a family gives you a chance to get your own son through the ranks, and having a partner, can create decisions as too do things like:

Attend an award ceremony to pick up manager of the month (just an example)

Or

Go out for the night with your partner.

This is good because it helps simulate some of the dilemhas faced by real life managers. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Then where do you stop?

What if the food poisons them and gives them the runs? Do you need to pick what pharmacy to go to and what medication to get? Or go around looking for where has the best deals on imodium?

What if you vomit on the wife's dress? Do you need to go and pick a dry cleaner, or decide to be a gentleman and buy her a new one?

What if you stagger in drunk after said event and tread on the cat? Do you need to pick a vet, and decide if you want to spend your money on back surgery for the cat rather than buying your wife some new shoes to match the new dress you may or may not buy?

What if you vomit in the cab home and get kicked out? Do you need to plan a route home, or choose to sleep in the doorway outside Costcutter?

The stupidity and irrelevance of such things only leads to further stupidity, and as far as I'm concerned, the only way to avoid such is to not introduce anything like it in the first place.

[Svenc]

Originally posted by backpackant:

In light of this thread, I just played the Fifa demo. It's cumbersome, difficult to navigate and the match looks neither better or worse than FM.

There is no 3D match in any Fifa demo. At least in none that I know of. Anyhoo, the game that now is Fifa Manager is pretty much a continuation of what was going in in the "On The Ball" series, albeit without the humor and ongoing evolution in match simulation in particular.

In Germany Champ Man/Foot Man never was that popular, and truth be told, the early Champ Man games looked quite ***** to me in comparison, to be honest. If you really are into pigeon-holing, German footie management games were more or less business simulation games with a sports theme. And the roots are all over Fifa Manager even now. However, I feel that things are about to change: there's a lot of emphasis put on the actual depiction and simulation of football, even if the Germon fellas aren't quite there yet.

Older Manager games from EA (2001 and beyond) don't have the slightest thing to do with what's going on with that series nowadays. Lead designers changed, teams changed, etc. Since 2007 or so there's pretty much no involvement of EA Sports Canada involved whatsoever. The game's a product of Bright Future, Germany.

[Methuselah]

I do not work for Sports Interactive but I think its a bit uncalled for to advertise rival games such as Fifa Manager on the Sports Interactive messageboard. If you want to support Fifa, which in 1954 usurped the F.A. as the originators of football ninety years previously, then go ahead and purchase Fifa manager, but don't blab about it on here - don't Fifa have their own messageboards for their loyal customers?

[Svenc]

Originally posted by Champion:

If SI put more effort on a realistic match engine, this will be enough to blow away any competitors to FM for years to come.

What many - you included - don't understand is that even if the gaps are closing a little ever since even Fifa's match simulation has been trying to get closer to the "real thing", both are fundamentally different games. Not just in the fun department, or in how the one or the other series may be perceived as a "lighter" depiction of football management.

But in terms of what you're actually doing in the game. FM's focus is clearly on the actual football itself, the sports side of things, while Fifa lets you be the Jack Of All Trades (and probably master of everything) in control of every aspect of a club. It's a Germon football management game through and through, alright.

I do not work for Sports Interactive but I think its a bit uncalled for to advertise rival games

I've seen FM discussed on the EA/Bright Future boards quite frequently, and I don't visit them often. After all, my last Fifa game dates all the way back to 2002.

[Box]

Originally posted by Methuselah:

I do not work for Sports Interactive but I think its a bit uncalled for to advertise rival games such as Fifa Manager on the Sports Interactive messageboard. If you want to support Fifa, which in 1954 usurped the F.A. as the originators of football ninety years previously, then go ahead and purchase Fifa manager, but don't blab about it on here - don't Fifa have their own messageboards for their loyal customers?

I know where you are comming from, thre are pleanty of game sites/forums that wont allow discussions about close competors. To be honest though, I think SI are confident int eh knowledge that;-

1) THey have a loyal and deedicated core of fans

2) The 'competition' isn't actually that good! lol

As I always say, it's healthy for FM to ahve competition but in all fairness it just isn't there.

Besides, I'm pretty sure the SI guys are all away busy plotting and planning FM09 now and wont be checking these boards as regularly as they used to, that and the fact they think the forum is a breeding ground of hate and malicious content now.

[Box]

Please excuse my typos in the above post.

[Rapidler]

fifa manager improved over the years, yes.

how did they do it ? they stole all their ideas from an old german managergame called anstoss.

anstoss2 had all those, build your stadion buy a porsche have a child features 10 years ago.

also the contract negotiations were taken from Anstoss2 as were youth days, scouting system, hell in anstoss you could even make christmas parties, end of season parties, you could choose training facilities during summer and in leagues with winter break during winter.

you could even buy a club if you earned enough, great feat for long term games.

had an great editor too. you could edit almost anything.league size to begin with.

all those feature if implemented right are a great addition, adds to the realism.

but that doesn't mean thiefing fifa manager is superior to fm infact it sucks donkey ++++

never midn the fact that it's way too easy.

a monkey could play it and win everything there is to win.

still fm could do with some general overhauling and more features. borrow ideas like ea does.

i mean why not? it serves the greater good.

us that is.

oh and btw, Pes still whipes the floor with fifa

i hate fifa games, i did from day1 still tried most of them tho. know thy enemy, i say.

i would even forgive them for a decade of crap games if they would start making at least decent games from now on. but no, they stick to their football doesn't have to be realistic, it's arcade ''philosophy''.

so they can rott in hell for all i care.

[Awet]

Originally posted by Dreaded Walrus:

I think Awet is a troll, or works for EA or something. He starts out with this:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Awet:

Football Manager is a classic no doubt

But then less than 24 hours later has moved onto things like this:

Originally posted by Awet:

if Fifa took out those unessecary information and made the gameplay faster it would rwice the game as Football manager and to be honest everything Football manager has fifa has better

And then a day later,

Originally posted by Awet:

For years now SI have reapted the same steps over and over

New skin

Upgarding transfers

Player interaction

Talking to other managers

Hardly great changes throughout the series

Quite... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

L0L

'works for EA or something' i wish

Anyway my summary to all this is FIFA Manager has the potential to be much better FM but at the moment i think FM edges it because simple simulation but thats the problem bieng a manager is not just about simulating life with having to say the same team talks, Chelsea always winning.

what FIFA brings is reality. The things like

. Having a family nearly every manager has

. building a stadium

. 3d match lets you take a closer look at yout players

. Licensed teams nearly all the teams are licensed with player pictures

. Having a closer relationship with the chairman

All these things are key in managing life.

[anthony wright]

Yes, you are absolutly right SI should 'borrow ideas from other games eg. more player talks from Fifa Manager, the tilted pitch from CM, you din't need full 3D ala Fifa just a tilted pitch, players that look a little bit human like, some advertising boards and perhaps the first few rows of the crowd (heaven forbid)as in USM. If the 'camera' position is far enough back you could still see all of the pitch as in the present 2D version

[Paul@neus]

We should get a family just for the new confidence and twists on current game features:

>Poor performance in last nights bedroom fixture leaves the wife feeling she may have to get a replacement

>Rumours that you perform better away than at home add to house/boardroom tensions

>Scandalous news as you are linked with the wife's fierce rival (the blonde down the street) and say the job looks interesting

>Your children under-perform in school and told they may need to be rotated or rested

>Your wife has concerns over the fact that you have flooded the youth system with 20 foreign regens all paying in her position

>Send the wife to surgery so you can play with a bigger pair up front

>As the wife's contract approaches its final year, questions arise over whether or not she has performed well enough to grant it being renewed

>After all the rubbish she has put up with, wife demands a ridiculous salary increase outside wage structure. Do you remove money from transfer/beer/car/videogame kitty or replace her with a young brazilian despite her loyal service

I think the game sounds awesome like that! Though after a while, would we need someone else nagging you about poor performance? The stress won't make it better love!

[Paul@neus]

Lol, all I can think of now are further FM wife puns. If anyone enjoyed them:

>You send the with to surgery to improve overall performance by tightnening up the back, making the middle narrower and (a new keeper to make) the goal tight

>The trash minigame! Can you take out the rubbish at 6 in the morning without getting covered? Who knows?

>Fitness training to increase stamina

>Pre-season tours and friendlies with the lads for match fitness

>You get a decent wife who performs well only for united or chelsea to show her interest and the money grabbing ***** leave for a "bigger club"

>"A move to big club like that would be an offer to good to turn down" You two penny mercenary wench!

>At the end of it, that big well endowed club loses out to you on the final day of the season after you use your cunning, with those money grabbers who were transferred now regretting their decision as the are constantly rotated in a large squad with numerous others vying for the same position, and not scoring as regular as they did for you.

hehehehe

[Svenc]

they stole all their ideas from an old german managergame called anstoss.

More precisely, as explained before, they got a hold of the leading heads behind the On The Ball / Anstoss series.

know where you are comming from, thre are pleanty of game sites/forums that wont allow discussions about close competors.

A pretty darn silly thing, if you don't mind me saying. Of course moderators have to consider when a forum dedicated to a particular topic//game goes completely off-topic, but for a healthy discussion here or there such as this one it's just plain silly. Besides, Fifa might be a competitor, but if you take a truly closer look it isn't a head-to-head competitor at all. I know I'm repeating myself here, but I can't stretch enough how different the games are.

FM's focus is clearly on the actual football itself, the sports side of things, while Fifa lets you be the Jack Of All Trades (and probably master of everything) in control of every aspect of a club.

[Box]

Originally posted by Svenc:

know where you are comming from, thre are pleanty of game sites/forums that wont allow discussions about close competors.

A pretty darn silly thing, if you don't mind me saying. Of course moderators have to consider when a forum dedicated to a particular topic//game goes completely off-topic, but for a healthy discussion here or there such as this one it's just plain silly. Besides, Fifa might be a competitor, but if you take a truly closer look it isn't a head-to-head competitor at all. I know I'm repeating myself here, but I can't stretch enough how different the games are.

I completely agree, I was just saying that I know of quite a few forums, both gaming and non-gaming that don't allow reference to their closest competition.

[Dreaded Walrus]

Originally posted by Awet:

. Having a family nearly every manager has

Yes. They also brush their teeth each morning, and eat food. Do you suggest we should have to click a button to brush our teeth, or select what meal to eat, otherwise you die? It may be something that a real manager has to do, but it's completely separate from his football life.

Originally posted by Awet:

. building a stadium

The manager doesn't decide that kind of thing. That is down to the chairman.

Originally posted by Awet:

. 3d match lets you take a closer look at yout players

Almost every player on this forum feels that a 2D engine is better than a 3D engine at this moment in time.

Originally posted by Awet:

. Licensed teams nearly all the teams are licensed with player pictures

The money EA spends on all these licenses is insane, though. And if having photographs of players is important, the game can be modded with facepacks.

Originally posted by Awet:

. Having a closer relationship with the chairman

Yes, but not to the extent that you go golfing with him and beat him, and the chairman gets angry with you because of it, lowering your standing with him (happens in Fifa Manager 07). When was the last time you heard of a manager going through a rough patch with the board because he beat the chairman in golf?

[Hershie]

Originally posted by Dreaded Walrus:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Awet:

. Having a family nearly every manager has

Yes. They also brush their teeth each morning, and eat food. Do you suggest we should have to click a button to brush our teeth, or select what meal to eat, otherwise you die? It may be something that a real manager has to do, but it's completely separate from his football life.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hygiene Manager.

Your players could fall out with you because of your body odour. Would be like being in Jose Antonio Camacho's shoes.

[Svenc]

Originally posted by Dreaded Walrus:

The manager doesn't decide that kind of thing. That is down to the chairman.

It's funny, but once again it's all down to something so silly as semantics. Manager does not equal manager. In Germon footie, the term manager applies to a different job than it does in English footie. As said, it's not that Fifa necessarily restricts yourself to what your average Germon manager would do at a club (Jack Of All Trades calling all over), but you've got to understand where this game is coming from to get the full picture.

completely agree, I was just saying that I know of quite a few forums, both gaming and non-gaming that don't allow reference to their closest competition.

Yup!

[santy001]

At the end of the day, the management sim market is a 1 horse race at the moment. However, EA have buckets of money to throw at this until they get it right, and I'm sure quite a few people at SEGA & SI know, if EA hit it right then they will soon be in a dominant position in that niche.

TCM 2004 was a very good game, it showed a lot of potential and there was the extra features in case you felt like using them, but by 05 it went too far down that road, then the FIFA manager incarnation came about and they ended up ruining it quite quickly.

However, FM on the 360 is horrendous... not sure of the actual worth of that area, but EA can certainly dominate that with the ability to play your games on FIFA if you dont wish to simulate them.

[Dreaded Walrus]

Originally posted by Svenc:

It's funny, but once again it's all down to something so silly as semantics. Manager does not equal manager. In Germon footie, the term manager applies to a different job than it does in English footie. As said, it's not that Fifa necessarily restricts yourself to what your average Germon manager would do at a club (Jack Of All Trades calling all over), but you've got to understand where this game is coming from to get the full picture.

Oh, I certainly do. In fact, I once made a rather large post about my experiences with FIFA Manager 07 (which I cannot find at the moment - the thread may have been deleted - it was a very big FM v FIFAM thread). It is aiming for something very different to what Football Manager is. And, in many ways, it can be quite fun at times, but from the perspective of an Englishman, who wants to be in a role similar to what an English manager would do, FIFA Manager is only fun in a nonsensical, silly way. There's the ability to build stadiums to a ridiculous height (See here for the stadium I almost decided to build, which was an image I also used in the thread which appears to have been deleted), you can bring pretty much any player to any club so long as you have the money (I managed to convince Thierry Henry to join West Brom, though he didn't score as many as John Hartson, who got an average of three a game for me, before being sold for £100m in the following summer window), buy cars, castles in Scotland, Penthouses in Tokyo, and have fans of the team tell you they want to have your children. And so on. Most of them I can't remember now, as it's been a long time since I played it.

FifaM can be fun, but as you say, pretending they're "competitors" is silly. They're both completely different games, and it would be a stupid move if EA ever did decide to try and compete with FM in terms of realism and the manager's role as seen in the UK.

[goodzorr_avfc]

"You enjoy a good reputation"

That just doesn't sound right to me..

[Svenc]

@Dreaded Walrus: thanks for clarifying.

Originally posted by santy001:

At the end of the day, the management sim market is a 1 horse race at the moment. However, EA have buckets of money to throw at this until they get it right,

... which they won't do. I don't have any inights, and if somebody has, post 'em here. But Fifa Manager (or Fussball Manager, as the original game is called) has never been a series that's on the top priority list for EA anyway. Part of this might have to do with the fact that the series enjoys the bulk of its success in German speaking countries pretty much exclusively. Which could change, that's true.

Still, the signs of this being a "lesser" franchise for EA are all over the place: for the past three versions or so Bright Future, as the studio is now being called didn't even work together with EA Sports Canada anymore. EA has a sub division called Bright Future located in Germoney, Bright Future get the FIFA match engine, Bright Future develop the game, and that's it. To put it in simple terms.

Sure, to aquire licenses is costy, and well out of reach for a smaller development studio, but EA own all of 'em anyways, so that's not something they invest in for Fifa Manager only. But for other more popular series as well.

[Dreaded Walrus]

Originally posted by Svenc:

@Dreaded Walrus: thanks for clarifying.

(Just as an aside, it's "German" and "Germany" in English. )

(Just as a second aside, you can tell that FifaM isn't made by EA Vancouver as there's no chav music to appeal to the EA consumer here in the UK, and instead has one of the best collections of classical music I've ever heard in a game )

[Svenc]

Originally posted by Dreaded Walrus:

(Just as an aside, it's "German" and "Germany" in English. )

(Just as a second aside, you can tell that FifaM isn't made by EA Vancouver as there's no chav music to appeal to the EA consumer here in the UK, and instead has one of the best collections of classical music I've ever heard in a game )

I'm surprised my play on words went over your head. As for the music, not bad, not bad at all. The only EA Manager I own is Fussball Manager 03 (make that TCM 03, right!?), and that game's score wasn't all that hot.

I only tried the demo of 08 back then, but there was no music in there.. By the way, I've often thought that an option to play some music in FM (in-game) wouldn't be all that bad, not that hard on the CPU and easy to implement. But then silence is sexy as well, innit?

[santy001]

EA don't really bother with the management genre too much because it isn't worth it (at the moment at least). As for the FIFA v PES debate, arguing FIFA or PES is better is just ******** after the last 2 versions, quite frankly its like asking if you want your eyes gouged out with a spoon or a fork - both pathetic games.

EA will keep churning out a yearly management game so they have a foothold in the niche, if it ever becomes truly worthwhile, expect them to try to batter SI & SEGA out of the market for it lol.

[Awet]

Has anyone played PES manager?

I heard it was shocking!

[Sky]

Regens definitely need to be worked on because it's the WEAKEST area in FM by far, imo. In 2020 the level of football has declined so badly it's ridiculous. Also they need to take the Long Throws attribute out completely because it ruins regens by putting a high value there, and most of it doesn't make sense like giving it to strikers. Make it a PPM instead.