Sports Sim discussion - how to incorporate money issues?

[QuikSand]

Given this forum, I thought this might be an interesting global discussion.

We all (presumably) play or have played sports management sim games. FOF, or the many others discussed here variously. So, we all have that foundation.

My impression is that it typically seems like the "outside stuff" of these games is an imperfect fit. Using FOF as a frame of reference, I'm thinking about stuff like stadium-building and ticket-pricing, which all leads to a financial bottom line, which then translates to capital for acquiring staff. This isn't terrible, but it doesn't feel quite right to me. But I don't think I've ever played a game where it did.

What do we think here? Is there a sweet spot for financial stuff in this sort of game? What sort of things do we want to be managing in this genre of game?

[whomario]

Hmm, interesting.

As aside, i find that english/american games tend to treat these issues much more basic than german ones. Make of that what you will But in all seriousness, the main football manager games played in Germany during the 90s/00s (EA FIFA Manager and Anstoss) concentrated heavily on aspects of infrastructure and marketing, letting the player micromanage a lot of aspects down to setting up how many kits or even coffee mugs to order/produce for sale, setting up special events to gain fans or building a host of buildings from Fan Shops to Indoor Practice Fields.
Same goes for manually getting to select sponsors and the like.

Whereas FM basically has all that happen in the background with no input possible from the player other than begging for a stadium expansion or better training facilities (without specifying what is actually improved).


I think for American Sports it makes sense to keep it basic, because the salaray caps limits the money being used for players and having an owner footing the bill (rather than being a corporation or Club) kinda, in the mind of the average player, takes away the need for correct finances.

[Maple Leafs]

Personally, I've never been all that interesting micromanaging money. Wasn't there a game at one point where you were supposed to set prices for hot dogs and beer? I can't imagine that being fun. Even doing ticket prices for different levels in FOF was pushing it for me.

That said, I do like the idea of having a big picture concept of franchise success. I did like the way FOF treated the quest for a new stadium. It's like another level to shoot for -- you want to win a bunch of titles, but you can also try to become the Yankees or Cowboys or whoever of the league. That's fun, especially if you start with a smaller market.

So for me, the sweet spot is pretty far to one side of the spectrum. I don't want to do all that much, especially if I'm forced to pay attention and can't just go with a default setting. But I'm not quite as far as "no finances at all".

[Carman Bulldog]

I'm kind of in a similar boat to Maple Leafs. I like the existence of financials, budgets, etc. But at the GM, I want those numbers to be set for me and not having to manage anything such as ticket prices, etc.

Have the owner/president give me my budget. Perhaps if the team is having a very good season (in a sport like baseball/hockey/basketball), the owner opens the purse strings a bit to take on a rental player near the trade deadline.

Too many losing seasons (in a city with average or poor fan support) should result in reduced budgets. Winning seasons or good fan support should increase the budget. Long playoff runs should also potentially increase the budget due to the increased playoff revenue.

An increased/decreased budget can potentially affect both roster payroll and/or staffing and scouting.

[stevew]

You'd have to have an actual cap based on something in a game like FOF. It's kinda just out there floating in the wind, going up by 6-8M a year. So if players get 50%, what's the actual league-wide revenue and how are we chopping that up? Your owner would have to say, we got X available to spend on bonus's this year, and there would have to be some sort of accountability. Like you spent X million on this player and you want to cut him and the owner tells you hell nah.

I don't even care about setting ticket prices, etc, that should be essentially out of your control as the GM.

Plus you should get emails like, "we can't afford to re-sign Khalil Mack, you should trade him" and then you can either listen to the owner or risk getting the boot.

[GoldenCrest Games]

There was a football sim waaaay back that used your cash on hand as a signing bonus pool for players. You got cash from home games, which took into account all those things like ticket price, concessions, merch, etc. Most of your money was from your team popularity during home games, but you could get like an extra 10% or so from managing the outside stuff really well.

I remember hating it when I first started, but I eventually started paying close attention. Before long, I was concentrating on it and measuring it against all the other franchises to try and gain an extra advantage. That system ended up working pretty well.

[digamma]

If the goal of the game is to "win championships," then don't we have to admit that the financials just don't matter that much in salary cap sports?

Am I really supposed to believe that ticket prices or the price of concessions affects how much I would spend on a coach? Maybe. But because I enter with this bias, I tend to view the financials as somewhat contrived and totally ancillary to my game experience. Now, I know this isn't much different than finding a way to incorporate chemistry and doing it through a zodiac color wheel and to each his own (ducks and covers).

Baseball or college sports would be the sweet spot for integrating a financial model that really affects game play. You see this a little in recruiting budgets and things like that. Turn of the century Baseball Mogul actually had different levers that you could pull that were simple but had a nice impact on game play.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by digamma

If the goal of the game is to "win championships," then don't we have to admit that the financials just don't matter that much in salary cap sports?

Am I really supposed to believe that ticket prices or the price of concessions affects how much I would spend on a coach? Maybe. But because I enter with this bias, I tend to view the financials as somewhat contrived and totally ancillary to my game experience. Now, I know this isn't much different than finding a way to incorporate chemistry and doing it through a zodiac color wheel and to each his own (ducks and covers).

Baseball or college sports would be the sweet spot for integrating a financial model that really affects game play. You see this a little in recruiting budgets and things like that. Turn of the century Baseball Mogul actually had different levers that you could pull that were simple but had a nice impact on game play.

I dunno, feels like college sports are mostly also things that are out of your control - can you control anything other than how you fill your stadium based on results on the field? I think things like wealthy alumni and boosters are well out of the scope of a sport sim.

I think FM as usual does this as well as you can probably do it in a game, and I think Whomario sold it a bit short. Yes you are going to your board for requests, but you also have control over selling players, how much of that money goes back into various areas, wages/bonuses etc... I can't really think of much more a soccer manager sim should be doing. The last thing I want to be doing on top of all the other stuff I have to do in FM is setting ticket prices and determining how many mugs with my club logo on to sell in the shop.

Ultimately I'd come agree with you that unless we're playing a game where you are the owner (which would be an intriguing game) a lot of this stuff falls outside of the scope of the sim. Whether it's a salary cap sport or not.

[Carman Bulldog]

Yeah, I remember the FM Handheld from a few years ago did this well now that you mention it. Options were quite limited but it was still there IIRC. How well you projected the team to do could also impact your budget (but also increased owner expectations - or was this OOTP? ).

That's all I really need. And I don't agree it's a moot point in a salary cap league. A lot of teams spend closer to the floor than the cap, and that's often based on ownership and market. However, if you are a small market team with a real shot at a championship, then the owners are probably more likely to increase the spending budget.

[Young Drachma]

Belated bump, but I think about this topic a lot and spent a lot of time trying to create things outside of OOTP to make the game work better for my brain w/r/t financials and having them have some kind of impact (constraint) on how you play.

But Digamma's point that the finances don't really matter is probably right. In real life, they matter because it's about how much an owner wants to spend, whereas the other stuff doesn't have much impact. That said if you're playing in Milwaukee, it's probably going to be harder to compete than if you're in New York all things being equal.

OOTP tries to use the owner emails as a way to influence you and to constrain budgets, I suspect people might play that way but if you're just a commish player looking to get high on signing players, etc., none of that will matter.

[Gary Gorski]

I tried to do something different in this year's DDS:PB. Assuming you're playing in challenge mode and not sandbox mode your owner gives you a budget now and also a little direction on the roster (such as telling you he is happy having player X or wants you to go get a big name player). You as the GM can ignore these things but you do so at your own peril as ownership will hold it against you when it comes time to evaluate at the end of the season.

I don't bother with ticket prices and scheduling promotions or that kind of stuff - I would think that's someone else's job in the organization and not the GM but it's the first step towards doing something like what was mentioned above where ownership could say look I don't know how you're going to pay so and so next season so you better make some moves now.

[Marc Vaughan]

I think a lot depends on what you're planning to do and your target audience - I've taken different approaches with different products and will continue to do so in the future I'm sure.

Full-fat FM has always tried to fully simulate the finances of soccer and as such is very complex, but while all is visible very little is actively within the users control (as in real-life).

FM Mobile on the other hand gives only a very brief overview of things to the user, basically the budgets that they utilise themselves in their job - the rest is left totally opaque on purpose because I don't want them worrying about such things ... its meant to be a faster and more fun experience than full-fat.

(for different markets/game styles I might give more controls to the user and apply more of a 'sim-city' style approach with income/building up facilities etc. ... but it is entirely up to the game designer what they're aiming to achieve tbh, I don't think that any approach is 'better' than another - each will appeal to a slightly different audience is all)