Sean's Blog

FML is in trouble...

I'm a big fan of Football Manager Live - it is the only MMO that I've really every played and gotten into.  The game has had its ups and downs which was to be expected considering the scale of what Sports Interactive and Sega were trying to achieve.  We're now at the one year mark, user participation is falling, paid subscriptions are dropping and there is a sense of malaise among the community.  I'm sure this was never envisioned.

Marc Duffy from SI announced a series of fairly radical changes coming to FML.  Gareth Millward, of GameworldOne does a really good job of summarising the changes here.  Basically, SI are calling for a "do over".  They will be totally resetting the gameworlds, cutting back on the number of GWs and making some changes to the structure of the GWs to better suit a variety of players.  I'm more or less in favour of the reset, but it does have its flaws and the worrying part for me is that SI ALREADY appear to be missing the customer feedback.

That's a critical point as well.  Millie says in his post that SI won't get another shot at this and he's dead right.  The problem is, SI have been fairly arrogant and somewhat ignorant of the community on the crux of this issue for a very long time now - too many gameworlds.  Go back eight months ago in SI's own forums and there were a plethora of people saying that SI were opening too many gameworlds, too quickly and that eventually the old worlds would die.  They didn't listen and now here we are.

The second thing I've noticed from glancing over the forums is the sheer outrage at people losing their skills.  If I were SI, this would be a MASSIVE warning bell for me - people are complaining SOOOO bitterly about losing their skills because acquiring them ISN'T FUN!!! Skilling up falls entirely out of the gameplay and is just a necessary evil.  Rather than apologising for resetting the skills and talking about GW balance, they should be realising that skill acquisition is a massive weakness in the game and the players see it as nothing more than a laborious chore. 

I just re-subscribed last week for another 3 months.  That totally annoys me.  Basically for the full duration of this three month subscription, I'm going to be on "the green mile" so to speak.  I don't care what anyone says about trying to qualify for a "Professional" or "Hard Core" GW, alot of people are just going to pack it in.  The reset should be coming in January or whenever 1.4 is ready, not in March. 

Many people are demanding refunds and are complaining about being paying beta testers.  I don't care about the refunds or whatever, but there is something to be said about this paying beta testers.  I'm not sure if SI can fix it, but there is a bit of that as a bad taste in the mouth and two months for free isn't going to rinse it clean.  I'll get over it, but they are certainly going to lose plenty of subscribers on principle.

Despite all of that, I think they've made the only sensible decision they could have made.  I think the game is broken and to fix it they need to do something drastic.  A full reset is drastic.  I am slightly concerned that again, the community is in an uproar (largely over skills) and there doesn't seem to be a "positive" reaction.  I would have thought the best response would have been, "Wow!  This has hightlighted just how crap our skills system is, we'll work on that."  Maybe come out with a system whereby you earn skills for achieving things and they are acquired over time - I dunno, something.  However, saying, "Sorry, that's the way it is going to be" just sort of smells of the same position SI took with opening new GWs and we all now know how that turned out.

The Customer Is Always Right!

Over at Gameworldone.com they have a new blog post written by Mark Burton that I had to read twice to get my head around.  I like Mark Burton.  I reckon he is probably the best resource about FML that Sports Interactive and Sega Europe aren't paying when it comes to the game.  Mark is the Lead Moderator in the Fowler Gameworld, where as a fellow moderator, I have the immense pleasure of dealing with him.  More than that, whenever I have any sort of question about FML, Mark is my first port of call for an answer.

HOWEVER!  I think he's bumped his head and then drank the kool-aid heavily before writing the above mentioned post.  Here's a brief summary of Mark's positions:

• Sega Europe publish their Terms and Conditions and its up to you to keep abreast of the changes they make to the game;
• Even though they sell the game to those of us overseas, their primary responsibility is to the UK and Ireland for support;
• FML is the "little brother" of Football Manager, even though myself (and alot of other customers on 12 month contracts) pay more, we should "understand" that FM is actually the priority and gets the bulk of the resources; and,
• The community on the forums really ought not to expect the SI Devs to spend too much time tracking the community.

Mark is a great guy, but this blog entry is seriously warped.  Let me go through the points above and give you my flavor:

• SI/Sega need to do a way better job of keeping the community informed of the future of the game and that's totally evident by the general feeling within the posts we're seeing on the forums and some discussions on the GWs that the GWs are slowly dying.  I think SI/Sega treat their "conversation" with the customers as a bit too one way and they hold back way too much.  It is totally old school marketing where you create demand and then have a "ta da" moment unveiling.  I suggest that a few of the senior folks at SI go read "Tribes" by Seth Godin;
• The idea that its "ok" to sell the game overseas, but REALLY those of us not in the UK should just understand that support is primarily focused on the UK is ridiculous.  If I walk into JB Hi-Fi here in Sydney and can pick up a boxed copy of FML then I'm a first class citizen and the idea that I'm not disgusts me.  I hope that's no the SI/Sega Europe point of view;
• The concept of the "little brother" to FM irritates me.  I understand fully that FM is the bread winner for SI and Sega Europe, it is what let's them gamble a bit on things like EHM (I miss that game so much, shout outs to Riz and GK), but I pay a fair whack for my annual subscription to FML.  I think Mark has this wrong.  I am pretty sure SI have a separate team entirely working on FML, with its own budgets, P&L and KPIs - to do anything else would be stupid business; and,
• Having a community like the one SI have built over the years is a double edged sword.  Most companies would DIE to have such a dedicated, rabid fan base.  FM and FML fans are the football management equivalent of Twilight junkies.  Unfortunately, there are no IQ and EQ tests required to buy the games and sign up to be a member of the community.  I used to be a mod on the SI forums years ago when EHM was around and some of the people who posted made me call into question Darwinian theory.  On the other hand, those people MUST be considered a PASSIONATE fan base.  I think SI see it that way too, Ov, Miles, Duffy and a few others do spend their time getting in amongst it.  Again, I think Mark's view in his post is a bit inconsistent with SI's views - he doesn't work for them nor is he speaking for them, so that's cool.  I would suggest that SI hire their own Community Manager and get a bit more involved, I don't know Bertie from Sega, but I think someone who sits in SI's offices and is part of the team would better serve that role.

All up, I thought Mark's article was difficult to read because it was apologist.  It let's SI and Sega Europe off the hook for things they don't do well and calls into question whether the customer is right or wrong.  The customer is ALWAYS right.  Even when the customer is wrong, the customer is RIGHT.  Why?  Because the customer controls their spend.  As a software company you can be as right as you like, right about everything, but if the customers think you're wrong and don't buy your product, then ultimately, the company was wrong. 

Here's what I would like... I'd like to see a more open product roadmap.  We keep hearing about plans to "re-vitalise" the older GWs.  How about rather than telling me as a customer, why not have a conversation with me about it?  What if SI/Sega Europe outlined their high level plans and asked for some feedback?  Sure, somethings may or may not come to fruition and the ones that don't will certainly upset people who like those ideas, but forewarned is also forearmed.  I've made a decision to join SI/Sega Europe for the ride - I signed up for 12 months and will renew for another 12 months.  Instead of treating me solely as a customer, how about treating me as a partner and letting me know where the experience is headed.  Use your blogs to dream, not advertise upcoming features that are already set in stone and 95% developed.

Things like forums, blogs, Twitter and the like are "social networking".  By their very nature they imply a two way conversation.  I'm not interested in seeing the blog, with the video of the tactics engine for FM10 that is already finished and in final testing.  Post on the blog about the ideas you're toying with for Youth Academies in FML.  I know the SI team do take a lot of ideas on board that come from the community, I just think right now it has gotten away from them a bit - people now expect more engagement, sometimes it just feels that SI/Sega Europe are preaching from "on high" and not talking to us - and that's my biggest complaint about Mark's blog entry, he's making excuses for that behaviour.

Playing Youth in FML

One of the things I like to do when I get a bit of spare time is playing Football Manager Live (FML) online.  FML is a massively multiplayer football (soccer) management game from Sports Interactive.  The game is an offshoot of the successful Football Manager series that SI have been releasing for about 15 years.  I pretty much own every version of FM (and CM before that) and have spent countless cumulative months over the years playing it.

FML is the only MMO I've ever played seriously.  The community that SI hve built around their games is amazing and something I keep in the back of my mind for my professional life.  For example, Jordan Cooper who has commented on some of my previous entries runs Gameworld One, a site dedicated to all things FML and along with Gareth Millward he produces the FML Extra podcast every week.  SI currently run about 35 production gameworlds (each can have a maximum of 1000 players) and I've been lucky enough to be in the same gameworld as both Gareth and Jordan, GW Fowler.

I'm pretty average at the game, despite having been a member since Fowler launched back in November 2008.  I spent the first seven seasons struggling upward and peaked at a senior ranking of about #88.  I then decided to take a more youth focus approach and during the eighth season I sold every player in my squad over 21.  I proceeded to drop down to about 343rd in the GW.  I went on a run of 28 straight senior matches without a victory at one point.  I was demoted in my FA.  I hit rock bottom with my senior side. 

On the flip side, I became a top 20 ranked manager in the youth sides.  I've been solidly ranked in the top 16 for the past three seasons and this season I sat at #2 for a little while.  Meanwhile, my youth movement is coming to fruition - I'm back ranked in the top 100 in the GW and am progressing nicely on all fronts.  I should even get promoted back into my FA's Premiership for next season.  It has been a long three seasons, so here's some things I did right and I did wrong.

I think the way the game is geared right now, long term success can be achieved with developing a good youth side and selectively bringing in one or two new players a season and selling off some veterans for profit.  I initially made a huge mistake by selling off all of my high reputation older players and going with low reputation younger players.  To best develop your younger players you must play them at a level where they are averaging 6.8 or more per game and the side has to be reasonably successful. 

What I learned is that reputation in FML is everything right now.  You can go to just about any reputable blog on FML and they'll tell you why - I suggest you read it and take it in!  This past season I decided to compliment my very young Senior side with a few 4.5* older pros.  The result has been amazing.  They've immediately improved my side's reputation and therefore my income.  My team is playing better and winning most of the time.  Most importantly for me, my young players are seeing their reputations improve more quickly as my team is more successful and they play better!  The other thing I've done is made sure that the older players I've brought in this year, I have young guys who can replace them in a season or two when the rest of my side matures to support it.

I am enjoying this element of the game more and more - planning a couple seasons out and thinking about the make up of my side.  My goal is to be a top 50 side next season and maybe top 20 the season after in both senior and junior competitions.  After that, who knows!