EA Sports and football management sims

[Farrah Whitworth-Rahn]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

Is this true?

Yes.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Farrah Whitworth-Rahn

Yes.

Is that a legitimate 'yes'?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

Is that a legitimate 'yes'?

So far, I've gotten a PM from a believable source confirming it, and that link I posted sure would indicate it, too.

[Farrah Whitworth-Rahn]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

Is that a legitimate 'yes'?

Yes. It is a confirmation that it is legit.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Farrah Whitworth-Rahn

Yes. It is a confirmation that it is legit.

Next question. What are you wearing?

[TLK]

It actually seems like a perfect match.....

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

So far, I've gotten a PM from a believable source confirming it, and that link I posted sure would indicate it, too.

Both of my queries have been in jest. I trust what you've found.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by TheLionKing

It actually seems like a perfect match.....

OK, I must admit that my first thought was, "they deserve each other."

But maybe, just maybe, having someone with experience in the genre might help out.

Maybe?

[Farrah Whitworth-Rahn]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

Next question. What are you wearing?

a mumu

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Farrah Whitworth-Rahn

a mumu

Excellent! Do you have a bonnet to go with your mumu?

[I. J. Reilly]

Originally Posted by Mac Howard

It's a seductive idea, GoldenEagle, but I can tell you it's completely wrong.

Is this still true in the internet era? It seems like google would level the playing field a little bit.

[Mac Howard]

Originally Posted by I. J. Reilly

Is this still true in the internet era? It seems like google would level the playing field a little bit.

That was always the argument for the Internet (and why I moved there in 1999) but the reality is very different. First there is the problem of being found - you are a very small needle in a very big haystack and Google ranks you on the number of links to your site which will be way down on other mainstream publishers. Second, because of security concerns over the Internet, people are VERY reluctant to hand over their credit card details to an unknown company. So, no matter how much someone may want your game, they will baulk at posting their cc details to someone they know nothing about. You could be a crook operating from China

My best (snail) mail order day is still better than my best week on the Internet

[Marc Vaughan]

I'm the only independant left - mainly because I don't go head to head with the mainstream product but go for a different simulation model which leads to a more challenging game. The others were wiped out one after another.

There are a lot more of you hanging on than you think Mac ... off the top of my head ...

http://www.supersoccermanager.com/game.html
http://www.teammanager2005.com/
(there are around 40 such games which I know of - strangely a lot of them are American developers)

and then there are a few open source games which are starting to take shape such as:

http://bygfoot.sourceforge.net/

The simple truth is that an individual designer simply cannot compete with a game that is expensively marketed and available in the stores no matter what the superiority. Some people, the FOF crowd are probably a good example, will make their own decisions and go with what they see as the best - I survive today on such people. But the mainstream won't give a damn about the quality of the game particularly if that quality requires much effort from the gamer to take advantage of it.

I agree to a certain extent - but also personally think that if a game is good enough then it'll do well (take it as a compliment Mac, you've been doing well enough to keep the game going for many years now).

There are numerous sudden hits in the games industry with small marketing such as Doom (when it originally came out), Uplink etc. ...

I do agree with you that competing against commercial games is hard and the management genre is probably one of the hardest, simply because of the nature of the product and the critical analysis which such games recieve generally however.

I believe that EA releasing a management sim could be very good for FOF, especially if Jim plays his cards right - people are becoming more and more open to online purchases these days and with the right support (notably getting the game covermounted on magazine CD's where possible) I think it could raise FOF's profile considerably.

PS> While not a 'perfect' purchase system by any means Jim (we've had our fair share of problems with it when SI have used it) - Softwrap do offer support for games which release using it to get them covermounted on games magazines ... this might be something worth looking at?

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

PS> While not a 'perfect' purchase system by any means Jim (we've had our fair share of problems with it when SI have used it) - Softwrap do offer support for games which release using it to get them covermounted on games magazines ... this might be something worth looking at?

You can't be bloody serious. You do maintain that it isn't a perfect purchase system, but Softwrap deserves much worse. Never ever.. ever ever ever ever ever ever ever have I ever been so offended by a company's support. Softwrap makes Digital River look like Daisy Dukes. I guarantee the FOFC lynch mob would make an appearance at some point should the Brit company become intertwined with Solecismic.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

I guarantee the FOFC lynch mob would make an appearance at some point should the Brit company become intertwined with Solecismic.

{Gathering more kerosene and wood.}

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

You can't be bloody serious. You do maintain that it isn't a perfect purchase system, but Softwrap deserves much worse. Never ever.. ever ever ever ever ever ever ever have I ever been so offended by a company's support. Softwrap makes Digital River look like Daisy Dukes. I guarantee the FOFC lynch mob would make an appearance at some point should the Brit company become intertwined with Solecismic.

As I indicated earlier its not a 'perfect' system by any stretch - however what I was trying to show was that its possible for an independant developer to get mainstream coverage (ie. PC Mags etc.) by teaming up with another company.

While I personally think that e-licence is more accepted by the online sports-sim community they don't (to my knowledge) help with getting games released through it covermounted etc. - Softwrap do, having the game on a magazine with a distribution of (for example) a several hundred thousand people can only be good for the game even if only 1% of people give it a whirl (and bear in mind that if Jim did take this route it wouldn't prohibit him continuing to utilise e-licence for download sales).

[Gallifrey]

Originally Posted by General Mike

EA will fuck it up.

I always wondered, in all the 10 straight versions of Madden that I bought and played, if EA had any real football people working on the project or if they just told a programmer, 'your off that baseball sim where everyone hits 50 home runs and now your on Madden. Make the players look unrealistic.'

I held onto the faith far too long. After an online game where I had a guy snap the ball with multible players in motion and my defense AI of course didn't know what to do, he scored, no flags for the illegal shift...

I have no belief at all that the gameplay will mirror reality.

[Ajaxab]

Originally Posted by Gallifrey

I held onto the faith far too long. After an online game where I had a guy snap the ball with multible players in motion and my defense AI of course didn't know what to do, he scored, no flags for the illegal shift...

It's the secret CFL online mode.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by Gallifrey

I always wondered, in all the 10 straight versions of Madden that I bought and played, if EA had any real football people working on the project or if they just told a programmer, 'your off that baseball sim where everyone hits 50 home runs and now your on Madden. Make the players look unrealistic.'

I held onto the faith far too long. After an online game where I had a guy snap the ball with multible players in motion and my defense AI of course didn't know what to do, he scored, no flags for the illegal shift...

I have no belief at all that the gameplay will mirror reality.

Sounds like you got pwned.