FM 25 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

[angelo994]

3 hours ago, XaW said:

Ok, I take it you are not familiar with how software development works, so I'm going to guess how SI have gotten here from my own experience with similar issues. NOTE: I do not work for SI, I don't know how thing work at SI, or if I'm correct, but I think your post is an example of not understanding, so I'm trying to correct that view.

If SI started working on Unity for example 3 years ago, and they also knew they wanted women's football in. It makes sense for them to combine these two things, while leaving the men's football as well as international fotball on the old engine. So they have had 3 years to create women's football and that could be about done after possibly finding a lot of pitfalls and getting experience with the engine. Now, a year ago they really started to push over men's football too and probably found new issues in porting older, but could possibly use the experience from adding women's football to make it easier. However, they might have found more issues porting functions from the older engine into Unity, and thus that part now takes a lot more time. And then they also have international football, which they might consider the smallest part, but that now must be pushed back to focus on the men's football.

So from this, it's not women's football vs international fotball, but rather men's football vs international football because they are just about done on women's football and doing QA and bugfixes and tweaks rather than full move. And SI now see they won't reach moving both men's and international football, and if it's impossible to keep the old engine just for international football, then the men's football will go first.

Now, I don't know if this is the case or not, but it seems likely I'm not too far off the mark, as that's how I would have done it if I were part of the team who would move a major part of my software to a new framework. I would use the time to get to know the new framework by creating the new feature in there directly, and when the team is more experienced in the new framework, I would expect moving older code to be easier than to do the opposite. It would also make sense to have the backend devs do a lot of backend work before the frontend devs do their thing after the designers have mockups.

As I said, I might be way off how SI does things, but I think it's important to not jump to "women's football is added at the cost of international football" because we don't know, and we don't have any basis for saying that other than wild guesses. And I get it, people who like international football are disappointed it's gone, but at the same time, SI have said it will return as part of the base game in FM26 all new. So if you love that part, you have the option to skip FM25 and return for FM26 if you wish and then get a much better experience than you have currently.

I don’t get your thinking here. You make it sound like woman’s football is a totally different game from men’s. It’s just another league to play in. You’re acting like it’s a completely different universe. 

[grade]

What I find quite curious is... It wasn't Women's football that is forcing SI to take out International Football... It is the shift of the game to Unity, that is delaying. A change long overdue, with or without Women's football.

I mean among the key features of Women's football is International Football... so part of Women's football will not be playable on FM25.

[Mars_Blackmon]

1 hour ago, grade said:

What I find quite curious is... It wasn't Women's football that is forcing SI to take out International Football... It is the shift of the game to Unity, that is delaying. A change long overdue, with or without Women's football.

I mean among the key features of Women's football is International Football... so part of Women's football will not be playable on FM25.

Quote

Whenever I mention women’s football on social media, people inevitably respond by asking when we’re going to release a women’s football version of Football Manager. Up until now, I’ve always replied with vague answers such as “When we do it, we’ll do it properly”.

Quote

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, but rest assured that our plan is to make this happen as soon as we possibly can, whilst ensuring that you are still getting all the features you’d expect from new versions of FM by adding resources to the existing team.

 

Edited September 10 by Mars_Blackmon

[G81]

I can't be alone in being disappointed that fm mobile appears to be the 'ginger haired stepchild' of the 2025 series, given from what I've read it's another basic update with none of the upgrades the other formats are seeing?

[spursfan]

45 minutes ago, G81 said:

I can't be alone in being disappointed that fm mobile appears to be the 'ginger haired stepchild' of the 2025 series, given from what I've read it's another basic update with none of the upgrades the other formats are seeing?

FM Mobile isn't running on Unity in 2025 -- good news is that International Management remains intact there ;-)

[spursfan]

2 hours ago, angelo994 said:

I don’t get your thinking here. You make it sound like woman’s football is a totally different game from men’s. It’s just another league to play in. You’re acting like it’s a completely different universe. 

 

Building Lego with my child has been an insightful experience for me. We build a bird that took over 100 steps and little over 2 days. 
The next moment he says, let's build a fish now -- and proceeds to tear down the bird while I was still marvelling at the work!
The fish takes fewer steps, and *excludes several elements* from the bird that we had worked hard to assemble (those elements made the bird a bit awkward, but it is what it is, and I loved it anyways).
And we took slightly longer to build the fish due to unexpected interruptions.

Unity is the completely different universe, partly as it claims to combine the physics etc. to fit all football players realistically.
International football is the block of Lego that's particularly challenging to disassemble (even with Lego brick remover), so it will just have to wait unfortunately.

The previous model is good while it lasts (20 years is a long time) -- but we have to move on.
My 5 yo moved on in a heartbeat; his old man also has done it, even though it took longer (I was going on about the bird even while we were more than halfway done with the fish).

I hope that the good folk in this community (who are much younger than I am for sure) will do the same.

[forameuss]

4 hours ago, Fat_Frank8 said:

A worrying amount of people don’t understand the difference between not being interested in womens football and not liking women. 

I could rhyme off hundreds of things that people like that I'm not remotely interested in.  I've never once felt compelled to constantly bring up just how not interested I am in any of them, sometimes unprompted.  

  

3 hours ago, angelo994 said:

I don’t get your thinking here. You make it sound like woman’s football is a totally different game from men’s. It’s just another league to play in. You’re acting like it’s a completely different universe. 

Because, if they do it right, it pretty much is,  You can't just plug female players into the match engine as it exists and expect it to model a game of women's football realistically.  Doing it properly will, for all intents and purposes, mean a different game.

 

[Cultured Left Foot]

3 hours ago, Mars_Blackmon said:

 

This. This is the most dissapointing thing about the whole of FM25 and the implementation of Women's football.  I was excited about Women's Football being added to the game, especially Women's International Football..... In my opinion (as shared with this post), this implementaion of Women's football is not following the originally stated ”When we do it, we’ll do it properly”. 

I understand what SI are trying to do, I am all in favour of opening up the market to new oppurtunities, sales and player bases. But... even EA implemented Women's football with the ability to play with International and League football clubs/players. 

For SI to do it how they are feels half baked - and also feels wrong. Yes, international football will still be there, but for it not to be playabale by the users seems like such a faux paus on their part. 

 

[vonreichsm]

I think they new since years that they want to change the engine. They can´t say they havn´t enough time. They should worked on it until years and not until last year!

[whatsupdoc]

13 hours ago, davehanson said:

Post is irrelevant unless you can ascertain just how many of those watching also play FM.

It was in response to someone saying "nobody cares about women's football" so it's relevant. Surely you don't need me to draw the line between people who like football and people who like FM for you?

The most watched event, sport or otherwise in 23 years. More popular than any male sporting event in the history of a sports mad country. More popular than the election, the finale of neighbours, or that show where they wheel a dog around by the hind legs. 

It's crazy that someone can do the work for you... Bring the information right up under your nose... But you're too blinkered to acknowledge it. 

Edited September 11 by whatsupdoc

[XaW]

7 hours ago, angelo994 said:

I don’t get your thinking here. You make it sound like woman’s football is a totally different game from men’s. It’s just another league to play in. You’re acting like it’s a completely different universe. 

Although others have already mentioned it, I do think it will be a variation of the engine with different parameteres and perhaps even different functions. Why, you ask?

Because SI have said that slapping female models on top of mens really didn't look good.

Quote

We have thousands of ‘motion captured’ animations for our male footballers and when you apply many of these animations onto female bodies… well… they kind of move like cowboys.

Women’s body shapes are different to men’s and so is their bone structure, so we have no choice but to go back to the beginning and recreate all of our existing motion captured animation data using female players. That’s not just a case of going into a motion capture studio for a couple of days either – it takes months to clean up and perfect the data generated by each motion capture session and get it looking right in the match engine.

(https://community.sports-interactive.com/forums/topic/555315-how-were-introducing-womens-football-into-football-manager/

By this I read it to be different between the women's and the men's games. So not 2 different engines, per se, but two different variants of it. So in my guess, they built the basis and fitted it to the women's edition of the engine, and when they wanted to the men's edition it was harder to translate.

Once again though, it's ultimately a guess and I could be wrong. What I did was nothing more than give a user who asked how it was possible that the women's football was introduced and that international football was postponed without the delay being caused by adding the former.

[Fat_Frank8]

4 hours ago, forameuss said:

I could rhyme off hundreds of things that people like that I'm not remotely interested in.  I've never once felt compelled to constantly bring up just how not interested I am in any of them, sometimes unprompted.  

 

I’m sure you could. Not sure why you would feel compelled to do that on a Football Manager forum though unless your uninterests are added to the game. And if you don’t understand why people on a FM forum expresses what features are interesting and not, you probably should stay off the internet.   

Edited September 11 by Fat_Frank8

[davehanson]

2 hours ago, whatsupdoc said:

It was in response to someone saying "nobody cares about women's football" so it's relevant. Surely you don't need me to draw the line between people who like football and people who like FM for you?

The most watched event, sport or otherwise in 23 years. More popular than any male sporting event in the history of a sports mad country. More popular than the election, the finale of neighbours, or that show where they wheel a dog around by the hind legs. 

It's crazy that someone can do the work for you... Bring the information right up under your nose... But you're too blinkered to acknowledge it. 

Not blinkered. But there was a poll on here, not sure if it is still here, asking if people had played International management or not. It was stated by a mod that the poll was irrelevant and pointless as this was just a small target audience and wouldn't give any accurate figures. I agree with that statement.

But, you are posting about how many people have watched 1 match. And are then trying to justify how many people care about women's football? So, no it doesn't hold any weight whatsoever and is completely irrelevant unless you can ask those millions of people that watched the game if they are going to buy FM.

And the highlighted bit - are you really that silly? Nothing like the most watched event in the last 23 years! Germany v Argentina in the 2014 World Cup had 34.65 million viewers. For god sake Macron's speech on Covid had 36.7 million viewers. Maybe SI can make a game on covid.....................................great viewing figures.

[davehanson]

Just something I would like to know. I keep hearing that by adding Women's football it will open the game up to a big new audience. What audience is that? I'm honestly not trying to stir things. 

EAFC/FIFA properly introduced women's football in EAFC24 with the career mode etc. Yet sales dropped compared to the previous version. I'm just not sure  - are people thinking that women will go out and buy FM25 because it has women's football in it, or it will entice them to do so? Or will more men buy it because it has women's football? 

 

Edited September 11 by davehanson

[vikeologist]

23 minutes ago, davehanson said:

Just something I would like to know. I keep hearing that by adding Women's football it will open the game up to a big new audience. What audience is that? I'm honestly not trying to stir things. 

EAFC/FIFA properly introduced women's football in EAFC24 with the career mode etc. Yet sales dropped compared to the previous version. I'm just not sure  - are people thinking that women/females will go out and buy FM25 because it has women's football in it, or it will entice them to do so? Or will more men buy it because it has women's football? 

 

I'd guess it will work the other way round; that adding it to FM will open up Women's football to a wider audience. I watch some international matches, but not club ones, but I guess if I'm playing as a team in FM, and become familiar with the names, I might take more of an interest in the club side. Mind you, with my own club, Bradford City, the North East Regional League doesn't sound like a level that's guaranteed to be in the game. It's level 5 of the pyramid.

I haven't really seen too much of the argument that it will make more people buy the game. That's not my recollection of the announcement it was being introduced a couple of years ago. But I think that it's a genuinely new feature, and it's probably more important for SI to retain their customers than attract lots of new ones. (I appreciate that there may be a feeling that they're alienating some of their customers, but it's not the first time that a feature has been accused of doing that).

A stylistic observation that I suspect is going to annoy you, but 'female' is better as an adjective than a noun.

Edited September 11 by vikeologist

[whatsupdoc]

37 minutes ago, davehanson said:

Not blinkered. But there was a poll on here, not sure if it is still here, asking if people had played International management or not. It was stated by a mod that the poll was irrelevant and pointless as this was just a small target audience and wouldn't give any accurate figures. I agree with that statement.

But, you are posting about how many people have watched 1 match. And are then trying to justify how many people care about women's football? So, no it doesn't hold any weight whatsoever and is completely irrelevant unless you can ask those millions of people that watched the game if they are going to buy FM.

And the highlighted bit - are you really that silly? Nothing like the most watched event in the last 23 years! Germany v Argentina in the 2014 World Cup had 34.65 million viewers. For god sake Macron's speech on Covid had 36.7 million viewers. Maybe SI can make a game on covid.....................................great viewing figures.

Wow you really need it spelled out.

It was the most watched event sporting or otherwise in Australia. Obviously countries with larger populations watching events relevant to them have higher raw numbers.

You really have to work hard to come to the conclusion that these viewers simply materialised out of thin air. That they don't actually care about women's football and just tuned in as a one off.

Predictably that's not the case. You can google the ongoing and historical viewer numbers if you are interested in joining us in reality. Seems more likely that you're set on your own conclusions which facts are powerless to shift.

Denying the fact that interest in football correlates with FM purchases is a new one. I'm not going to bother to respond to that.

Edited September 11 by whatsupdoc

[jmlima]

9 minutes ago, davehanson said:

Just something I would like to know. I keep hearing that by adding Women's football it will open the game up to a big new audience. What audience is that? I'm honestly not trying to stir things. 

EAFC/FIFA properly introduced women's football in EAFC24 with the career mode etc. Yet sales dropped compared to the previous version. I'm just not sure  - are people thinking that women/females will go out and buy FM25 because it has women's football in it, or it will entice them to do so? Or will more men buy it because it has women's football? 

 

 

EAFC is (consistently) at the top of a diminishing market:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/elden-ring-sales-jump-467-on-shadow-of-the-erdtree-release-i-uk-monthly-charts

FM is miles away from the top and is an awkward position since it's very much a PC game ported to consoles, not the other way around, in a market dominated by consoles. Suspect this is what drove the move to unity. Female football is the only untapped  resource they can go for. What else could they add? Another random league? More press conferences? The old release model has been exhausted for ages, the meaningless improvements of late speak volumes so they had to drive in a different direction. They have room to grow, EAFC is running out of room to grow. Market realities.

[kiwityke1983]

12 hours ago, XaW said:

What partnership and sponsorships are you referring to? I haven't seen anything in that regard. Also, who are SI pandering to?

"I mentioned earlier in the blog that the cost of this project will be substantial. To help offset some of those costs we have already started conversations with some potential commercial partners who share our vision and who will be able to offer financial help in return for a wide integration of their brand into FM."

Probably come from this bit of the initial announcement.

I've seen it mentioned that SI are getting paid to include women's football on Reddit lots of times.

I don't know if they ever actually received any funding though.

[forameuss]

36 minutes ago, Fat_Frank8 said:

I’m sure you could. Not sure why you would feel compelled to do that on a Football Manager forum though unless your uninterests are added to the game. And if you don’t understand why people on a FM forum expresses what features are interesting and not, you probably should stay off the internet.   

Spectacularly missing the point, well done.  I could rhyme off plenty of things in FM I don't really care about either, yet still don't feel the need to constantly bring up how uninterested I am in them.  But then I don't have an ulterior motive behind that disinterest, I guess.

17 minutes ago, davehanson said:

Just something I would like to know. I keep hearing that by adding Women's football it will open the game up to a big new audience. What audience is that? I'm honestly not trying to stir things. 

EAFC/FIFA properly introduced women's football in EAFC24 with the career mode etc. Yet sales dropped compared to the previous version. I'm just not sure  - are people thinking that women/females will go out and buy FM25 because it has women's football in it, or it will entice them to do so? Or will more men buy it because it has women's football? 

 

For me, I don't buy the new markets argument quite as much.  I think there probably are women and girls out there who are into football, and who will perhaps be enticed to play FM that wouldn't previously have, but I imagine there's already a lot of them buying and playing as football fans.  

But I've also never bought this segmentation of audiences.  There seems to be this belief amongst some (not directed at you in case it comes across that way, just generally) that women's football is for women, and that's the only audience it could possibly have.  It also misses the most obvious point about the mode that it adds a hell of a lot to the game regardless of whether you're a fan of women's football or not.  I've never attended a women's game, and only caught bits of them broadcast.  May well get more into them in future if my daughter gets as into football as my son has.  But I'm a lot more interested in them in an FM sense because it adds a different aspect to the game.  It's not only different leagues with different structures involving different players, it's also (hopefully) a completely different feel to the matches themselves.  I have no idea why anyone would oppose the game having more to do, or why you could argue that the game wouldn't be stronger with it included.  

Well, with certain people, I've got a pretty good idea why unfortunately.

Interesting you're painting EA's actions as negative too.  For a company that's entirely morally bankrupt and openly despises their playerbase, their handling of adding women into FUT was pretty brave and has made the mode better.  And a year on, after the many, many hissy fits some people had, it seems like most people are quite happy with the way they're involved.

[davehanson]

2 minutes ago, forameuss said:

Spectacularly missing the point, well done.  I could rhyme off plenty of things in FM I don't really care about either, yet still don't feel the need to constantly bring up how uninterested I am in them.  But then I don't have an ulterior motive behind that disinterest, I guess.

For me, I don't buy the new markets argument quite as much.  I think there probably are women and girls out there who are into football, and who will perhaps be enticed to play FM that wouldn't previously have, but I imagine there's already a lot of them buying and playing as football fans.  

But I've also never bought this segmentation of audiences.  There seems to be this belief amongst some (not directed at you in case it comes across that way, just generally) that women's football is for women, and that's the only audience it could possibly have.  It also misses the most obvious point about the mode that it adds a hell of a lot to the game regardless of whether you're a fan of women's football or not.  I've never attended a women's game, and only caught bits of them broadcast.  May well get more into them in future if my daughter gets as into football as my son has.  But I'm a lot more interested in them in an FM sense because it adds a different aspect to the game.  It's not only different leagues with different structures involving different players, it's also (hopefully) a completely different feel to the matches themselves.  I have no idea why anyone would oppose the game having more to do, or why you could argue that the game wouldn't be stronger with it included.  

Well, with certain people, I've got a pretty good idea why unfortunately.

Interesting you're painting EA's actions as negative too.  For a company that's entirely morally bankrupt and openly despises their playerbase, their handling of adding women into FUT was pretty brave and has made the mode better.  And a year on, after the many, many hissy fits some people had, it seems like most people are quite happy with the way they're involved.

I'm not painting EA's actions as negative at all. Good for them that they have incorporated it in their game. I have no issue with it. I was merely referring to people who keep saying it will open up new markets. The point in opening up new markets is to increase sales and reach a bigger audience. That's why in the past SI have added all the new leagues - to hopefully get those people in those countries, and people with an active interest in those leagues, to buy the game. They don't do it for the fun of it. 

Yet for EAFC it has not opened up new markets. Sales have declined not gone up. And if we are being honest- much like FM is to management games - EAFC is to playing it, there is no real competition anymore, I was wondering where people are seeing these new markets and how SI will open them up when EA have not been able to.

[XaW]

1 minute ago, kiwityke1983 said:

"I mentioned earlier in the blog that the cost of this project will be substantial. To help offset some of those costs we have already started conversations with some potential commercial partners who share our vision and who will be able to offer financial help in return for a wide integration of their brand into FM."

Probably come from this bit of the initial announcement.

I've seen it mentioned that SI are getting paid to include women's football on Reddit lots of times.

I don't know if they ever actually received any funding though.

That's why I asked for clarification, as I've yet to see anything about it. And I don't think throwing in random statements like that, with an underhand accusation of SI "pandering" to some unknown stakeholders, are arguing a case in good faith without showing any proof of it. Hell, I know other games have been paid off to do a lot of things by various sponsorships, but things like this should need proof, not just wild accusations.

Lies or trolling does not make for a good climate for discussing things, the same goes for creating paper tigers just to tear them down, and I'm done letting it go now. Some people are seemingly really triggered about women's football. Now, I don't know what they are so afraid of, or why the misogyny is so deep that they have to react, but here we are. Personally, I don't care much for women's football other than the world cup, but I will try it out when it comes along to see how it works, perhaps I will like it, perhaps it will be a part of the game I ignore, like quite a few others, I don't know. Would really have loved to do the women's international side though...

[forameuss]

14 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

Wow you really need it spelled out.

It was the most watched event sporting or otherwise in Australia. Obviously countries with larger populations watching events relevant to them have higher raw numbers.

You really have to work hard to come to the conclusion that these viewers simply materialised out of thin air. That they don't actually care about women's football and just tuned in as a one off.

Predictably that's not the case. You can google the ongoing and historical viewer numbers if you are interested in joining us in reality. Seems more likely that you're set on your own conclusions which facts are powerless to shift.

Denying the fact that interest in football correlates with FM purchases is a new one. I'm not going to bother to respond to that.

Playing Devil's advocate though, while what you're saying is right, I think it's a different argument.  If we're talking solely about whether adding women's football opens up new markets, you've first got to have this group of people who are interested in buying an FM game but will only do so if they add the women's game.  I just don't buy that that group exists.  I think there's a far larger number of people than some would like to admit that are interested in playing with women's teams in FM, but I'd imagine the vast majority of those already buy the product as fans of football.  Could be wrong of course.

  

3 minutes ago, davehanson said:

I'm not painting EA's actions as negative at all. Good for them that they have incorporated it in their game. I have no issue with it. I was merely referring to people who keep saying it will open up new markets. The point in opening up new markets is to increase sales and reach a bigger audience. That's why in the past SI have added all the new leagues - to hopefully get those people in those countries, and people with an active interest in those leagues, to buy the game. They don't do it for the fun of it. 

Yet for EAFC it has not opened up new markets. Sales have declined not gone up. And if we are being honest- much like FM is to management games - EAFC is to playing it, there is no real competition anymore, I was wondering where people are seeing these new markets and how SI will open them up when EA have not been able to.

Fair enough, read you wrong.  Sounds like we're on similar lines.  I don't think there's these massive new markets untapped, but for me it's more about making the product better on the whole, which this undoubtedly does.  That retains existing customers, and I dare say attracts its own "new markets" too.

Edited September 11 by forameuss

[Fat_Frank8]

9 minutes ago, forameuss said:

Spectacularly missing the point, well done.  I could rhyme off plenty of things in FM I don't really care about either, yet still don't feel the need to constantly bring up how uninterested I am in them.  But then I don't have an ulterior motive behind that disinterest, I guess.

For me, I don't buy the new markets argument quite as much.  I think there probably are women and girls out there who are into football, and who will perhaps be enticed to play FM that wouldn't previously have, but I imagine there's already a lot of them buying and playing as football fans.  

But I've also never bought this segmentation of audiences.  There seems to be this belief amongst some (not directed at you in case it comes across that way, just generally) that women's football is for women, and that's the only audience it could possibly have.  It also misses the most obvious point about the mode that it adds a hell of a lot to the game regardless of whether you're a fan of women's football or not.  I've never attended a women's game, and only caught bits of them broadcast.  May well get more into them in future if my daughter gets as into football as my son has.  But I'm a lot more interested in them in an FM sense because it adds a different aspect to the game.  It's not only different leagues with different structures involving different players, it's also (hopefully) a completely different feel to the matches themselves.  I have no idea why anyone would oppose the game having more to do, or why you could argue that the game wouldn't be stronger with it included.  

Well, with certain people, I've got a pretty good idea why unfortunately.

Interesting you're painting EA's actions as negative too.  For a company that's entirely morally bankrupt and openly despises their playerbase, their handling of adding women into FUT was pretty brave and has made the mode better.  And a year on, after the many, many hissy fits some people had, it seems like most people are quite happy with the way they're involved.

You’re one of those who interpret ”I’d prefer international management over women football” as ”I hate womens football!!!” and you’re talking about missing the point?

[davehanson]

11 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

Wow you really need it spelled out.

It was the most watched event sporting or otherwise in Australia. Obviously countries with larger populations watching events relevant to them have higher raw numbers.

You really have to work hard to come to the conclusion that these viewers simply materialised out of thin air. That they don't actually care about women's football and just tuned in as a one off.

Predictably that's not the case. You can google the ongoing and historical viewer numbers if you are interested in joining us in reality. Seems more likely that you're set on your own conclusions which facts are powerless to shift.

Denying the fact that interest in football correlates with FM purchases is a new one. I'm not going to bother to respond to that.

That isn't what you said though was it? Stop making stuff up - it doesn't help your point. And where did I deny that interest in football doesn't corelate with FM purchases.  Again, making stuff up. So, saying they didn't tune in as a one off - okay, lets go with that then. What were the viewing figures for their next game. Or the one after? Historically the further a team goes into a tournament the more viewing figures they get. Do you think those viewing figures are from casual fans or from people who actively follow them all the time? When you have answered that then answer whether those same 'extra' viewers are likely to buy a computer game on the basis they have included women's football. 

How many copies of FM sold in Australia? 

[kiwityke1983]

9 hours ago, Petra90 said:

The percentage of players for removing something is a factor, but not the only factor. There are several lower-level leagues such as the Indian, Indonesian or South Africa that likely less than 5% of players play and they will still remain in the game.

The Indian league really is pointless now because that league isn't the top Indian league that gets all the best players and Asian cup qualification places.

Some of the bigger teams even defected to the ISL which is now the defacto top league in India.

I'm one of the weirdos who plays those leagues pretty much every FM cycle.

[whatsupdoc]

20 minutes ago, forameuss said:

Playing Devil's advocate though, while what you're saying is right, I think it's a different argument.  If we're talking solely about whether adding women's football opens up new markets, you've first got to have this group of people who are interested in buying an FM game but will only do so if they add the women's game.  I just don't buy that that group exists.  I think there's a far larger number of people than some would like to admit that are interested in playing with women's teams in FM, but I'd imagine the vast majority of those already buy the product as fans of football.  Could be wrong of course.

Devil's advocates are annoying and often wrong. This is no exception.

It's about three things:

- Player retention. You're more likely to retain a higher % of players if they connect to an area that they enjoy.

- New players. I've worked in women's football. Australia has enormous and thriving numbers of young female players. Football is our most popular played sport and the women's side is growing at a rapid pace. Knowing them, I can say that unlike the boys they are not passionate gamers, and less so passionate management gamers, but heaps of them will be interested in buying the game for a first time to play with their heroes.

- It's about more than sales. Thankfully FM have a vision that is linked to more than just raw sales numbers and a bottom line. This makes me more likely to support them, which I suspect is the case for a number of people. It's also about having an eye for trends and the future.

Edited September 11 by whatsupdoc

[jmlima]

5 minutes ago, davehanson said:

...

Yet for EAFC it has not opened up new markets. Sales have declined not gone up. And if we are being honest- much like FM is to management games - EAFC is to playing it, there is no real competition anymore, I was wondering where people are seeing these new markets and how SI will open them up when EA have not been able to.

I do, perhaps poorly, an attempt at explaining it above. EAFC is at the top of a decreasing market (if you're in the games industry you know the golden days are well and truly over) , FM is not, hence there is a lot of room to grow if they can find new directions. Unity points squarely at consoles, female football is the only avenue to expand interest as new leagues leagues and more press conferences would not do it. Female football is growing exponentially, there is a lot of people interested in it, it's a worldwide phenomena (whilst things like national leagues are not since the ones with world appeal have been in the game for ages).

[kiwityke1983]

5 minutes ago, XaW said:

That's why I asked for clarification, as I've yet to see anything about it. And I don't think throwing in random statements like that, with an underhand accusation of SI "pandering" to some unknown stakeholders, are arguing a case in good faith without showing any proof of it. Hell, I know other games have been paid off to do a lot of things by various sponsorships, but things like this should need proof, not just wild accusations.

Lies or trolling does not make for a good climate for discussing things, the same goes for creating paper tigers just to tear them down, and I'm done letting it go now. Some people are seemingly really triggered about women's football. Now, I don't know what they are so afraid of, or why the misogyny is so deep that they have to react, but here we are. Personally, I don't care much for women's football other than the world cup, but I will try it out when it comes along to see how it works, perhaps I will like it, perhaps it will be a part of the game I ignore, like quite a few others, I don't know. Would really have loved to do the women's international side though...

I agree with you.

It seems people saw that then jumped to the conclusion the ONLY reason SI would ever add women's football is if they got paid to do so, and then have ran with it as fact.

Which is obviously nonsense.

I'm pretty much exactly in the same boat as you in regards to women's football, I have minimal interest in it, I've attended a few women's internationals and would have gone to the World Cup in Ozzie and NZ had I been home at the time, but I wasn't.

I probably couldn't even name 6 female players, and my cousin plays for England.

I'll definitely be trying out a save with The Nix in the Women's A-Leagues though.

[davehanson]

3 minutes ago, jmlima said:

I do, perhaps poorly, an attempt at explaining it above. EAFC is at the top of a decreasing market (if you're in the games industry you know the golden days are well and truly over) , FM is not, hence there is a lot of room to grow if they can find new directions. Unity points squarely at consoles, female football is the only avenue to expand interest as new leagues leagues and more press conferences would not do it. Female football is growing exponentially, there is a lot of people interested in it, it's a worldwide phenomena (whilst things like national leagues are not since the ones with world appeal have been in the game for ages).

Yeah, no I get that - it makes perfect sense. But.........

To bring women's football into FM - and people have pointed out that it is like coding a new game, completely different to the men's etc, means a lot of time and a lot of money. In any business you need to make money, so adding more expense to what I can only assume is an already expensive business means that they need to recoup that money.  How are they going to do that unless sales figures increase? 

I mean, the game won't stay as it is forever anyway - I think most people can see that within sort of 5 years or so it will most likely move to some sort of subscription based service rather than just but the game and you own it. But that is a little way off I would imagine.

[forameuss]

1 minute ago, whatsupdoc said:

Devil's advocates are annoying and often wrong. This is no exception.

It's about three things:

- Player retention. You're more likely to retain a higher % of players if they connect to an area that they enjoy.

- New players. I've worked in women's football. Australia has enormous and thriving numbers of young female players. Football is our most popular played sport and the women's side is growing at a rapid pace. Knowing them, I can say that unlike the boys they are not passionate gamers, and less so passionate management gamers, but heaps of them will be interested in buying the game for a first time to play with their heroes.

- It's about more than sales. Thankfully FM have a vision that is linked to more than just raw sales numbers and a bottom line. This makes me more likely to support them, which I suspect is the case for a number of people.

Well I guess it's good that I've already mentioned point 1 and alluded to point 3 then, isn't it?  

I'm purely talking about not believing there's a massive market of people not buying the game but who will now.  I even said I could be wrong on it.  Main point being that I don't think you can point to many millions watching and think that'll have a direct correlation to people buying FM.

I think it's a great change they're making, it makes the product overall stronger, and through a combination of player retention and new players (because there will be some, just not this massive market that people are expecting) it'll be a major positive.

 

[jmlima]

3 minutes ago, davehanson said:

...

To bring women's football into FM - and people have pointed out that it is like coding a new game, completely different to the men's etc, means a lot of time and a lot of money. In any business you need to make money, so adding more expense to what I can only assume is an already expensive business means that they need to recoup that money.  How are they going to do that unless sales figures increase? 

...

That's just business investment. You invest x to recoup y. Sometimes fails, sometimes you recoup +y. I will point out something else, female football is not the development elephant in the room. By a very long mile, the move to unity is. WOTC made a similar move years ago and they detailed the challenges, etc It was (as expected) pretty staggering.

 

[kiwityke1983]

34 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

You really have to work hard to come to the conclusion that these viewers simply materialised out of thin air. That they don't actually care about women's football and just tuned in as a one off.

As a Nix fan I tangentially also follow the women's team and sadly average attendances at women's A-League matches don't really back you up here.

Lowest crowd was in the low few hundreds 260ish.

Highest was about 11,500.

With an average of 2,300ish.

Which is about 4 times lower than the men's league.

There's an audience for it and women's football is certainly growing but a one off world cup semi-finals at home in Australia isn't probably the most useful metric of popularity.

[davehanson]

13 minutes ago, jmlima said:

That's just business investment. You invest x to recoup y. Sometimes fails, sometimes you recoup +y. I will point out something else, female football is not the development elephant in the room. By a very long mile, the move to unity is. WOTC made a similar move years ago and they detailed the challenges, etc It was (as expected) pretty staggering.

 

I'm not saying it is the elephant and I can only imagine how difficult it is bringing a whole game over to a new engine. 

It's just there have been some very vocal people on here saying that the women's game is a whole new game. So in essence they are developing 2 games at once.

[davehanson]

52 minutes ago, vikeologist said:

I'd guess it will work the other way round; that adding it to FM will open up Women's football to a wider audience. I watch some international matches, but not club ones, but I guess if I'm playing as a team in FM, and become familiar with the names, I might take more of an interest in the club side. Mind you, with my own club, Bradford City, the North East Regional League doesn't sound like a level that's guaranteed to be in the game. It's level 5 of the pyramid.

I haven't really seen too much of the argument that it will make more people buy the game. That's not my recollection of the announcement it was being introduced a couple of years ago. But I think that it's a genuinely new feature, and it's probably more important for SI to retain their customers than attract lots of new ones. (I appreciate that there may be a feeling that they're alienating some of their customers, but it's not the first time that a feature has been accused of doing that).

A stylistic observation that I suspect is going to annoy you, but 'female' is better as an adjective than a noun.

Yep, again that's a completely fair comment. I have taken the 'females' part out - sorry cold hands whilst typing. 

I get the opening up of women's football to a wider audience. That makes a lot of sense. More so than enticing a whole lot of sales for new players. I just go back to something else I said though. This is like developing a new game - adding women's football I mean. SI have said that in so many words by adding a whole load more staff etc. People here have said it. If that is the case and sales don't increase - where does the money come from for that? Increase game costs, outside investment, sponsorship, SEGA bankrolling it? Curious is all. 

[rp1966]

12 hours ago, ForTheLoveOfTheGame said:

No pre game editor is also a make or break for me. I don’t think they would do that to us though…

I wouldn't expect Unity to make a difference to the pre-game editor. As it's a standalone program there should be no real need to move the pre-game editor to Unity until they have a comfortable amount of time to do it.   I would expect the database to be changing just enough to incorporate any special requirements of women's football, so the editor should only need small changes to reflect the database changes. The main game in Unity will have to read the database format regardless of the inclusion of women's football so will be written to the FM25 database spec.  (That's how I see it, anyway).  I hope for the sake of editor fans that I'm right.

[whatsupdoc]

1 hour ago, kiwityke1983 said:

As a Nix fan I tangentially also follow the women's team and sadly average attendances at women's A-League matches don't really back you up here.

Lowest crowd was in the low few hundreds 260ish.

Highest was about 11,500.

With an average of 2,300ish.

Which is about 4 times lower than the men's league.

There's an audience for it and women's football is certainly growing but a one off world cup semi-finals at home in Australia isn't probably the most useful metric of popularity.

The in-person league attendances are not particularly relevant. They're not well supported because it's an export/development league where star players quickly head overseas, and also because we have a highly suburban sprawl and people aren't willing to travel 60+ minutes each way to attend games. More relevant data would come from the numbers and trajectory of viewership and players, which as I've said are already huge, rapidly growing and are potential first time buyers of the game.

I struggle to respond to the idea that a burgeoning interest dragging literally millions of new people into women's football every year doesn't correlate with an opportunity to attract new players to the game now and in the future. To repeat - in my experience working at several big clubs around Australia, these are new, passionate people falling in love with the game at huge numbers. The participation rates and their ridiculous growth are reflected world wide. I only use Australia as an example as I have first hand experience speaking to young players and parents every year. Every year the numbers skyrocket and there is no end in sight. The success of the Women's world cup has only accelerated this trend. It's not going anywhere. New facilities are being built and new investment and sponsorship comes every year. The players themselves have become superstars with all that goes with that.

It's fairly easy to google and get informed about:

https://www.olbg.com/blogs/womens-football-report

 

Do we need a specific poll on whether these new people will buy FM?

I think that's nonsense, like these people and this market somehow behaves in a radically unique way. Some people just have a cascading list of defences and complaints against a changing world. It started with "nobody cares about women's football" and when that was proven to be comically inaccurate it moved to "but will they buy the game"? Like these alien creatures are somehow different and immune from buying a video game based on a new thing they're passionate about.

Edited September 11 by whatsupdoc

[jmlima]

13 minutes ago, davehanson said:

...

It's just there have been some very vocal people on here saying that the women's game is a whole new game. So in essence they are developing 2 games at once.

Ah, I'm with you now. I always took that to be a huge misunderstanding of what they meant. What they are saying (correctly) is that they cannot merely grab the code for man's football, tack-on female players to it and presto. What I always understood they are saying is that the code for female football is derived from man's football (logic) but adds / alters parts as required to make it truly representative (also logic). My view, is this really two games? Not really.

[forameuss]

6 minutes ago, jmlima said:

Ah, I'm with you now. I always took that to be a huge misunderstanding of what they meant. What they are saying (correctly) is that they cannot merely grab the code for man's football, tack-on female players to it and presto. What I always understood they are saying is that the code for female football is derived from man's football (logic) but adds / alters parts as required to make it truly representative (also logic). My view, is this really two games? Not really.

It's really going to depend on how it feels in practice as to whether it ends up feeling like a "different game".  If the ME is noticeably different and actually represents the differences you'll get watching a male match vs female, and if there's a more representative economy, then it probably will end up feeling different.  Remains to be seen.

[jmlima]

1 minute ago, forameuss said:

It's really going to depend on how it feels in practice as to whether it ends up feeling like a "different game".  If the ME is noticeably different and actually represents the differences you'll get watching a male match vs female, and if there's a more representative economy, then it probably will end up feeling different.  Remains to be seen.

Sorry, I failed again at explaining my reasoning. You are correct of course, but I was alluding to it being two different games in terms of development. That's where I'm saying they are not. They are variations on a theme. Some people seem to be making a big fuss they are developing two games, I'm pointing out they are not, they are developing variations on a theme.

[forameuss]

1 minute ago, jmlima said:

Sorry, I failed again at explaining my reasoning. You are correct of course, but I was alluding to it being two different games in terms of development. That's where I'm saying they are not. They are variations on a theme. Some people seem to be making a big fuss they are developing two games, I'm pointing out they are not, they are developing variations on a theme.

Ah, in that case then yeah, it's definitely not going to be two different games.  Like you say, there'll be a common base to the game that is generic enough to handle both, then it'll branch how it needs.  

It was certainly something talked about a lot more in the past when it was first announced, people expecting that you'd fire up a whole new executable just to play it.  Which was wild.

[JAwtunes]

7 hours ago, spursfan said:

 

Building Lego with my child has been an insightful experience for me. We build a bird that took over 100 steps and little over 2 days. 
The next moment he says, let's build a fish now -- and proceeds to tear down the bird while I was still marvelling at the work!
The fish takes fewer steps, and *excludes several elements* from the bird that we had worked hard to assemble (those elements made the bird a bit awkward, but it is what it is, and I loved it anyways).
And we took slightly longer to build the fish due to unexpected interruptions.

Unity is the completely different universe, partly as it claims to combine the physics etc. to fit all football players realistically.
International football is the block of Lego that's particularly challenging to disassemble (even with Lego brick remover), so it will just have to wait unfortunately.

The previous model is good while it lasts (20 years is a long time) -- but we have to move on.
My 5 yo moved on in a heartbeat; his old man also has done it, even though it took longer (I was going on about the bird even while we were more than halfway done with the fish).

I hope that the good folk in this community (who are much younger than I am for sure) will do the same.

Love this. Reminded me a bit of Cantona and trawlers, which is never a bad thing.

[davehanson]

51 minutes ago, whatsupdoc said:

The in-person league attendances are not particularly relevant. They're not well supported because it's an export/development league where star players quickly head overseas, and also because we have a highly suburban sprawl and people aren't willing to travel 60+ minutes each way to attend games. More relevant data would come from the numbers and trajectory of viewership and players, which as I've said are already huge, rapidly growing and are potential first time buyers of the game.

I struggle to respond to the idea that a burgeoning interest dragging literally millions of new people into women's football every year doesn't correlate with an opportunity to attract new players to the game now and in the future. To repeat - in my experience working at several big clubs around Australia, these are new, passionate people falling in love with the game at huge numbers. The participation rates and their ridiculous growth are reflected world wide. I only use Australia as an example as I have first hand experience speaking to young players and parents every year. Every year the numbers skyrocket and there is no end in sight. The success of the Women's world cup has only accelerated this trend. It's not going anywhere. New facilities are being built and new investment and sponsorship comes every year. The players themselves have become superstars with all that goes with that.

It's fairly easy to google and get informed about:

https://www.olbg.com/blogs/womens-football-report

 

Do we need a specific poll on whether these new people will buy FM?

I think that's nonsense, like these people and this market somehow behaves in a radically unique way. Some people just have a cascading list of defences and complaints against a changing world. It started with "nobody cares about women's football" and when that was proven to be comically inaccurate it moved to "but will they buy the game"? Like these alien creatures are somehow different and immune from buying a video game based on a new thing they're passionate about.

Look, more people that play football, take an interest in football, watch football etc IRL of course there is the opportunity and possibility that they will start playing the game. But it’s at what level?

Obviously from your point of view you are seeing a massive rise in people participating and watching on tv the women’s game. But how many people, and I am talking worldwide now, are new to football? By that I mean so in England those that have started to watch women’s football here - how many are new to the game compared to how many already watch the men’s game and have now decided to watch the women’s game too. Thats why I said you can’t correlate those watching the game to how many extra people will buy FM just because they have added women’s football.

I have no issue with them adding women’s football, none whatsoever. I won’t play it - to be honest at the rate they are taking things away from the game it probably won’t get bought until a sale or it comes to game pass, but then I don’t play in the Peru leagues, or Australian league either - they hold no interest for me. But, like women’s football, if they are in the game and people want to enjoy them then good for them. 

[Dbuk1]

1 hour ago, JAwtunes said:

Love this. Reminded me a bit of Cantona and trawlers, which is never a bad thing.

Whom is the crystal palace fan in this? 🤣🤣

[Junkhead]

I will be giving this version a miss, unless something completely game changing and ground breaking is unveiled. Not because they are adding Women's football - was actually really looking forward to that - but because my gut feeling is that the game is likely to have a fair few problems given the removal of features, the delayed release and the fact this is the first version of the game on the new engine.

It's not a massive deal, I miss one version every five years or so if I'm still enjoying the previous version - it's also not one of those cases of "I am not giving them money every year" - it's more that I can't deal with the frustration of a game that has problems. Life is too short and I am too impatient.

That being said, if it comes out and is functioning perfectly and has some decent additions, I may well change my stance.

 

[Novem9]

This topic has become like Groundhog Day, we need new cancellations to refresh the discussion

[Novem9]

24 минуты назад, Junkhead сказал:

I will be giving this version a miss, unless something completely game changing and ground breaking is unveiled. Not because they are adding Women's football - was actually really looking forward to that - but because my gut feeling is that the game is likely to have a fair few problems given the removal of features, the delayed release and the fact this is the first version of the game on the new engine.

It's not a massive deal, I miss one version every five years or so if I'm still enjoying the previous version - it's also not one of those cases of "I am not giving them money every year" - it's more that I can't deal with the frustration of a game that has problems. Life is too short and I am too impatient.

That being said, if it comes out and is functioning perfectly and has some decent additions, I may well change my stance.

 

It makes sense. I used to buy every version and felt rushed in my saves. I missed FM23, so FM24, despite a bunch of bugs, feels very fresh after FM22, which I also liked. Also, by skipping FM23 I played probably my best save ever, winning 5 leagues in South America, managing 9 different clubs along the way. I had really high expectations for FM25 but after last news I created a new save in FM24 and have plans for it

[grade]

11 hours ago, Mars_Blackmon said:

 

Are you saying there is possibility there won't be women's football in FM25?

that would be the ultimate 

[Junkhead]

52 minutes ago, Novem9 said:

This topic has become like Groundhog Day, we need new cancellations to refresh the discussion

"Because it's not functioning as intended, we have made the tough decision to remove men's club management from the game" would be the greatest announcement of all time 😂

[-Jef-]

People using EAFC24/FIFA 24 to put down women in FM is really something else.

 

Firstly EAFC sales are down cos the gameplay is bad, it is pay to win structured, has lots of bugs and issues with the game. This year we had 2 issues with "unintended" weekend league (weekly tournament) rewwards with Mbappe/Dembele being in every pack on Friday and then it was "corrected" to basically non-existent. And then there was the MLS SBC (crafting challenge) where you was basically guaranteed 97 rated Messi card. It was fixed after about 45 minutes. That's the main issue with decline in EA FC. And regardless of that EA are still making more and more money from the game/mtx.

 

Regarding women in EA FC and the alleged 4% or whatever it was for the achievement. You have to understand that barely anyone plays career more, play now, quick play or whatever is the name of the friendlies offline mode. That's where the achievement comes from. Almost everyone plays Ultimate Team (FUT) and in FUT there were multiple women players that are staples in the FUT for the year. I have learned so much about players, teams etc through the game and so have millions of others. I have 500 hours in EA FC 24 and do not have the achievement that I play with women in the game. But what I do have is 1000 games with Mia Hamm, 700 games with Wendy Renard, 300 games with Rolfo, Hansen, Pina, Bonmati, Alexia Putellas etc. I could recognise and tell you where about 50+ women play and their positions. Could I do that a year ago? Absolutely not. Before this I truly only knew of one female football player but just because she is famous locally.

 

And I will dabble into women's management absolutely because it is something new, something fun.

[decapitated]

I really know nothing about the unity engine apart from what I've read on this forum and some of that can be contradictory. I thus ask: What are the potential advantages of updating to Unity in simple terms? Is it keeping up with more powerful laptops/desktop capabilities? better in-match graphics? Being able to play with more active leagues? FM25 being much faster than FM24? I'm looking forward to the Late September reveal announcement, so I'm wondering what the possibilities might be?