The Death of Sports Text Sims (and imagining a better future)

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by corbes

Do kids still play endless hours of solo wiffeball in their own yard whilst playing out imaginary sports league seasons in their own heads and keeping track of the "results"?

I think there is an app for that.

[MikeVic]

I really enjoyed iOOTP and FM hand held or whatever that version is called. I tried FM on computer and was overwhelmed by it. Same with OOTP.

Is it true that FM classic mode would maybe play as simplistic as the hand held version?

[Sebastian Palkowski]

By any chance, do you have the Home-Button of your device on the left side? If yes (if you still have the App), could you try again with changing the direction of the device so the Home Button is on the right side and see, if that improves the button responsibility?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I tried iOOTP, the biggest issue was lag in the UI. Press a button, no response, keep jamming it, all of a sudden it advances. That drove me nuts and I stopped. Otherwise, the UI was decent with key info, but information was limited on each screen so there was a lot of back-and-forth.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by corbes

Do kids still play endless hours of solo wiffeball in their own yard whilst playing out imaginary sports league seasons in their own heads and keeping track of the "results"?

I've never even heard of that until this post. Maybe it's just you?

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by corbes

Do kids still play endless hours of solo wiffeball in their own yard whilst playing out imaginary sports league seasons in their own heads and keeping track of the "results"?

Not wiffleball, but I can promise that my son has done and still does exactly this with both basketball and soccer. He also used his matchbox cars (until he finally outgrew them about 6 months ago) to run entire seasons of NASCAR. We have pages and pages of results tables around here somewhere still.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

For a basic example, how many players who don't read this board do you think know you can right-click a player to change their active status?

Wait...what?

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by MikeVic

Is it true that FM classic mode would maybe play as simplistic as the hand held version?

Classic is 'full-fat' FM slimmed down a little, its far less complicated than full-fat but not as forgiving/handholding for a new comer as FMH.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Illini Boy

However, FOF and FBCB do not have that massive brand, thus their market is relativity small. In the plethora of PC games being created now a days, text-sims need something to get people's attention. "New-age" text developers will have to think of an idea to have their game stand out and be known.

I disagree that people need to think of a 'new' idea - what you need to break into the mainstream release a product with consistent quality and decent presentation with some reasonable PR.

OOTP have been doing this and are slowly building their fanbase and influence in a similar manner to how SI/CM/FM did in our early days which is awesome to see

I think that others can follow suit in their wake in perhaps an easier way once they break into the mainstream (they're still a 'way' off from that but it'll happen at some point I'm certain).

Personally, the online aspect of text-sims has greater potential as society moves more into the social media and everybody is connected age. Why play against hundreds of AI's when you can play (and talk trash) to hundreds of actual competitors. Combine that with more graphics, a quick, easy UI, and the ability to work with mobile/tablets and success may be found. But who knows without any research?

Online text-sims have their own unique set of issues and problems - if you want to discuss them then by all means drop me a line, I've been through the mill a few times in this regard and might be able to help you avoid falling into some of the more obvious pits.

It might also be worthwhile you reading up on "Football Manager Online" if you're serious about developing your own sim (it'll require you to persevere a little though as its a Korean only title* - Online gaming in Korea is huge).

*Not 'live' yet although several public beta's have been run, it'll go live later this year.

[Danny]

I'd still likely get hooked on a text sim if something new and fresh came out for one of my two favorite sports (Football and Hockey). FOF is a great game, but I lost interest after playing it a bit as it's just more of the same.

An FM style game for Football or Hockey I would love. Shame EHM folded before really getting good.

[Mota]

Originally Posted by Danny

Im not talking about people who are already into text sims. A casual person who might like football, but has never played a text sim is not going to drop $40 on FOF. if it was 9.99, they might go for it and see if they like it

Paradox have been big proponents of multiple price points and embracing the Steam "sale" model.

They have said there isn't a single price point that is right. Everybody has a different price point, and coordinating the launch and cycles of the product lifecycle lets them reach as many of these different customers as possible.

[Mota]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I disagree that people need to think of a 'new' idea - what you need to break into the mainstream release a product with consistent quality and decent presentation with some reasonable PR.

A lot of hype is in releasing a yearly product as well, I believe. Look at the most successful "text" sims, OOTP and FM, they both release their games on a yearly cycle, and start the hype engine a few months before this to get people excited. We're programmed to want the games.

Also I think new devs should try to shed the "text" from text sims. Look at the successful games, the ratio of graphics / text is changing a lot. These products present themselves quite nicely and are attractive. It's not a wall of text like it used to be. The moment I say text sim, most people are instantly tuning out because of the picture it paints in their mind.

I do think that graphics are necessary in order to be successful now. Facegen is really cool. Even just X's and O's moving around on a screen to depict the results of a play would mean a lot. As the Madden's add more depth to their simulation, it's also really important for the sim guys to be adding more to their games and keep possession of their own slice before they get totally eaten up.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

Classic is 'full-fat' FM slimmed down a little, its far less complicated than full-fat but not as forgiving/handholding for a new comer as FMH.

To me, having played both, I'd say that FM Classic still requires that you have at least a passing knowledge of soccer, while you could play FM Handheld and enjoy it if you only heard of soccer starting with this year's World Cup.

[Karim]

What FM is missing is a true "General Manager" mode, but that doesn't seem to be a real position in soccer. Rather than have to come up with match plans, why can't I let a "Head Coach" do this and I just work on getting the right players into the squad?

Not having this means you have to be the Manager which means even in FM Classic, you need to understand tactics.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Karim

What FM is missing is a true "General Manager" mode, but that doesn't seem to be a real position in soccer. Rather than have to come up with match plans, why can't I let a "Head Coach" do this and I just work on getting the right players into the squad?

Not having this means you have to be the Manager which means even in FM Classic, you need to understand tactics.

I don't disagree, but what I would say is that FMC, while requiring a lot less knowledge than FM, still requires, for instance, at least a basic understanding of tactics. In FMH, on the other hand, you should be able to enjoy yourself just fine without knowing tactics (as long as you don't do something that's obviously not going to work).

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Karim

What FM is missing is a true "General Manager" mode, but that doesn't seem to be a real position in soccer. Rather than have to come up with match plans, why can't I let a "Head Coach" do this and I just work on getting the right players into the squad?

Not having this means you have to be the Manager which means even in FM Classic, you need to understand tactics.

Same. I'd love to be able to just hire a coach and fire a coach. Just let me be team president or owner or whatever, let me manage at a high level and be done with it. I don't care about tactics, though I do like having the ability to find out what schemes they're running, etc.

I think having preset tactics that you can preload helps A TON. Single handedly the most underrated addition to OOTP this year were the manager profiles that were added after years of that feature sort of going to waste since most people do not have the time to bother with such shenanigans.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Death of text sports sims?

I am not so sure...

Let's do a comparison of active text sport sims and console games:

Console Football: Madden , NCAA Football(2)
Text Sim football:Front office football/second and ten/action pc football/pro strategy football/pro football simulator (5)

Console baseball: MLB Show (1)
Text Sim baseball: OOTP/puresim/baseball mogul/action pc baseball/strat-o-matic (5)

Console Basketball: Nba 2k/Nba Live (2)
Text sim basketball: Fast break basketball/fast break college basketball/draft day sports basketball/draft day sports college basketball/action pc basketball (5)

This is far from a complete list, so I wouldn't go so far to say the text sim market is thriving, but clearly it is far from dying. Each sport (I don't pay attention to hockey or soccer) has multiple options and more options than consoles. Now whether you like the games, well that is a different story

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

And also come to think of it that isn't including online options like whatifsports and a bunch of ios games. Text sim genre is definitely not dying and the argument can be made its thriving especially when compared to the console side of things.

[Young Drachma]

Text Games in a New Era of Stories

[Young Drachma]

This is far from a complete list, so I wouldn't go so far to say the text sim market is thriving, but clearly it is far from dying. Each sport (I don't pay attention to hockey or soccer) has multiple options and more options than consoles. Now whether you like the games, well that is a different story

Are they attracting new people? Or the same people, though? That's the real question. Are we bringing in new people? Over here, no. Over in OOTP land and stuff, sure. FM, absolutely. But it was less about the death -- the heading is just to get your attention -- and rather about the future and what it ought to look like.