[Will anyone be buying FM21?]

1 hour ago, forameuss said:

A few points on that.  What exactly would be this "huge innovation" that you feel they're missing out on?

And how exactly do you figure they are "ripe for the taking" given that anyone new to the genre would be literal decades behind in a few areas.  Not to mention that there was a huge publisher who took a shot at them, and they ultimately failed so hard they left the market entirely.  

And you say they'd "steal a ton of players", but from where?  Currently they're likely at saturation - people who want to play football management games will play FM.  Those who don't, won't.  Of course they're likely to have a minority group that would buy if changes are made, but there isn't this huge untapped market sitting out there.

The competition argument always sounds great, but people can quote economics 101 classes all they like, but it's nowhere near as simple as people like to make out.

the transfer system has barely been changed in years most top clubs these days operate by dealing with agents and agreeing contracts before agreeing fees with clubs (see thiago and LFC) , in game organic events are rare and it all feels a bit boring year on year, how about a 'permadeath' mode, no reloading saves to do over that cup final, director of football/owner mode, brainstorming features is not hard but they really dont need to innovate, cause they havnt had their feet to the fire for such a long time. and on the point of where the players come from, a lot of my friends that used to play barely buy every once every 4/5 years now, or not at all, there is a lot of lapsed fans that want the in depth  the spreadsheet game but not the player interaction/social media guff etc hence why older versions are kept alive through modding (the older versions even have cleaner UI compared to how cluttered the current UI has become).

[Will anyone be buying FM21?]

Ive bought every year since championship manager italia and for the last 4-5 years its gotten harder to justify unfortunately, theres been a huge lack of innovation for a while now and more than ever im surprised one of the big publishers has not taken a decent shot at making a valid competitor cause this series is ripe for the taking. Sure it sells a ton every year still but with a competent competitor they'd steal a ton of players and bring back lapsed fans of the past.

Even with this in mind I am sure i will still buy FM21 but god do I wish a had a choice, hell the competition might finally light a fire under SI to add decent features besides redundant crap like social media and trash player interactions of guess the right answer.