Why are there so few Football games?

[Riot 10]

I've been playing Football Manager a lot lately. It's a lot of fun, especially with the mods allowing a deeper American league structure. Unfortunately, every time I load it up I get a depressed feeling in the back of my mind. American Football is my first love, and not a single football game out there comes anywhere near replicating the depth and quality of FM.

 

Why is that? FOF and PFS are pretty fun games, but those are made by a single guy and only PFS is updated any more? Why are those two the gold standard for football GM games?

 

I still firmly believe that if a pro or college GM game was put out with the detail and production values of FM it would be a success. Maybe not a market behemoth like SI's game, but successful enough to warrant a series and make a good profit for the maker.

 

Why haven't we seen one yet?

[Brooks 10]

I can give some theories...

 

The ROI just isn't there. Football is a hugely complex sport, and creating an engine that does everything you need it to can take years. It's really hard for indie developers to spend hundreds if not thousands of hours on a game that isn't going to make any sort of profit in the near-term.

 

Games like OOTP and FM are doing really well now, but I'm sure they didn't make money at all in the first few years... they just kept at it because they loved the game.

 

I also think football is somewhat of a niche as far as sims go... soccer is big because it's global and baseball has the benefit of rotisserie and fantasy followings that translate really well. Football just lags behind a bit. And with Madden being so dominating in the space it makes it even harder to compete.

 

Another factor is the Online MMO style of game... there is a lot more money in those kinds of online games (facebook, goal line blitz, etc.) and developers tend to follow the money.

[IOS_JZ 10]

I am currently creating a Pro Football sim game with help with a developer/Programmer. Hope to have something out by spring/summer of 2012. I don't want to give too much information yet but this game will give the player full customization of his/her virtual world. This will be a very new age game with online league capability. I have played sports sims for years and this sim will have all the features I ever wanted in a sim.

 

Currently I would love help developing the stats database...message me if you may be interested.

[Chris 271]

IOS_JZ , do tell us more .. We'll gladly create a thread here for your game discussion / progression.

 

Cheers.

[IOS_JZ 10]

I have a friend who is a computer programmer/developer and him and myself have started a Pro Football Simulation game. I don't want to give away too many features at this point since it is in the early stage and we would like to keep it hush hush because I am planning on adding some features no other sim has.

 

Features:

-Single Player Mode

-Online Mode for Online Leagues

-League Structure will be fully customizable

-Basic game play (less features for beginners)

-Advanced game play (more Custom features)

-Full coaching staffs/scouts

-Full off-season features like draft, Free-Agency, etc (Including some surprise features)

-Very Stat oriented (As many stats as we can fit in)

-Detailed Player negotiations including player agents

 

Now there are many more features I didn't mention but I hope will put this game as the leader in Pro Football Sims for years.

 

This game is not developed by a big company it is just 2 guys with a vision.

 

I have stated previous that I would love help to build the player/stat database. Right now for us to get it done by Spring/Summer 2012 we may only be able to include 2010 and 2011 rosters only if it is just me building the database. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I Will currently build the database in excel and transfer it later. PM me if you are interested.

[annadavis 10]

Any update regarding your football game development?

I'm also looking for games like football or soccer but there are only few of them and at high price..

[IOS_JZ 10]

It is still in development...We are creating the database and game pages at the moment.

[cryolemon 10]

I think some of the problem in getting a football game to work well is trying to work out how to generate play results from player ratings.