Podcast Interview with Jim Gindin
 

The interview with Jim starts at the 19:44 mark. Some highlights include...

• "I think there's gonna be a minor maintenance update coming in the next month or so." (20:20) (This is referenced again at around 37:30.)
  
• Discussion of the Football Frontier ranking system and BCS computer rankings
  
• On the card game--"It was just a fun experiment, probably not something I'm gonna do again, but I enjoyed it." (32:43)
  
• Regarding delivery systems for games--"Certainly for the multiplayer community, web-based is absolutely the future." (33:38)
  
• "I know people are anxious. I have not taken another job in another field entirely. This is still my focus, so even though I haven't been actively working on Front Office Football, it's still the future." (50:08)

LINK

•"For years I worked with that Bell jar stuck on my left hand. I called myself 'Jim Gindin - One Armed Coder' like the dude from Def Leppard. THEY ROCK!!! Then late one night I saw this add for a Jar Glove. That was a disapointing dead end. One day it, the Bell jar, just fell off and my pale clammy finger were free. This is my metaphore for life." (57:21)

Here comes the crying over no new game, again, with a comment like that above. I will see what the update does for the game I guess. Maybe is gets me to hold onto my last MP league for another year.

I hope Grey Dog and Wolverine are reading this. This is called a market opportunity, this is called a void in the marketplace. Get your game out this year and there is no competition.

I am just hoping for a new game at some point.

Nogram

Yeah, if you're looking for anything major in the podcast, you'll be a little disappointed.

Is there any indication that Grey Dog or Wolverine are anywhere near a new release? I haven't checked either board in a few weeks, but last I looked, everything I saw indicated that I shouldn't expect anything at all in 2009 out of either. Has something changed recently?

Hello Front Office Curling!

Well, that last statement doesn't rule out TCY2 completely, does it?

I'd focus more on "I have not taken another job in another job in another field ENTIRELY" if I was the sort to do that type of thing, and venture a guess that that means that Jim has returned to the workforce and thus the development cycle has slowed.

Which is fine by me. Gotta do what you gotta do. I came as a result of the FOF, but I've stuck around since then for other reasons.

We lost our coder a couple weeks back and have actively been looking for someone to grab the reins. We do have a possibility of one person but we'll wait to see. I've been trying to get this game done for 3 years so as much as people want it out, I want it MORE. :)
Hopefully we can make it by the draft next year.

Translation: "You'll get a roster update this year and like it."

Guess I might as well add to the fray here - just got finished talking it over with someone and we've got a new guy on the job! Hopefully he works out and helps get the FB game rolling for us.

Translation: "I have taken another job in another field entirely. Also, I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Wait, Monica Lewinsky was a woman? :eek:

So 4 years at least without a new game, that'll be the longest gap yet. I don't fault him, this seems like a dieing genre and maybe its not the best business project for real talent at this point.

It's nice though, to know not to expect something this fall. Not sure why that's a huge secret here, but not to sportsgamerblog.com, but its nice to know.

I also don't understand why it's apparently now considered poor form, even in the FOF subforum, to speculate about the future of this franchise.

because the OTDJ said so?

I would love to see a new FOF, or even a TCY2, but I am not holding my breath for it either. As DT said, I came here for FOF, but stayed for other reasons.

Hmmm. Not exactly encouraging for those of us who are dying to see a TCY2.

I wonder if Jim has ever considered teaming up with Scout.com or Rivals.com to brand a new TCY as a means of expanding his market?

Can you tell us anything about the prospects of graphics? 2d? 3d match engine? straight text? depends on...

Huh, whaddyaknow - all the noob whining did actually have an effect in the end despite the advice of the vets!

It did? He didn't actually tell us anything...

Nobody said it was poor form, did they? Most of the comments have been more along the lines of "why whine about the lack of info, he's done this for 11 years, why do you think he'd suddenly change?"

"Whining about lack of info" is not the same as "speculate about the future of this franchise".

That's my point, if you speculate about the future of the franchise you're called a whiner. Or at least are mocked for beating a dead horse.

And yes, there's been plenty of threads on this, but it just seems like its weird to attack whatever interest remains in these games here.

Just my observation going through those threads today.

You missed the point completely. It's the whining about Jim not talking about it that's mocked, not the whining about if there will ever be one.

He already did, with TCY and Rivals.

Did he? Was there a tie-in to Rivals in his recruiting database or something? I don't recall there being much promotion (if any) of his game at Rivals, which was what I was suggesting - if he could get advertising on their sites (or Scout.com's) it could do wonders for expanding his TCY audience.

Minor update, no new features, looking at other opportunities, no plans for anything............. great marketing Jim, but at least we got an answer.

Come on Grey Dog or Wolverine get your game out, something tells me you may a fair few new customers coming your way.

I'm just throwing this out there, but if the dominant product in this market isn't profitable enough to cover Jim's opportunity cost every few years, well, maybe Grey Dog and Wolverine should take a cold shower and think things through. *ducks*

I'm unabashed Jim Gindin homer, so take this fwiw. Personally, I can see the glass as being half-full for this reason.

Starting with the first version of FOF, each successive version was for better or for worse and "EA-style" update. Maybe a few new features here and there, some major tweaks under the engine there. I believe there was only one rewrite of the game from the ground up over all the years.

When Jim began working on 1997 he's often said he tried to forget everything he ever knew about football and tried to learn it from scratch. From reading Jim's writings on Football Frontier and here, it's clear to me that Jim's knowledge and understanding of the numbers of football are far greater than they were 10 years. The time he has taken away from FOF to me will lead to a good thing because I think when he returns to the game he will bring a different approach that he had in 2006. I'm frankly more excited about FOF 2011 than I would have been for an FOF 2008 and FOF 2009. Heck, Jim has essentially given us for free what EA charges us $60 for -- a roster upgrade and a few new bells and whistles.

I'm as anxious as the next person to see Jim's next game because I think it will be a winner. But I think the longer wait will lead to a bigger pay off down the road.

That said, I never discount a Solecismic release -- as a wise man once said, the next FOF release will come like a thief in the night. ;)

I did learn from the podcast that I'd been mispronouncing "Solecismic" for years now.

Hard to make that pay off really.

Although Rivals doesn't seem to have their network rate card online, I found Purdue's site (goldandblack.com) rates listed at $800/month for a combo of a front page tile & spots on their four main msg boards. UTsports.com for Tennessee goes for $20 cpm & with their traffic you're going to need at least 20k impressions a month to make even a tiny impression, so that's $4000 per month for that site alone. That's a hell of a lot of games to sell to break even on the ad budget.

There are good reasons you don't see text sims running too many ads on major websites.

I guess my thinking was seeing whether Rivals.com or Scout.com would find any value in putting their name in the game, i.e. in exchange for some amount of free advertising of the game on their network.

Football Mogul 2010 comes out Sept 9!

To suggest that speculation about the future of this franchise is allowed is disingenuous. Any speculation that suggests a negative outlook for the game and/or company is simply not tolerated.

That said, the statements:

"I have not taken another job in another field entirely."

and

"I haven't been actively working on Front Office Football"

Are very interesting. Sounds like there has been some other work. Not entirely would seem to indicate he has not taken a full time job elsewhere.

Like I posted in the another "locked and forbidden" thread, I just think it's good business to tell your fan base [which now hangs out on your message boards for Alizee photos and trout humor] either A: Go home, losers, there's nothing to see here or B: Yeah, I'm working on an update for FOF/TCY but don't ask when it will be done I have no timetable. I'll update you on progress every three months.

Why the shroud of secrecy? Why the bashing from the FOFC "Elite" when somebody with a genuine interest in the product inquires about its future? This approach seems, at best, counter-productive and, at worst, like utter douchebaggery.

That's true, I think that's what I was trying to hit on.

If you post about the inactivity of this company, the reponse is usually along the lines of "stop freaking out! (even if there's no freaking out). There's been less time since the last game then there was between the prior two!"

I think maybe they misinterpret commentary about the company's inactivity as personal criticism towards the company.

I locked the thread because what I and others had been pointing out as obvious was confirmed: Solecismic isn't dead. There was nothing more to be said about the original question asked. And it was time for the discussion to move into a new thread regarding the podcast.

FOFC is not Jim's message board....and Jim doesn't think it's good business. After all these years of people whining about what Jim has stated repeatedly is a conscious business decision, I've just grown tired of the same ol' whining. (And again, for the umpteen jillionth time, I don't particularly agree with the wisdom of said decision in many cases, but it ain't my business.) Plus, virtually every single time (as was true in the thread in question) these threads are filled with complete disinformation.

Answered in the podcast by Jim for, oh, the umpteen jillionth time.

Answered...

Maybe we should sticky the closed thread in the FOF discussion subforum so people can readily see the latest update.

Doesn't even compare with FOF. Baseball Mogul has been decent, but Football Mogul has not impressed in many years. At least imho.

To you (and others) it is obvious that Solecismic and FOF aren't dead from the podcast.

To me (and others) there is more reason than ever in that podcast to believe that it may be.

But, only one of those sides will be allowed to express their opinion.

And, I am in no way whining (about the delay, anyway) I have long since stopped playing FOF, so don't really care if there is another release or not. But, I find the conversation interesting. Sadly, it won't be allowed to happen.

The only interesting thing to me about those threads is that they are started by people too new to have seen the same exact thread's cycle play out just a few months before. Which seems to imply FOF keeps drawing enough new people in, even at this stage, for there to be a sizable portion of posters showing up here that think Ben works for Jim, these are the official forums, and that there might be an annual new release.

As far as your other point, I'm not sure what you're looking for. You want to have a conversation that centers on your speculation that Solecismic is dead? I think this is your thread. My guess is Ben would rather have that discussion taking place where people could also listen to Jim's speculation on the company's future.

I'm not sure why Clay hasn't put some serious resources into FBM because there is a lot less competition compated to BBM. But year after year FMB is a major disappointment.

That's why I don't get the annoyance and frustration expressed at these posters.

I'd guess that we're not going to see another game from the company as it's currently structured. I could see a sale or some kind of joint venture. Hopefully someone else can surpass it and become "the" football sim franchise. But I'm thinking its still going to be the best football text sim out there 4-5 years from now.

It's a bad sign to be that text sims aren't really improving. Computer/video games genres pretty much always show dramatic improvement in a short period of time. It doesn't seem like we've advanced all that much in the last 5, even 10 years. Except adding "features".

The truth of the matter is that I find Alizee overrated.

I plan a press conference later this week where I'll attempt to define the word "entirely."

*chuckle*

we'll hold you to that

Gotta love the smugness of the designer and board HNIC towards the fanbase.

Many of us have bought everything this company has ever put out. And there just seems to be this disdain towards us (But especially to new posters who have questions about the franchise).

My chuckle there was not intended to be smug. Jim just cracks me up sometimes.

If I remember correctly you mentioned in the pod cast that us gamers don't understand and can't see some of the stuff that’s going on within the game engine and therefore don't or can't see the true depth of the game. I understand why you've done this but for us gamers it's almost pointless, so as it seems your not working on anything in-depth right now how about explaining some of these features in the 20 question thing you used to do with Ben, please. This would be a massive benefit to everyone out there and maybe spark a few more sales!!!

Is this something you feel you would be happy to resurrect?

Welcome to Hollywood.