OOTP vs. FM

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Stinson

I had to vote for Football Manager.

While I of course enjoy both, I feel that Football Manager is more of a game. It feels like it was made to be a management video game, and that's exactly how you play it. OOTP, on the other hand, always felt to me like a stat generator. Using it as a management game, like FM or EHM, feels makeshift, and "outside-the-box".

In the end, Football Manager draws me in and keeps me playing, while OOTP is just something fun to tinker with.

What would you have considered Front Office Football to be? I guess my point is OOTP is not just supposed to be a simulator, but a GM experience. That is the way it was headed before Markus had to split with SI. Why it hasn't quite gotten back to that I don't know.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

The question was which is a more immersive, realistic etc...SPORTS MANAGEMENT SIMULATION. The sport each tackles isn't the point.

Well it has to be part of it. In FM 1-3 games a week sandwiched around terminally boring soap opera do not make for an immersive experience. Baseball is played almost every day so I delight in the immersion of playing the game. After all these are "games".

OOTP wins hands down. I continue to try FM but it doesn't hold a sense of pleasure for me.

[Stinson]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

You have to realize baseball fans are the most stats obsessed fans on the planet. We don't just watch the game and say Pujols is a good player we have to have at least 5 stats to back up that assertion!

This is definitely true. But this is what gives FM the edge, in my opinion. It's more of a game, whereas OOTP's options, factors, stats, customization, etc., make it feel, to me at least, more like a baseball sandbox, as opposed to a video game. The features are certainly there to play it as a management sim, but to me that never shined through as it's intended purpose.

It should be noted, however, that I'm fairly new to baseball... so my ability to filter what's good and bad, necessary and unnecessary, is kind of nonexistent still . Perhaps you more knowledgeable baseball fans can better focus, and not be distracted by all the options like I am.

Originally Posted by PSUColonel

What would you have considered Front Office Football to be?

Unfortunately, I can't help you out with that one... I've never played Front Office Football

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by Stinson

It should be noted, however, that I'm fairly new to baseball... so my ability to filter what's good and bad, necessary and unnecessary, is kind of nonexistent still . Perhaps you more knowledgeable baseball fans can better focus, and not be distracted by all the options like I am.

That's how I am in FM. My knowledge was a few youth games back in the early 80's. It took a long while and a lot of reading to get a feel for what I should look for in different positions. I still find myself relying more on ratings than what I see on the field. I am still little lost with in game management. I get what strategies to use and when to switch but I am still lost at what shout to use or when. I am lot more spectator than coach when playing games. I was so green I didn't know what a tackle meant when I first started playing. Having a more American football background raised an eyebrow when I saw that.

I do think that finances play a better role in FM especially in the lower leagues when you are concerned about the cash to build new facilities. They just seem even more brutal in the last version for semi-pro teams. The training system is interesting for professional teams but semi-pro teams with no facilities really can't tap into it like the big teams can. There is 0 chance in OOTP for a buyout because your finances are crap and you get fired by the new owners. I do like that aspect. In OOTP, new owners seem to keep status quo instead of doing like Jim Crane did and fire almost everybody.

[flanyboy5]

Originally Posted by Cooleyvol

I'd say you're in the minority there. I have no interest in merely running the front office. I want to make on the field decisions.

I like on the field decisions because I do play games out but I would rather more focus be placed on the GM side of the game. I primarily am a GM and let the manager I hire handle offensive decisions, I only handle when to pull a pitcher and pinch hit, I leave everything else to cpu.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

That's how I am in FM. My knowledge was a few youth games back in the early 80's. It took a long while and a lot of reading to get a feel for what I should look for in different positions. I still find myself relying more on ratings than what I see on the field. I am still little lost with in game management. I get what strategies to use and when to switch but I am still lost at what shout to use or when. I am lot more spectator than coach when playing games. I was so green I didn't know what a tackle meant when I first started playing. Having a more American football background raised an eyebrow when I saw that.

This is my main problem with FM, i have so little knowledge of the game that i don't understand why my team doesn't score more or why all of a sudden this tactic no longer works when it used to win me everything. If it wasn't for the 3D i would of stopped buying FM along time ago as it is i get bored after a few months and never play again. Haven't played 12 since last yr and won't again.

[damientheomen3]

^ That is pretty much my statement in a nutshell. I started OOTP with almost no knowledge of baseball, whereas I started FM with a basic-ish knowledge of soccer. Through persistence and playing a lot, I learned OOTP. Through persistence and playing a lot, I am still completely lacking in knowledge I need to run a team in FM effectively. OOTP is much easier on the casual fan.

[OutS|der]

The community for OOTP is miles above the FM community. ask a question here and many jump to help you but do the same on the FM forum and you are lucky to get a response and even when you do it's a complaint over what your asking.

[Syd Thrift]

I appreciate FM but the "OOTP is not a game" charge is kind of why I keep returning to it year after year. I tend to get really frustrated with sports games unless I don't really care about the team I'm involved with, and then I just set the game down and move on to something else. That's a bigger issue with arcade style stuff like NBA Live than with simulators, granted, but even when I'm playing coach-only mode in a game like Madden I find myself wanting to toss the controller across the room. FM gives me the advantage of playing an EPL team where I really don't know or care much about the EPL, but the flip side is, again, I don't care much about the EPL so I tend to stop.

The other thing is that OOTP ends up working like several different toys for me. I have the dynasty I've been playing games out for going on 5 game-seasons and 3 real years now (and which I may not finish in time for 13... and which I'm also thinking of dumping in favor of a new leeg), but when I'm not in the mood for that I can go in and try a "history of baseball" kind of thing where I'm not as closely involved... or I can actually, physically start the game at a later date... or I can go with historical players rather than fictional. Other guys like the experience of adding a really, really small-market team to the modern league and seeing how they do.

FM OTOH has some mods in it, but it's all of the "play with a higher-league team with real players" or "play in a lower tier league which isn't tested well and with all fictional players" situation. There's nothing else, and even with the latter, it's not appreciated by the developers enough to get supported better. And fictional leagues? Ha, don't make me laugh.

Anyway, I don't want to bag on FM too much because it is a really, really good game for what it does, but in the end it's still a game whereas OOTP is something like a model train set.

[Melo]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

I appreciate FM but the "OOTP is not a game" charge is kind of why I keep returning to it year after year. I tend to get really frustrated with sports games unless I don't really care about the team I'm involved with, and then I just set the game down and move on to something else. That's a bigger issue with arcade style stuff like NBA Live than with simulators, granted, but even when I'm playing coach-only mode in a game like Madden I find myself wanting to toss the controller across the room. FM gives me the advantage of playing an EPL team where I really don't know or care much about the EPL, but the flip side is, again, I don't care much about the EPL so I tend to stop.

The other thing is that OOTP ends up working like several different toys for me. I have the dynasty I've been playing games out for going on 5 game-seasons and 3 real years now (and which I may not finish in time for 13... and which I'm also thinking of dumping in favor of a new leeg), but when I'm not in the mood for that I can go in and try a "history of baseball" kind of thing where I'm not as closely involved... or I can actually, physically start the game at a later date... or I can go with historical players rather than fictional. Other guys like the experience of adding a really, really small-market team to the modern league and seeing how they do.

FM OTOH has some mods in it, but it's all of the "play with a higher-league team with real players" or "play in a lower tier league which isn't tested well and with all fictional players" situation. There's nothing else, and even with the latter, it's not appreciated by the developers enough to get supported better. And fictional leagues? Ha, don't make me laugh.

Anyway, I don't want to bag on FM too much because it is a really, really good game for what it does, but in the end it's still a game whereas OOTP is something like a model train set.

That Cockfosters save game not working out for you?

[Syd Thrift]

Heh. I think that was like 2 versions ago. Which is another thing I don't like about FM... no retaining saves over versions. The "come watch me suck" dynasty is alive and well though!

[magnet]

I'm still on FM10, although I just somehow managed to corrupt my Everton save that is approaching the year 2020 with no backup.

[daves]

They are totally different games.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by daves

They are totally different games.

they are both sports management simulations are they not? They are more similar than dissimilar.

[Syd Thrift]

FM has a roleplaying aspect so that makes it easily comparable to Skyrim, right?

[Biggio509]

Honestly, there are a few things that FM does a little better. Trying to match historical finances is a bit of a pain in OOTP because the model is simpler. You have payroll coaches and scouts. You don't have the more complex finances of stadium maintanence, concessions (although I suppose you could stretch merchandising to include concessions), loans, loan interest, etc. That means you really can't use historical attendance and historical prices because the revenue is too high since you don't have all the other cost involved. OOTP abstracts a lot of revenue. This means either lower ticket prices or lower attendance because the teams would make way too much money if you use the historical data. In the end it is stick historical attendance and adjust ticket prices or stick ticket prices and adjust attendance.

My main complaint about FM is the lack of any real customization. Fictional players are really just renamed real players with different contracts. Play two different games with the same team and real players off and you can tell it is the same guys with different names. In that period between the end of the season and the next version you can't delete teams that fold or add new ones which is a little unrealistic for the lower leagues whose teams look more like 19th century baseball financially than the premier leagues. Absolutely no way to create a completely fictional league either much a historical league.

I think both could do a little more with finances. Neither game has real strong consequences to going further into debt. FM will still let you spend way beyond budget. Teams never fold because they can't pay the debt. However, takeovers can happen where you get fired. In OOTP profits mean absolutely nothing. Cash max means you can't even pump most of it into new players next year and there is nothing to invest the money in. They mean more to lower league clubs in FM but for the big teams profits still don't mean much.

In OOTP, I would like to see things like improving facilities happen if you are selling near capacity and have cash back to do it. This would give finances some meaning for fictional leagues or 19th century leagues. Granted it does little for modern MLB leagues. Again this is nice for fictional and historical but means little in modern day MLB.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

Honestly, there are a few things that FM does a little better. Trying to match historical finances is a bit of a pain in OOTP because the model is simpler. You have payroll coaches and scouts. You don't have the more complex finances of stadium maintanence, concessions (although I suppose you could stretch merchandising to include concessions), loans, loan interest, etc. That means you really can't use historical attendance and historical prices because the revenue is too high since you don't have all the other cost involved. OOTP abstracts a lot of revenue. This means either lower ticket prices or lower attendance because the teams would make way too much money if you use the historical data. In the end it is stick historical attendance and adjust ticket prices or stick ticket prices and adjust attendance.

My main complaint about FM is the lack of any real customization. Fictional players are really just renamed real players with different contracts. Play two different games with the same team and real players off and you can tell it is the same guys with different names. In that period between the end of the season and the next version you can't delete teams that fold or add new ones which is a little unrealistic for the lower leagues whose teams look more like 19th century baseball financially than the premier leagues. Absolutely no way to create a completely fictional league either much a historical league.

I think both could do a little more with finances. Neither game has real strong consequences to going further into debt. FM will still let you spend way beyond budget. Teams never fold because they can't pay the debt. However, takeovers can happen where you get fired. In OOTP profits mean absolutely nothing. Cash max means you can't even pump most of it into new players next year and there is nothing to invest the money in. They mean more to lower league clubs in FM but for the big teams profits still don't mean much.

In OOTP, I would like to see things like improving facilities happen if you are selling near capacity and have cash back to do it. This would give finances some meaning for fictional leagues or 19th century leagues. Granted it does little for modern MLB leagues. Again this is nice for fictional and historical but means little in modern day MLB.

I have wanted facilities to be incorporated into finances for some time now. It would also be nice to have "ballpark stats".

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by Biggio509

HIn OOTP, I would like to see things like improving facilities happen if you are selling near capacity and have cash back to do it.

This is not a common thing, however. Few clubs currently sell out their entire park for the entire season (and very few historically). And, arguably, clubs nowadays want smaller venues since it creates a reduction in the supply of tickets as compared to the demand, which in turn allows ticket price increases since demand exceeds the (artificially) limited supply.

More importantly, there is another huge shift in the finances of baseball on the horizon. Some twenty years ago the transition to higher revenue generating stadiums helped boost local revenues dramatically (along with continued growth in national and local broadcasting fees). The next trend appears to be explosive growth in local broadcasting contracts. Indeed, the growth may be so rapid and enormous that local media revenue will exceed that the other forms of local revenue (luxury suites, advertising, promotions, etc.) and perhaps even ticket sales. See this article over at Biz of Baseball for more.

Take a look at the example of the Angels from that article. From its leaked financial statements, in 2009 the club made $100.1 million in ticket sales, $16.7 million in advertising revenue, and $15.6 million in concessions sales. The combined total of these three was over $132 million. In contrast, the club earned $46 million from local broadcasting. But the new local broadcasting deal the club signed has an average annual value of $150 million. That's more than triple what it had received in 2009, and exceeds what the club took in that year from ticket sales, concessions, and advertising combined.

If this trend extends to other clubs (as it is expected to, though not necessarily to the same extent for all clubs) then revenue looks set to take another dramatic jump upwards. And if revenue climbs, player salaries will climb right along with it.

[PSUColonel]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

This is not a common thing, however. Few clubs currently sell out their entire park for the entire season (and very few historically). And, arguably, clubs nowadays want smaller venues since it creates a reduction in the supply of tickets as compared to the demand, which in turn allows ticket price increases since demand exceeds the (artificially) limited supply.

More importantly, there is another huge shift in the finances of baseball on the horizon. Some twenty years ago the transition to higher revenue generating stadiums helped boost local revenues dramatically (along with continued growth in national and local broadcasting fees). The next trend appears to be explosive growth in local broadcasting contracts. Indeed, the growth may be so rapid and enormous that local media revenue will exceed that the other forms of local revenue (luxury suites, advertising, promotions, etc.) and perhaps even ticket sales. See this article over at Biz of Baseball for more.

Take a look at the example of the Angels from that article. From its leaked financial statements, in 2009 the club made $100.1 million in ticket sales, $16.7 million in advertising revenue, and $15.6 million in concessions sales. The combined total of these three was over $132 million. In contrast, the club earned $46 million from local broadcasting. But the new local broadcasting deal the club signed has an average annual value of $150 million. That's more than triple what it had received in 2009, and exceeds what the club took in that year from ticket sales, concessions, and advertising combined.

If this trend extends to other clubs (as it is expected to, though not necessarily to the same extent for all clubs) then revenue looks set to take another dramatic jump upwards. And if revenue climbs, player salaries will climb right along with it.

There is a changing trend because most all of the parks are now fairly new. Once the need to replace those parks arises again in the future, you will see the same trend once again.

[Biggio509]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

This is not a common thing, however. Few clubs currently sell out their entire park for the entire season (and very few historically).

Granted, still for fictional leagues this might be a bonus. I am still try to make sense of the 1890's attendance data. It looks like the attendance was not all that much bigger than say the 1880's but ballparks were getting increasingly bigger and were still expanding around the time of the federal league. It strikes me as odd as to why Phillie would build the Baker Bowl or Chicago would have a reportedly 10,000 seat stadium or Soden would tear out the press box to add more seats when on average they were running about half or less capacity. It seems like a lot albeit much less than modern expenses considering these were the days of wooden ballparks when you were not selling out. It makes me wonder if club owners drastically over expected future attendance or numbers were "cooked" to avoid paying out the % of gate revenue to visitors. The latter is harder to say because of the gate revenue % versus fixed payment systems that existed in the NL at different times.

I don't know but it is very curious to see such big park expansions when the data say attendance was not that big. Perhaps the ballpark attendance was very disproportionate. There were arguments between Detroit owner and Spalding over gate revenue % versus a fixed payment in which Spalding was arguing that Detroit was being carried by the big clubs with the gate revenue sharing system. So maybe the real answer is that the average is heavily skewed because Chicago and Boston were drawing big and Detroit was not. I am really not sure. Rodney forte's data seems to indicate there were very large attendance discrepancy in the 1890's some years and some years there were not.

Still it begs the question. In 1895, Phillie would open the Baker Bowl. According to ballparks.com it sat 18,000 in 1895. Retrosheet says Phillie played 51 home games that year. Rodney Fortes data list attendance at 474,971 for Phillie in 1895. So they averaged about 9,400 per game. Why a ballpark that is twice the capacity your average attendance? Where owners way off on expectation? Are the numbers under reported to avoid revenue sharing? Was it just because wood stadiums were cheap with low maintenance cost?

Something just doesn't click with attendance numbers and stadium capacity. Boston was only averaging about 3500 a game but Soden was reportedly tearing out press facilities to add seats. At the time ballparks says Boston sat about 7,000 one of the smaller parks in the league. It makes me highly suspect early attendance data was perhaps intentionally under reported.
In recent times I would think the data would be much closer to the truth but I suspect attendance data may have be way for earlier times. Perhaps Soden realized something other owners didn't by keeping the stadium small but the behavior of expanding capacity when average attendance would not fill half the stadium seems very strange indeed.