FM25 Release date (delayed till March 2025)

[whomario]

Delayed till next March, just a week after being announced for Nov26. I actually applaud the decision but that's a PR desaster. Also tricky going forward. A permanent March Release Date is not very attractive as it aligns much worse with the european football calendar but a 7-8 month gap to FM26 would be impossible.
(Pushing FM25 till september might have even been the better option imo, but the data situation would be tricky in terms of signings and transfers)

Football Manager 2025 delayed until March next year

[Ghost Econ]

I want to know Marc Vaughan's thoughts. I know he may not hold the same opinion, but the series has been struggling since Miles took the reigns.

[flere-imsaho]

Didn't Miles take the reigns in, like, 2000?

[RainMaker]

That's pretty brutal. Basically at the end of the European season. Almost think they'd be better off just doing a $20 roster update or something and waiting till next November for the next release.

[Arles]

Yeah, that's tough for them. I love the series and would gladly pay to support those guys, but I think they lose a lot of sales.

Of course, I'm not one who believes every game needs a yearly release - but get the economics behind it.

[Icy]

PR wise is a nightmare, to announce the release date for Nov, announce the roadmap and specially to take pre-orders and just two weeks later to postpone it to March is really pissing of the fan base who trusted them. We are not talking about a couple of weeks delay but many months, so why do you take preorders just before that announcement?

I’m just disappointed at the management of the situation. To delay it if it was not ready is the best decision and way better than to fully disappoint the clients with a bad product.

Imho it should be just canceled and work on FM26 to be released earlier than usual, Sept instead of Nov so you release it when the seasons start and everybody is supper hyped about football, like Fifa does. November is already too late and March is crazy, just two months before the Premier ends for example. Also, will they release FM25 in March and FM26 in Nov?

Just a cheap (or even free at least to these who preordered to calm thing down) database update as DLC in between FM24 and FM26 for the current season would be better. But I'm sure corporate decisions won't allow that, even the licenses with the biggest league probably force them to release a game per year.

I can't imagine what must be going on at SI offices. Huge hit that hope won't affect the future of SIGames as they have been giving me fun for more than 25 years since I started buying it every year, FM is a big part of my life. I also feel sorry for the development team that I'm sure have been working against the clock for long journeys and as for what I have been interacting with them in the last years I know that all the FM developers are also huge fans of the product and are now are taking lots of bullshit from the angry fans when it's not their fault how the whole situation has been managed.

Hope in March we will forget about this if they can release what we are all looking for, a good product as in the past but on a new engine that will allow FM to keep evolving without spaghetti code that I guess is the main issue to migrate to the Unity platform and that probably was also a nightmare to evolve and to solve old bugs and unbalance.

[GrantDawg]

I can imagine how tough coding the transition had to be, but the biggest black eye has to be taking pre-orders and then moving the release date month out. That has destroyed trust, and there is really no good way to defend that decision.

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[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by whomario

Delayed till next March, just a week after being announced for Nov26. I actually applaud the decision but that's a PR desaster. Also tricky going forward. A permanent March Release Date is not very attractive as it aligns much worse with the european football calendar but a 7-8 month gap to FM26 would be impossible.
(Pushing FM25 till september might have even been the better option imo, but the data situation would be tricky in terms of signings and transfers)

Football Manager 2025 delayed until March next year

It's not ideal,but given how much worse a bad release would've been this is a lot better than that and I don't think it's a decision they'd take lightly. I prefer a better game to one that's being rushed.

Originally Posted by Ghost Econ

I want to know Marc Vaughan's thoughts. I know he may not hold the same opinion, but the series has been struggling since Miles took the reigns.

Nobody is gonna publicly trash a colleague (aka their boss in this case) for a tough internal decision that surely had multiple complexities. The game sells extremely well, it will sell in March or whenever they release it the same way people buy Madden and EA Sports games no matter how bad they are and FM isn't ever as bad as those.

Text sim audiences are used to being more connected to the developers, but the idea that they should release a game every year is a little much anyway so I'm glad they're going off cycle for once.

[RainMaker]

So the new version is cutting back on the international management too according to the BBC article. Playing as a national team was always one of my favorite ways to play.

[Mota]

Originally Posted by Icy

PR wise is a nightmare, to announce the release date for Nov, announce the roadmap and specially to take pre-orders and just two weeks later to postpone it to March is really pissing of the fan base who trusted them. We are not talking about a couple of weeks delay but many months, so why do you take preorders just before that announcement?

I’m just disappointed at the management of the situation. To delay it if it was not ready is the best decision and way better than to fully disappoint the clients with a bad product.

Imho it should be just canceled and work on FM26 to be released earlier than usual, Sept instead of Nov so you release it when the seasons start and everybody is supper hyped about football, like Fifa does. November is already too late and March is crazy, just two months before the Premier ends for example. Also, will they release FM25 in March and FM26 in Nov?

Just a cheap (or even free at least to these who preordered to calm thing down) database update as DLC in between FM24 and FM26 for the current season would be better. But I'm sure corporate decisions won't allow that, even the licenses with the biggest league probably force them to release a game per year.

I can't imagine what must be going on at SI offices. Huge hit that hope won't affect the future of SIGames as they have been giving me fun for more than 25 years since I started buying it every year, FM is a big part of my life. I also feel sorry for the development team that I'm sure have been working against the clock for long journeys and as for what I have been interacting with them in the last years I know that all the FM developers are also huge fans of the product and are now are taking lots of bullshit from the angry fans when it's not their fault how the whole situation has been managed.

Hope in March we will forget about this if they can release what we are all looking for, a good product as in the past but on a new engine that will allow FM to keep evolving without spaghetti code that I guess is the main issue to migrate to the Unity platform and that probably was also a nightmare to evolve and to solve old bugs and unbalance.

I understand their situation though. I work in the industry, and they are big teams. You have roadmaps to follow, and sales and marketing teams working plans 6 months in advance. The dev team at a certain point agrees that this plan works, and everybody else plans around these dates, until one day they realize it doesn't work. The situation really sucks, especially when you're working on a yearly product.

[Arles]

I do think there was a discussion to just do a small update with new rosters and a few key upgrades from 24 (and charge $20). Then they could release FM26 in August and get a ton of sales. Instead they went a release in March and then another next November(?). I get the finances ($20 vs $45), but I really wonder the sales they lose by a March release. Plus, getting back to a release in August is better moving forward.