Its only a game! (part II)

So, 2-0 up at half-time in the Nou Camp. And then I got taught a footballing lesson. The game finishes 3-2 to Barca. From practically secured ecstasy to complete and utter misery. It's emotional stuff this game. And so are the people who pay 30 quid or so to play it. Emotional. Others passionate. And quite a few of the rest complete and utter demented nutcases. I don’t mean to be offensive...no hold on, I do.

Basically, the culture around Football Manager is 'like' a religion. SI Games are the prophets. The people that play the game are the followers. FM itself is the utopiatic church. But like most religions there are sects and cults and people who undermine the gospel.

In this case, forum terrorists (who all probably don't have girlfriends and spend time 'testing' the game by placing it into holiday mode just so they can post and highlight 'issues' they have discovered. Flipping geeks).

Placing the metaphorical blurb aside for a moment, what I’m trying to say is, a substantial amount of users that post on the SI Forums are ungrateful idiotic prats with no concept of computer gaming and have unrealistic and ridiculous standards.

Let me begin to break this down and get to the nitty gritty of my rant.

SI have developers and coders and programmers and researchers and testers. They accumulate a phenomenal amount of player data and history, along with club information. In other words, they work their bollocks off to place together a database like no other. But that’s nothing really to what the essence of Football Manager equates too.

Football Manager is forever growing and improving and is getting better with each incarnation. For a computer game, it pretty much covers what you want for this genre. And what isn’t covered tends to be suggested and then implemented into the next main release. It’s forever evolving. So, the ‘database’ has a rather top notch nifty interface and gaming immersion to go with all the stats.

Media interaction, team talks, feeder clubs, player praising, mind-games, 2D graphical representation of the game – are all things that were not about in previous versions of the game several years ago. The game was magic then, and it’s magic now. And as it continues to get more detailed (without ever being over elaborate, messy and bulky) and it continues to engulf the player’s life.

But some people are still not happy. Simply put, in their eyes, SI are losing their grip and are not making the necessary effort to make sure FM is as near to football management as the real thing. More than a game, more than a simulation.

There’s only one way to really get across to these ‘people’ the point they have so obviously missed. By patronising them. In Part III.

~Spooky