How we're introducing women's football into Football Manager

[bazhsw]

Just now, gam945 said:

 

I call this a political agenda.

I call this basic human decency

[bazhsw]

And I won't post much more in this thread because minds can't be changed when one has a closed position, but if someone is this upset about 'politics' in Football Manager, then I hate to break the news about the influence of politics in football in the real world....

[Tony Wright 747]

23 minutes ago, roykela said:

My sister watches football and played football. My mother watches football and was my "director of football" (that's what the equivalent would've been) when i was coaching a girl's team for 3 years, where my sister was also playing. The director was also female.
My grandmother watches football. I used to play Championship Manager with my girlfriend at the time; who also was a prominent left-back.
One of my relatives was up to the national youth side.
When there were football matches, tv or at the local stadium, everyone watched. 50/50 gender-wise.
Football, wherever i have gone, have always had interest from men and women.

Men don't need to fill in. Men need to stop killing women's interest in football.

My partner loves football and very knowledgeable too, but she has no interest in watching the womens game

[gam945]

Just now, bazhsw said:

I call this basic human decency

How is it a decency to artificially grow and push a product on the basis that "the other gender's equivalent product has more demand"??

Men's football growth is due to demand, while women's football growth is due to political agendas and is mostly artificial. That is the sad reality.

Anyway I've pretty much expressed all my concerns and thoughts on this matter, so good luck SI but I'm out.

[mikelfc8]

Without referring to anybody in particular, it must be very difficult when most of the things you enjoy in life keep reminding you how terrible some of your ideas are.

[bazhsw]

3 minutes ago, gam945 said:

How is it a decency to artificially grow and push a product on the basis that "the other gender's equivalent product has more demand"??

Men's football growth is due to demand, while women's football growth is due to political agendas and is mostly artificial. That is the sad reality.

Anyway I've pretty much expressed all my concerns and thoughts on this matter, so good luck SI but I'm out.

Of course there is no historical precedent of a football product being flooded into overseas / new markets through a process of aggressive marketing, overpaying players disproportionately to projected income, in a marketing strategy to create new markets has there.....

It's literally the story of modern football to the detriment of grassroots football in most of the world outside of a few countries in Europe and the Americas.  That is the sad reality.

Some facts - there are lots of women who play football.  There are professional football leagues for women.  In some countries women's football is MORE popular than the men's game.  If we are going to have a game about football management it harms NO ONE to include women's football in the game and provides opportunities for new players, both male and female to manage a team they want to.  

Representation is REALLY important and good for overall health in the game.  Some would argue things haven't changed to much but there was a time that women's toilets weren't even in grounds and racist abuse was openly laughed at.  Calling this out was human decency and made the game better - grounds have more people of colour and more women and children than ever now.  All SI are doing is reflecting that 'real life' aspiration for decency and placing it in a digital context.  At the end of the day it's just a bunch of data and code that no one is forcing anyone to use.  If this is the hill to die on I feel sad for you.

[obasa_G]

9 minutes ago, gam945 said:

 

I call this a political agenda.

Wanting women's football to be on an equal footing with men's football is not a political agenda. How does a company, who isn't owned by or involved with the government in an way or form, peddling a political agenda?? 

[Reiver]

29 minutes ago, gam945 said:

How is it a decency to artificially grow and push a product on the basis that "the other gender's equivalent product has more demand"??

Men's football growth is due to demand, while women's football growth is due to political agendas and is mostly artificial. That is the sad reality.

Anyway I've pretty much expressed all my concerns and thoughts on this matter, so good luck SI but I'm out.

How is the inclusion of a sport that is increasing in popularity and visibility artificial growth and not natural growth? What is the difference here?

[warped]

This is the most excited I have been about Football Manager in 8 years, which is when I last bought a version of the game.

Having WSL in the base game is realistic since real life managers can and do make the journey of managing either all the time. It also means more varied gameplay since men and women play differently. Lastly, it's about time women start to get some of the recognition they deserve; the industry has gone way too long pretending one of the genders don't exist.

I'm interested in this game because it aims for realism and for the numbers - This move is a massive boost in both departments and I am super happy about it.

Thank you SI! Obvious FM2022 buy if your plans pan out.

[glengarry224]

I love this inclusion! 

To me, the questions are:  why was women's football not included in the past? and why would SI continue to arbitrarily exclude women's football?  Especially when there certainly is a new market for these inclusions.  I believe that one answer is:  because including women's football will upset a portion of the FM customer base.

Anyway, like others have said:  if you don't like it, don't buy it.

For my part, I just went from 50/50 whether I'd buy FM22 to 100%.

[Federico]

51 minuti fa, warped ha scritto:

Thank you SI! Obvious FM2022 buy if your plans pan out.

 

12 minuti fa, glengarry224 ha scritto:

For my part, I just went from 50/50 whether I'd buy FM22 to 100%.

I'm afraid it won't be ready for FM22 if I understood well?

Edit: this is the official statement anyway: "At this stage we don’t know exactly how long the process will take so we can’t say exactly which version of FM will see women’s football make its debut"

[roykela]

2 hours ago, Tony Wright 747 said:

My partner loves football and very knowledgeable too, but she has no interest in watching the womens game

Yup. And there are men that won't watch men's games either.

[Outrospective]

Don't care if women's football is included, tbh. Happy for those who are happy about it, but wouldn't bother to load any leagues or database with it as I'd prefer to load another league from less well-known part of the world. My biggest disappointment is with the fact the game definitely needs more polishing and depth in a lot of areas, but becomes wider instead. So we have bugs which are not fixed in a course of the year due to the lack of resources, but we shall also have the league which will not be popular and is added to actually overturn this trend and make women's football MORE popular.

Given the of popularity of women's football (without any emotional evaluation), the only reason to add it from the commercial perspective is a funding from some organization or person who really wants to promote it. Even with that the standalone game won't fly so it's added to regular FM.

Of course it would be preferrable to me that SI invest money and working hours into delivering a better game but well, it's playable and doesn't have really game-breaking bugs in final versions so I guess that's it.

Game's performance is another thing - I just hope that it would be possible to load only the men's leagues and that's it.

[glengarry224]

2 hours ago, Federico said:

 

I'm afraid it won't be ready for FM22 if I understood well?

Edit: this is the official statement anyway: "At this stage we don’t know exactly how long the process will take so we can’t say exactly which version of FM will see women’s football make its debut"

Sorry, I should've been clearer.  I will buy FM22, regardless, because I support this.  Others might stop purchasing FM.  My money votes the opposite way.

[CARRERA]

Honestly, i didn’t know that so many people are still out there who don’t share the idea of diversity and equal rights. It’s horrible.

You will have tough times in our future world, both virtual and real. 

[themadsheep2001]

Honestly find the arguments for making it a separate game stupid. 

1) it's the same gaming universe, certainly in the WSL there is crossover between the infrastructure and support for a lot of the women's teams and men's. 

2) why would I want to pay twice, and not have my gaming experience carry over? 

[Federico]

2 ore fa, themadsheep2001 ha scritto:

Honestly find the arguments for making it a separate game stupid. 

1) it's the same gaming universe, certainly in the WSL there is crossover between the infrastructure and support for a lot of the women's teams and men's. 

2) why would I want to pay twice, and not have my gaming experience carry over? 

I'd like to listen to the total war fans what they think about it.

I reckon "marketing" and "stupid" are often two words that get along together.

[Outrospective]

4 hours ago, CARRERA said:

Honestly, i didn’t know that so many people are still out there who don’t share the idea of diversity and equal rights. It’s horrible.

Not being a fan of a particular kind of sport has nothing to do with support for diversity and equal rights.

Trying to make everyone who's not happy with the new course to look like bad people who are against diversity is just a manipulation which splits the community and not contributing to discussion. Just saying as I'm all for inclusion and equality but such an argument is aimed to devalue my concerns and is offensive.

Edited July 26, 2021 by Outrospective

[santy001]

@Outrospective well here is the primary issue with the points you raise. It will never, ever in any way at all, be possible to determine if an issue has arisen/persisted/not been fixed due to women's football being worked on. So while individuals may have concerns about the burdens extra development places on the SI team, there is never any way to determine these to be correct. Therefore, if someone begins assigning the woes of their game experience to women's football - well that does raise questions. 

SI have been expanding their staff team over the last few years, but in a lot of instances in most game dev based environments it tends to take over a year, and with some complex stuff perhaps even longer, before they're fully up to speed and familiarity with that particular product. Staff time is a finite resource though and things have to be prioritised accordingly. Some issues, as frustrating as they are, end up being settled on as a best solution because to change them would have far more impactful outcomes further down the line. So fixing a particular bug may require a much more comprehensive change to another aspect of the game before it can be fixed. 

While SI have made this particular multi-year project public, I highly doubt this would be their first rodeo and no doubt they have other issues/bugs/systems which fall under multi-year projects to resolve. 

[Outrospective]

2 hours ago, santy001 said:

t will never, ever in any way at all, be possible to determine if an issue has arisen/persisted/not been fixed due to women's football being worked on. So while individuals may have concerns about the burdens extra development places on the SI team, there is never any way to determine these to be correct. Therefore, if someone begins assigning the woes of their game experience to women's football - well that does raise questions. 

Yeah, I wouldn't argue with that. Although we can just look at bigger picture. E.g.: are there problems which arise because of lack of the allocated resources? (Most likely, yes). Could these problems have been solved by adding more staff? (Most likely, yes). Could that staff got salary instead of other hired staff which was hired specifically for additional development? (Probably, yes).

If we go in details, than yes, there is no way to determine if adding Nadezhda Karpova and scouting her did any harm to scouting some Espanyol B player and giving him poor attributes, as we can never be sure. We can't also be sure that excluding the light skin helped to optimize the interface of the remaining default skin as well, but that was one of the arguments made by devs. In modern world every public statement is being recieved with the grain of salt.

 

But I was merely pointing to the fact that labeling everybody who are concerned as troglodite bigots in discussion leaves much to be desired. And "Honestly, i didn’t know that so many people are still out there who don’t share the idea of diversity and equal rights. It’s horrible" phrase essentially sums itself just like that.

You may share the ideas of diversity and equal rights, but you still wouldn't want to watch women's football or play as a manager of the women's team. These things are not mutually exclusive.

[Travis Bickle]

7 hours ago, CARRERA said:

Honestly, i didn’t know that so many people are still out there who don’t share the idea of diversity and equal rights. It’s horrible.

You will have tough times in our future world, both virtual and real. 

It would be nice if we kept this thread civil without people making moral judgements on other people and somehow acting like they're bad people for disagreeing.

If I had a daughter who wanted to play football, I would 100% support her and encourage her as much as I would if I had a son who wanted to do the same. 

This has absolutely zero bearing on the fact I would personally prefer SI spent their time ensuring their Football Management game could go a few years without major bugs and include some pretty major nations excluded from the game instead of spending a lot of development time on a feature/function that judging by those FIFA statistics few people will play. 

I might be wrong, the women's database may be a huge success and more women might start playing Football Manager because of it. I am not the one making business decisions for the game for a reason. I trust SI, but it doesn't stop me expressing an opinion. 

I've played FM since 2005. FM21 was the first FM I never bought at release (bought it this May iirc and have less than 10 hours) because I got tired of some of the bugs within the ME. FM21 was a huge improvement admittedly. All I'm saying is that some of the frustration at this announcement may well be people just annoyed they're worried the game will regress again. SI aren't the biggest studio. They do very well with the resources they have, but they're about to become more stretched.

7 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Honestly find the arguments for making it a separate game stupid. 

1) it's the same gaming universe, certainly in the WSL there is crossover between the infrastructure and support for a lot of the women's teams and men's. 

2) why would I want to pay twice, and not have my gaming experience carry over? 

The reason I brought this up was, in reference to the above, there's no way a "Women's Football Manager" would be a commercially viable product. Not right now. They wouldn't be able to bring in the extra staff to cover development whilst not taking resources away from the existing main game. 

In short, my concern is that they're diverting resources away from the game that the vast majority of players will play, which could lead to more bugs, which would probably lead to me not buying the game again. 

Again, I could be totally wrong and I trust SI know what they're doing but it doesn't stop me expressing an opinion as a paying customer for 16+ years. 

[ajw10]

7 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Honestly find the arguments for making it a separate game stupid. 

1) it's the same gaming universe, certainly in the WSL there is crossover between the infrastructure and support for a lot of the women's teams and men's. 

2) why would I want to pay twice, and not have my gaming experience carry over? 

Lets be honest, there's only one reason why people are complaining about it

[themadsheep2001]

34 minutes ago, Travis Bickle said:

It would be nice if we kept this thread civil without people making moral judgements on other people and somehow acting like they're bad people for disagreeing.

If I had a daughter who wanted to play football, I would 100% support her and encourage her as much as I would if I had a son who wanted to do the same. 

This has absolutely zero bearing on the fact I would personally prefer SI spent their time ensuring their Football Management game could go a few years without major bugs and include some pretty major nations excluded from the game instead of spending a lot of development time on a feature/function that judging by those FIFA statistics few people will play. 

I might be wrong, the women's database may be a huge success and more women might start playing Football Manager because of it. I am not the one making business decisions for the game for a reason. I trust SI, but it doesn't stop me expressing an opinion. 

I've played FM since 2005. FM21 was the first FM I never bought at release (bought it this May iirc and have less than 10 hours) because I got tired of some of the bugs within the ME. FM21 was a huge improvement admittedly. All I'm saying is that some of the frustration at this announcement may well be people just annoyed they're worried the game will regress again. SI aren't the biggest studio. They do very well with the resources they have, but they're about to become more stretched.

The reason I brought this up was, in reference to the above, there's no way a "Women's Football Manager" would be a commercially viable product. Not right now. They wouldn't be able to bring in the extra staff to cover development whilst not taking resources away from the existing main game. 

In short, my concern is that they're diverting resources away from the game that the vast majority of players will play, which could lead to more bugs, which would probably lead to me not buying the game again. 

Again, I could be totally wrong and I trust SI know what they're doing but it doesn't stop me expressing an opinion as a paying customer for 16+ years. 

Considering they have said they bringing extra resources, investment and partnerships, I don't really know why people continue to make this point. Secondly, the viability is irrelevant to my point. It would still be splitting my gaming experience, it's the same football universe. One sport, one game. I want to be able manage Manchester United men and women as a United fan, making that anything but seamless would be pointless, and a failure of immersion

[lohwenjie]

14 hours ago, roykela said:

Why standalone? The game is called Football Manager. Manager for a football team. Does not matter which gender it is.
Football is football.

If this is so, do you think managers like Pep or Klopp would one day manage a woman's team?

 

Back to the topic.

Just to be clear, I don't oppose the idea for woman football to be introduced to FM, but some argument that was put out by SI or the moderators, it just not feel right. That is just my opinion after spending half an hour reading through the treads. 

As for those of the gamers who feel that resources would be spread to the woman football, and less resources to solve the bugs and match engine etc., I think your concern is irrelevant. To my various years of FM experience, some of the bugs SI just don't bother to solve (excuses like time constraint, not a priorities), no matter whether resources are available or not. Example is the B team problems which had not been solved all these years.

What happen in the end is that every year we complain, but in the end when FM is released, we will still buy the game regardless of what. If you have made up your mind not to buy the game, then really happy for you. If you still insist of playing FM, just suck thumb and moved on. No point arguing so much with the moderators here, as if SI will listen and stop the plan. 

 

[roykela]

7 minutes ago, lohwenjie said:

If this is so, do you think managers like Pep or Klopp would one day manage a woman's team?

I don't know.  Are managers like Pep's or Klopp's ambitions and what they would like to do representative of all male managers?

All i know is that i would like to do that in FM.

[santy001]

15 minutes ago, lohwenjie said:

If this is so, do you think managers like Pep or Klopp would one day manage a woman's team?

 

Back to the topic.

Just to be clear, I don't oppose the idea for woman football to be introduced to FM, but some argument that was put out by SI or the moderators, it just not feel right. That is just my opinion after spending half an hour reading through the treads. 

As for those of the gamers who feel that resources would be spread to the woman football, and less resources to solve the bugs and match engine etc., I think your concern is irrelevant. To my various years of FM experience, some of the bugs SI just don't bother to solve (excuses like time constraint, not a priorities), no matter whether resources are available or not. Example is the B team problems which had not been solved all these years.

What happen in the end is that every year we complain, but in the end when FM is released, we will still buy the game regardless of what. If you have made up your mind not to buy the game, then really happy for you. If you still insist of playing FM, just suck thumb and moved on. No point arguing so much with the moderators here, as if SI will listen and stop the plan. 

 

You're on your first post as part of the community here so how can you have any basis for making these claims?

I think you, and everyone, needs to understand that if something is deemed not a priority at a certain point in time it means in regards to something else. For example, if there is a crash that stops anyone, anywhere, from getting past 31st December 2021 in FM22 then that would be the top priority. If that bug takes an enormous amount of time to get fixed, then yes Billy in the B Team not quite working right will go unfixed so that people can play the game.

It's never that clear cut of course.

Perhaps it would be better for you to engage through the framework in place, make bug reports, make feature requests and give it time. There are some feature requests from 2010 that have probably only come into the game in the last couple of years. Should it still be going in 20-30 years time there will still be areas of the game seeing iteration and improvement on things that maybe you wish had been sorted for FM2021 but it just isn't possible to do that in some instances, even if they had 10x the staff.

[forameuss]

It's heartening that in this month where the Olympics is taking centre stage, people here are paying their own tribute by performing incredible routines of mental gymnastics in order to avoid admitting the truth to themselves. All kinds of ways people are trying to justify what is basically blatant sexism.  But still, never fear.  By the looks of it they've anticipated that backwards reaction and are quite happy to wave those people goodbye.

Also, and I'll never tire of saying, the ability to upvote posts but not downvote gets ruthlessly exposed as pointless when it comes to threads like this.  Although I guess with some of the posts that got upvoted, at least you've got a handy list of people to avoid right there next to it.

[metallimuse]

Can’t say that I feel strongly either way about it.

It’s extra leagues to play at the end of the day which can only be a good thing. 

I think someone already mentioned it previously in here but, for us long term, journeyman type players I think it will add a new dimension to gameplay and further open up different ways of playing and taking your career.

[Crispypaul]

To be honest I don't watch women's football IRL at all, but then again I don't watch the Swedish 2nd Division and still play that in FM.  I trust SI to incorporate it in a way that's realistic as they do with most leagues.

Out of curiosity - is there a research structure in place already?  As from my understanding that's the problem with a number of men's leagues still missing that you would probably expect (Cyprus, North African leagues, Middle Eastern particularly the Gulf States and Iran etc)

[Neil Brock]

9 minutes ago, Crispypaul said:

Out of curiosity - is there a research structure in place already?  As from my understanding that's the problem with a number of men's leagues still missing that you would probably expect (Cyprus, North African leagues, Middle Eastern particularly the Gulf States and Iran etc)

From the blog:

"One member of the SI team who is already deeply engrossed in this project is our newly-appointed head of research for women’s football, Tina Keech. Tina, a qualified coach and former head of research and analysis at Smartodds, has already started the process of building our women’s database."

Fairly sure in some of the interviews Tina and Miles have given in the press, they discuss it in more detail. Here's an example from TheGamer:

Quote

Tina Keech is leading the research into the various statistical databases that power Football Manager, and to hear her tell it, any and all help is welcome. “It's really painful, to be honest, painful,” Keech admits. There are several hundred sports stats agencies out there that keep up to the minute databases on world football, but they focus almost entirely on the elite men’s game, meaning Keech has to start completely from scratch.

“This is one of the reasons we are announcing it, because I need help. I'm calling out to every football fan out there, every women's football fan. Whether you're a fan, a player, staff, a club, a journo, or just someone who likes to go and watch football, get in touch with us. Come and help us build an incredible database. The data at the moment, even in the professional teams, is not great. And if it is there, it's not accurate, which is disappointing. But there are definitely people out there who have been keeping their own data. And they're the ones we want. We want them to help us, and we want them to be part of the team to build a great database. I know people that will just travel the country to go into different football grounds just to watch football. And whether it's men or women, they don't really care. Football is football. So yeah, it's a real challenge. But I have no doubt at all that we will get it, we'll build a database just like the men's one.”

 

[Federico]

1 ora fa, metallimuse ha scritto:

Can’t say that I feel strongly either way about it.

It’s extra leagues to play at the end of the day which can only be a good thing. 

I think someone already mentioned it previously in here but, for us long term, journeyman type players I think it will add a new dimension to gameplay and further open up different ways of playing and taking your career.

But I think it's not only leagues or nations to add. I've seen pictures of motion-capturing, my guess is that they're working on a different match engine that, from my point of view, is the right way because of the differences in both male/female playing styles and surely animations in regard of FM.

I don't think it's gonna be a simple click or unclick an option in the preferences menu.

[zakbrown96]

Personally love this the more inclusive the game the better, Will bring more people to play Football manager and also boast popularity of the woman’s game. Win win for me. it’s Revolutionary ! 

[warped]

16 hours ago, Federico said:

 

I'm afraid it won't be ready for FM22 if I understood well?

Edit: this is the official statement anyway: "At this stage we don’t know exactly how long the process will take so we can’t say exactly which version of FM will see women’s football make its debut"

I thought I read somewhere that it was coming with FM22 but now I can't find anything that backs that up; so maybe I dreamt it.

Either way - thanks for pointing it out. I'll temper my expectations for this years release accordingly.

[forameuss]

23 minutes ago, warped said:

I thought I read somewhere that it was coming with FM22 but now I can't find anything that backs that up; so maybe I dreamt it.

Either way - thanks for pointing it out. I'll temper my expectations for this years release accordingly.

I think initially when it was a largely unconfirmed but fairly concrete rumour, it looked as though it was for 2022.  This official article is a bit more vague though, and seems like it'll be here on a much longer timescale.

[Neil Brock]

53 minutes ago, warped said:

I thought I read somewhere that it was coming with FM22 but now I can't find anything that backs that up; so maybe I dreamt it.

Either way - thanks for pointing it out. I'll temper my expectations for this years release accordingly.

 

29 minutes ago, forameuss said:

I think initially when it was a largely unconfirmed but fairly concrete rumour, it looked as though it was for 2022.  This official article is a bit more vague though, and seems like it'll be here on a much longer timescale.

Yeah we've confirmed this will not be for FM22. This is a multi-year project we aren't setting a date to. But we wanted to announce our intentions and the fact that work has begun. 

[metallimuse]

1 hour ago, Federico said:

But I think it's not only leagues or nations to add. I've seen pictures of motion-capturing, my guess is that they're working on a different match engine that, from my point of view, is the right way because of the differences in both male/female playing styles and surely animations in regard of FM.

I don't think it's gonna be a simple click or unclick an option in the preferences menu.

I know there will be more work going into developing the new feature but I think for us as players it simply means more leagues to choose.

I don’t think we will be forced to have the woman’s leagues loaded into our game as you are suggesting.

If you don’t wish to play within the women’s leagues then don’t load them. For us as players that’s all it will mean.

[HUNT3R]

I've thought about this for a while now. The question I asked - Will it affect me, personally, as a FM player? I don't have any clue about what's going on in the women's game. I don't follow it and I don't know more than maybe 2 players and even then, it's only by name. I can't tell you if they still play or what position. This might (and I mean it) get me more interested. It'll 'introduce' me to the women's game, the way I see it. I'll probably give it a go or read/watch others doing it. I'll start learning a few more names, leagues etc. So that's a good thing imo. As a teenager, FIFA and especially CM in the older days got me into football. This addition might get me more into the women's game. I am definitely curious and looking forward to seeing how it's implemented and what's going to get implemented. Right now, I am on the fence (from a gameplay point of view) over whether this is something that I will play/use after the initial curiosity. Looking at the broader picture (exposure to the women's game, pushing for more equality etc) I can only see it as a good thing. Will be following with interest.

[Federico]

2 ore fa, warped ha scritto:

I thought I read somewhere that it was coming with FM22 but now I can't find anything that backs that up; so maybe I dreamt it.

Either way - thanks for pointing it out. I'll temper my expectations for this years release accordingly.

Don't worry.

It's coming home 

[Federico]

1 ora fa, metallimuse ha scritto:

I know there will be more work going into developing the new feature but I think for us as players it simply means more leagues to choose.

I don’t think we will be forced to have the woman’s leagues loaded into our game as you are suggesting.

If you don’t wish to play within the women’s leagues then don’t load them. For us as players that’s all it will mean.

No actually my point of view is different - I think the woman database requires a different ME according to what I've seen. So we'll have even a different executable maybe, and two different and separated data folders. That's why I think there won't be any cross-play.

[JordanMilly]

21 minutes ago, Federico said:

No actually my point of view is different - I think the woman database requires a different ME according to what I've seen. So we'll have even a different executable maybe, and two different and separated data folders. That's why I think there won't be any cross-play.

They've already said that it'll be a single game, and that you'll be able to manage both male and female teams within the same save.

[santy001]

My limited understanding in general would be that the ME has certain things which do not change, no matter who is actually playing football. 

Something like a .json file could then be used to load in the relevant variables for a Men's/Women's fixture. 

Some posters may recall there were certain .json file edits circulating a couple years back which I think mostly altered the physics of the ME and produced some weird outcomes (although just to avoid upsetting anyone, some people said they preferred this but after taking a look SI saw it produced non-realistic behaviour in the game).

[Federico]

2 hours ago, JordanMillward_1 said:

They've already said that it'll be a single game, and that you'll be able to manage both male and female teams within the same save.

Ah sorry I must have missed that point. I admit I can hardly figure out how's that's possible, but I'm a simple user and not a developer after all.

 

2 hours ago, santy001 said:

Some posters may recall there were certain .json file edits circulating a couple years back which I think mostly altered the physics of the ME and produced some weird outcomes (although just to avoid upsetting anyone, some people said they preferred this but after taking a look SI saw it produced non-realistic behaviour in the game).

Yeah I tried it, and it was terrible anyway.

[herne79]

I see 2 points of view:

1) The bigots who are rightly dealt with swiftly by the Mod team.  Good job.

2) Those who say the core game should be sorted out before such an expansion - the resources being allocated should instead be diverted back into the original game to improve that. 

However in my experience that's not how business models work.  If you start a new project, you look to secure funding for that project.  If that project goes ahead then you have the resources made available to you.  If it doesn't go ahead, those resources don't simply get channeled back into your core business instead.  They're ring fenced specifically for that project - if the project flies you get the money, if it doesn't you don't.  We used to call them capital and project costs and they are accounted for differently in the annual accounts and balance sheet.

To use an analogy, if you secure funding (a mortgage) to buy a house and you change your mind, the bank won't still give you the money anyway.  It's ring fenced for your house purchase.  Likewise if Spurs had decided not to build their new stadium after they had secured the funding, they couldn't have changed their minds and invested the money into the squad instead.  Similarly when I dealt with project managers developing business cases for new projects, they couldn't just have the additional money anyway to spend on their existing business if their new project didn't get the green light.  That's not how it works.  The money only exists (due to loans, new investments and so on) if the house purchase / stadium build / project goes ahead.  If it doesn't happen then the money simply doesn't exist.

So unless SI are following a different business model (and I don't pretend to know what their model is, perhaps they do), that argument simply doesn't fly because that's not - in my experience - how business is funded.

[thefmveteran86]

So I read on the blog post and it goes like this

• First thing to clarify; it will NOT be a standalone women’s football version of FM. Women’s football will be added to FM.
  FM players will be able to move seamlessly from managing a men’s team to a women’s team and back again.

 

In real life, men's first team don't move to the WLS and vice versa or am I confused here?

[FrazT]

What is meant is FM users-those who are playing the game

[Cartopis84]

Really feel like resources and costs that could have gone into fixing existing issues and with incomplete leagues in Africa and Asia are being wasted on a "feature" most people won't play or play once and then forget about. Didn't Miles say a few years back that adding women's football was never going to happen? Promoting women's football but there is a point of diminishing returns and imo adding women's football into FM Is that.

[glengarry224]

To clarify for some of those who oppose SI's decision to include women's football.  I believe in free expression and you have a right to express yourself, or not.  But the rest of us also have a right to express our responses to your views. 

I disagree, 100%, with the view that SI should spend resources on the men's game before including the women's game.  That view indicates an attitude that perfecting the men's game is more important than representations of women, inclusion and diversity.  That view is offensive to me, and odious to my partner. 

Years ago, when I told her that I played a football sim, the first question she asked was whether women were included.  She shook her head and walked away.  To her, FM's makers determined that women are not deemed worthy of being represented.  If a girl or woman, especially one who plays football, looks at this game, they are being told that they are second class athletes.  That simulating how much revenue is generated by selling jerseys, food and drink is more important than simulating the experiences of women playing soccer.  Representations, and their absence, matter.

If you find my views offensive, that's ok.  That's part of the conversation. 

To be clear, I did not intend this to be a harangue against SI and I continued to buy FM, even though I thought that my partner was correct.  But I do applaud this decision.

[FrazT]

15 minutes ago, Cartopis84 said:

Really feel like resources and costs that could have gone into fixing existing issues and with incomplete leagues in Africa and Asia are being wasted on a "feature" most people won't play or play once and then forget about. Didn't Miles say a few years back that adding women's football was never going to happen? Promoting women's football but there is a point of diminishing returns and imo adding women's football into FM Is that.

To clarify:

Miles never at any point said that the introduction of the women's game would never happen- he did say that it would be evaluated on an ongoing basis but did say that it would not be implemented in a rush.

[JordanMilly]

4 hours ago, herne79 said:

I see 2 points of view:

1) The bigots who are rightly dealt with swiftly by the Mod team.  Good job.

2) Those who say the core game should be sorted out before such an expansion - the resources being allocated should instead be diverted back into the original game to improve that. 

However in my experience that's not how business models work.  If you start a new project, you look to secure funding for that project.  If that project goes ahead then you have the resources made available to you.  If it doesn't go ahead, those resources don't simply get channeled back into your core business instead.  They're ring fenced specifically for that project - if the project flies you get the money, if it doesn't you don't.  We used to call them capital and project costs and they are accounted for differently in the annual accounts and balance sheet.

To use an analogy, if you secure funding (a mortgage) to buy a house and you change your mind, the bank won't still give you the money anyway.  It's ring fenced for your house purchase.  Likewise if Spurs had decided not to build their new stadium after they had secured the funding, they couldn't have changed their minds and invested the money into the squad instead.  Similarly when I dealt with project managers developing business cases for new projects, they couldn't just have the additional money anyway to spend on their existing business if their new project didn't get the green light.  That's not how it works.  The money only exists (due to loans, new investments and so on) if the house purchase / stadium build / project goes ahead.  If it doesn't happen then the money simply doesn't exist.

So unless SI are following a different business model (and I don't pretend to know what their model is, perhaps they do), that argument simply doesn't fly because that's not - in my experience - how business is funded.

Given SI is owned by SEGA, and so will likely be proposing projects to them in order to request funding, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this is fairly close to the truth. I mean, what is going to sound more appealing to the people who allocate money for projects - "Give us more money so we can continue as we normally do but with more staff" or "Give us money to be put towards what will not only be one of the largest wholescale additions to the game, but also draw eyes from the general public not only to the game, but an entire underappreciated section of the sport at a time when it is growing, and do some good for that sport too"?

It's a no-brainer.

[JordanMilly]

2 hours ago, Cartopis84 said:

Really feel like resources and costs that could have gone into fixing existing issues and with incomplete leagues in Africa and Asia are being wasted on a "feature" most people won't play or play once and then forget about. Didn't Miles say a few years back that adding women's football was never going to happen? Promoting women's football but there is a point of diminishing returns and imo adding women's football into FM Is that.

You can't just pull African and Asian leagues from nowhere, though. It's not just a matter of getting licensing from them to add them, it's having the network of people in the country to attend matches, do research, collect stats, and provide the data to allow them to be developed into the database. Surprisingly, it's more difficult to set that sort of network up in Thailand or Egypt than it is in the US, England, Germany or even South Korea.