If you've licensed the UEFA competitions

[Garethjohn79]

How will the licensing of UEFA Competitions affect the clubs and leagues SI doesn't have ones with?

Will all clubs be named and badged for the UEFA 22-23 season, or will those be entering for the first time after this season be getting badged?

Will Juventus be properly named and badged in the Champions League but return to its FM name in Serie A?

Will clubs like Airbus change to their UEFA name for the competition and revert to the proper name for its league games? 

It'll be strange seeing the correct names for Spanish clubs your UEFA fixture Thursday and go back to the FM name on Sunday.

[kevhamster]

3 minutes ago, Garethjohn79 said:

How will the licensing of UEFA Competitions affect the clubs and leagues SI doesn't have ones with?

Will all clubs be named and badged for the UEFA 22-23 season, or will those be entering for the first time after this season be getting badged?

Will Juventus be properly named and badged in the Champions League but return to its FM name in Serie A?

Will clubs like Airbus change to their UEFA name for the competition and revert to the proper name for its league games? 

It'll be strange seeing the correct names for Spanish clubs your UEFA fixture Thursday and go back to the FM name on Sunday.

I imagine it'd work the same way it worked with the licence Konami had for Pro Evolution Soccer in that all clubs that appear in the UEFA competitions in the first season will also be licenced - this will have to extend to their league games as well.  Clubs can't just change name from one game to the next as the database doesn't work that way.

[Lusitano]

It will not be like PES, the Uefa competitions will licensed, names, logos, etc. But the clubs will no be licensed.

[ImDaWeasel]

1 hour ago, Lusitano said:

It will not be like PES, the Uefa competitions will licensed, names, logos, etc. But the clubs will no be licensed.

Highly expect this to be the case.

[Garethjohn79]

So, you'll get the UEFA logos and cups but the clubs not in a licensed league or allowed to use proper names who qualify will still be the same. Bit underwhelming really 

[Junkhead]

I would assume that the group's will also mirror real life which doesn't happen at the moment.

[kevhamster]

20 hours ago, Garethjohn79 said:

So, you'll get the UEFA logos and cups but the clubs not in a licensed league or allowed to use proper names who qualify will still be the same. Bit underwhelming really 

You will likely at least get the proper match display graphics like you get with the Bundesliga, so that's pretty cool.  And to be fair, whatever the restrictions are on the licences are is not the fault of SI.

[ImDaWeasel]

2 hours ago, Junkhead said:

I would assume that the group's will also mirror real life which doesn't happen at the moment.

Nope as the season starts in many countries before the qualifying for group stages do. 

It's going to be the graphics and names, maybe push the boat out for the anthems pre match too.

[ralala]

I expect SI had to pay for these rights? Depending on the size of payment of course, but this could be a poor business decision. Is having these licences better for PR or some such? 

Cosmetic graphics and name changes of clubs and competitions are usually first released of any fan-made additions to new version of FM. 

[rusty217]

17 minutes ago, ralala said:

I expect SI had to pay for these rights? Depending on the size of payment of course, but this could be a poor business decision. Is having these licences better for PR or some such? 

Cosmetic graphics and name changes of clubs and competitions are usually first released of any fan-made additions to new version of FM. 

It's hard to say. You could argue that every single licenced club/competition in the game could be done via fan made additions rather than official licencing, but I'd be willing to bet the game would sell less if the top European leagues weren't licenced anymore. A lot of players don't download any extra content and just play the vanilla game still.

UEFA licencing isn't going to be as impactful as licences for the major national leagues of course, but it could still have some impact, so if the price was right it may work out.

Plus it's worth remembering that they're planning on adding women's football to the game in the future. The UEFA licence probably includes the Women's CL too, and given the women's side of the game will be brand new to the series any and all licences will make a difference there.

[Platinum]

1 hour ago, ralala said:

I expect SI had to pay for these rights? Depending on the size of payment of course, but this could be a poor business decision. Is having these licences better for PR or some such? 

Cosmetic graphics and name changes of clubs and competitions are usually first released of any fan-made additions to new version of FM. 

It has made me more likely to buy the game (just one thing amongst many). The CL is a special competition and there arent any skins that I've found that have specific themes for CL games that really show  the 'specialness' of it . If they add CL specific screens, CL matchday logos and themes during the match (like Bundesliga) and the CL music then thats a big plus for me.

[Garethjohn79]

On 22/09/2022 at 09:09, kevhamster said:

You will likely at least get the proper match display graphics like you get with the Bundesliga, so that's pretty cool.  And to be fair, whatever the restrictions are on the licences are is not the fault of SI.

One of the reasons for getting licences for leagues is so you also get the badges and correct names of those leagues and teams in it, so all you get with UEFA licenced tournaments is the badges and correctly named teams from leagues that already have a licence.

FM has The Cymru Premier league and Bundesliga licenced. But when sponsored named clubs qualify for UEFA tournaments those clubs have to change their names, some stadiums lose their sponsor names. How is this represented on FM? 

[Garethjohn79]

22 hours ago, Platinum said:

It has made me more likely to buy the game (just one thing amongst many). The CL is a special competition and there arent any skins that I've found that have specific themes for CL games that really show  the 'specialness' of it . If they add CL specific screens, CL matchday logos and themes during the match (like Bundesliga) and the CL music then thats a big plus for me.

And when you see Zebre instead of Juve and all the strange Spanish club names will the UECL feel so special, or will you see the names change from mid-week to Saturday depending on the tournaments licence.

[kevhamster]

2 minutes ago, Garethjohn79 said:

And when you see Zebre instead of Juve and all the strange Spanish club names will the UECL feel so special, or will you see the names change from mid-week to Saturday depending on the tournaments licence.

The fake names thing is an easy fix.  I can't go into specifics on the forum due to the rules, but many of the FM content sites you can visit have a real names fix available as soon as the game drops each year and it takes seconds to download and a couple of minutes to actually set up.  It's not as good as having the real names there from the outset, but it is at least something which can be fixed with very little effort.

[grasu]

Call me vain, but for me these licensing deals are major incentives for buying a newer version of FM. I'm of the opinion that games are all about immersion, and, especially a game like FM which is visually "mediocre" (to put it mildly) benefits greatly from having licensed competitions. In the end, people want to play in the Champions Leage or the Europa League, not in the ECC or the EC. That's the reason why scores of people opt to buy FIFA, instead of PES, because they'd rather play with Liverpool and Everton rather than Merseyside Red or Merseyside Blue.

And, yes, FM is a lot more customizable than FIFA or PES, but it's one thing to have licenses out of the box, built into the game itself, rather than hacking them into the software using poorly optimized third party solutions.

[ImDaWeasel]

2 hours ago, grasu said:

Call me vain, but for me these licensing deals are major incentives for buying a newer version of FM. I'm of the opinion that games are all about immersion, and, especially a game like FM which is visually "mediocre" (to put it mildly) benefits greatly from having licensed competitions. In the end, people want to play in the Champions Leage or the Europa League, not in the ECC or the EC. That's the reason why scores of people opt to buy FIFA, instead of PES, because they'd rather play with Liverpool and Everton rather than Merseyside Red or Merseyside Blue.

And, yes, FM is a lot more customizable than FIFA or PES, but it's one thing to have licenses out of the box, built into the game itself, rather than hacking them into the software using poorly optimized third party solutions.

It's more SI kindly leaving a backdoor slightly ajar for these kinds of things rather than "hacking". Pray they don't have to be forced to shut it in future.

[rusty217]

11 hours ago, grasu said:

And, yes, FM is a lot more customizable than FIFA or PES, but it's one thing to have licenses out of the box, built into the game itself, rather than hacking them into the software using poorly optimized third party solutions.

There's literally an SI made editor available. It's neither hacking, nor third party.

[Just-Wool]

On 22/09/2022 at 13:46, rusty217 said:

It's hard to say. You could argue that every single licenced club/competition in the game could be done via fan made additions rather than official licencing, but I'd be willing to bet the game would sell less if the top European leagues weren't licenced anymore. A lot of players don't download any extra content and just play the vanilla game still.

UEFA licencing isn't going to be as impactful as licences for the major national leagues of course, but it could still have some impact, so if the price was right it may work out.

Plus it's worth remembering that they're planning on adding women's football to the game in the future. The UEFA licence probably includes the Women's CL too, and given the women's side of the game will be brand new to the series any and all licences will make a difference there.

UEFA have indeed confirmed that the Women's CL is included with the licence for future games. 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Just-Wool

[Jon French]

On 23/09/2022 at 13:40, kevhamster said:

The fake names thing is an easy fix.  I can't go into specifics on the forum due to the rules, but many of the FM content sites you can visit have a real names fix available as soon as the game drops each year and it takes seconds to download and a couple of minutes to actually set up.  It's not as good as having the real names there from the outset, but it is at least something which can be fixed with very little effort.

Sadly not if you play on a console therefore the European competitions being added is very welcome.

They could really do with getting the Netherlands, Germany and Japan national teams licensed, plus the Brazilian league (basically unplayable with no editor), the odd Spanish club and bloody Zebre.

[forameuss]

Licensing is always going to be important as I'm willing to bet the majority of people who buy FM don't even know that you can "fix" the issues it causes.  Some people just buy the game and play it.  

Plus SI know exactly what each license is going to cost, and they'll have enough knowledge of their own product to know whether that amount is worth paying based on what they imagine it might bring to the game.  There's plenty of non-exclusive licenses they could go for that they don't, presumably because it doesn't add enough value for the outlay.  This one clearly does.  Whether that's because they feel it's valuable or because it was relatively cheap, or a combination of both, only SI know.

[bluehefner]

On 21/09/2022 at 12:12, Garethjohn79 said:

So, you'll get the UEFA logos and cups but the clubs not in a licensed league or allowed to use proper names who qualify will still be the same. Bit underwhelming really 

But most clubs in the game have the correct name, not really a big deal.

Edited September 28, 2022 by bluehefner

[Zek]

Seems like FM23 won't have Zebre anymore, because Juventus is fully licenced again:

Edited September 29, 2022 by Zek