How I started.. Playing Sports Sims

[knickknack 1]

Started with Fast Break Basketball 2001

[concrete1992 1]

Originally started with Baseball Mogul when I picked up from Big Lots when I was a pre-teen. I was less interested in management, not a big baseball fan quite honestly, but loved watching seasons unfold and the little paper headlines peppered throughout. And while sure, would love to be successful in my sports sims, I want to feel like I'm part of a league that creates history. Where you get to see little wrinkles throughout a given season that don't go in the records books.

[Dfwreghsdkt 2]

As someone who was broke, I started with free browser games and started to move more towards downloading games and playing them 

[Slyfiskman 1]

I started playing Championship Manager 97/98 around the year 2004 and was hooked ever since.

No other simulation games comes close to Football Manager though.

[hpmanning123 0]

i think this game would be better if they had gm mode in wwe like the used to on svr

 

[joyapa 1]

I had to have spent legitimately like 400 hours on my first OOTP save, been hooked ever since. I like the creativity text sims allow you when it comes to editing and customizing teams. Console sports games don't have that luxury most of the time.

[DrMcAwesome 0]

Being a sportswriter who recently turned 41, I've always loved the universes and narratives that I could create in video/sim games; going back to the very simple Tiger Electronics Baseball game from 1987 that I still own (and it still works!). If I can be honest, the notebook stories I wrote after playing any sort of sports video game likely convinced me that I should just become a journalist. Well, that and the fact that my athleticism never caught up with my growth spurt during my middle-school years. 

In 1997, I created my own dice baseball game* with index cards, a calculator, a season-end copy of Baseball Weekly and eventually dice. It got me extra credit in the mathematics course that I was in, even with the teacher marking on the attached report "You lost me at baseball, but it looks like you worked hard! +25!" 

Since then, I've been gaming on so many different platforms with an eye toward just making the games as fun as possible while generating that escapism that we all crave when playing any game. There's a NCAA Football 06 save on a PS2 memory card that is about 20 seasons deep. Outside of the console-type games, I hopped back in with GM-type games with OOTP 16. Football Manager and Franchise Hockey Manager followed before recently tapping into the Wolverine Sports titles. It's only fed my obsession to play these games more, despite having less time to get into these games on top of the consoles that I insist on owning. (At least the cats are very low-maintenance) 

*-compared to Strat-O-Matic, this game was about 1/10 as involved, but it took like 30 minutes to play a fairly realistic game as evidenced by the 80-82 record that I achieved with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who were the primary team for actual game play

 

[stingray075 1]

As a Brit born in the mid 70's I didn't discover NFL until the mid 80's.  I sat with my mom and watched a Denver Broncos game featuring John Elway.  Later on I caught a San Fran and they quickly became my team.

Tried to follow it sporadically until I emigrated to Canada a few years ago.  Now I can watch all the football I want.

I played the Madden games to death but when it came to management games I could only find Football (soccer) management games, which I tried, but they never scratched the itch.

I just discovered DDS Pro Football and am trying the Demo though I must admit, none of the rosters are filled so I am at a loss.  Trying to figure it out.

 

Wish me luck.

[Havencheese 2]

The original Football Manager from 1982, I started playing it on my Commodore 64 around 1990. Then Championship Manager the original on my Amiga around 1992, played a few versions until they rebadged it Football Manager (different to the Commodore one) on PC.

Since then I've played EHM and FHM as a big hockey fan, OOTP Baseball which introduced me to the joys of baseball, Starters Orders and now DDSPB 21 I'm trying my hand at. There have been some Aussie Rules attempts but I'd love to see a really good AFL one someday.

[[email protected] 1]

I started playing management sims way back in the days of the Sinclair Spectrum. Soccer management sims such as Football Manager and The Double, Wasted many hours of my youth playing those games.

[pwrsackers 1]

Baseball Stars on Nintendo. So many hours. In College in 1998 I started with DMB baseball. Just thew away the floppies. LOL> 

[SojuWarrior 3]

I've been playing computer games since the 80s, but what started me on sports sims was Bill Walsh College Football. I really enjoyed the game but needed something better and more in-depth, with recruiting. I moved to England in the 90s and I picked up Championship Manager 93/94. That's where I fell in love with a sports sim, where I could really build a dynasty of a team.

[drcraigphd 1]

My very first GM-style game was Micro League Baseball for the C64.  Granted, you didn't really have GM functions, but this was the first realistic sports simulation I played.  After that, it was Front Page Sports Football and Baseball, High Heat Baseball, and now OOTP and Football Manager.  Sports GM games have ALWAYS been my favorite and more enduring interest among PC games.

[Mauimudd 1]

I started with the Strat O Matic board game & eventually Tony La Russa Baseball followed by every edition of Front Page Sports Baseball & Football. I picked it up with the OOTP baseball series & have purchased every one, every year. Still a huge soft spot for the FPS games. 

[FedFan91 1]

I began with Out of the Park Baseball around version 4 or 5 I think.  I don't remember how I found it but the idea of GMing always intrigued me. I have been playing it off and on since then.  I have also been heavily in Franchise Hockey Manager since its beginning.  It wasn't unit recently I heard about Draft Day Sports and their Pro and College Football games.  Now I am learning those.

[[email protected] 1]

Only just found out about this game - NFL fan from the UK. I've been looking for a management sim for ages!!

Can't wait to get started with Cleveland

[Savoie49 0]

I started like most people I believe....playing games like Techmo Super Bowl, NHL 94.

[echet24 0]

OOTP got me obsessed when I was maybe 11 years old. Since then i've gone to the ends of the earth to find a way to historically simulate just about every sport there is, from stock car racing to golf.

[Eagles1989 0]

I had a terrible computer that could only play simple games back in the day. Since them Ive always liked them.

[richy3393 0]

Championship Manager 01/02

[[email protected] 1]

Fifa Manager series

[Predsboy18 1]

I posted this in the "Introduce Yourself" thread, but then I saw this thread, so I'll post this here as well! 

 

Since  I'm new here, I suppose I should introduce how I got into management games. I've  always been into the management side of sports. Even in the 90s, when one season was the best you could hope for in many games, I played that season just to see how far I could get. Sadly, I often left seasons incomplete, because I'd honestly get bored playing game after game, and feeling like I wasn't going anywhere. Baseball games in this time were torturous. 162 games?? I didn't even want to do 16 in an NFL game, let alone 10 times as many. As time went on, and games got better, and added depth, my interest grew. 2K games were a Godsend for me. The ability to either live a "by the books" style league, or change a few settings, and viola, I could have Sidney Crosby AND Alex Ovechkin on the same line!

My first real experience with a management sim was Eastside Hockey Manager. It was literally one I stumbled upon, and I absolutely lived for that game. The depth, the ways you could tinker with the settings, the limitless possibilities, and the fact that I had 12 First Round picks in one of my games, set the bar for management sims, at least as far as hockey goes, for YEARS. It honestly wasn't until FHM 5 or 6 that I felt I had found an equal to the immense pleasure I had playing EHM a decade ago.

I do dabble in other sports, though hockey is my true love, but I do play OOTP22 on occasion, I also have DDS: College Basketball, and I'm trying to get into CT Football Manager. Overall, I'm glad to be here, and I've enjoyed this site for some time, and have gotten some really good recommendations from it, and look forward to the future of sports management games!

[jumpingsquare 1]

Baseball Simulator 1.000 on my NES was probably my start too! I would grab a notebook and write down the stats after each month so that I could read them when I wasn't on my console...

[clroeglin 0]

7th grade math teacher used Strat-O-Matic Football Cards (this was 1974).  Graduated to PC SIMs with Lance Haffner & APBA

[pinkfuz 1]

NCAA Football dynasty mode throughout the years has been a huge influence, expanding to more SIM oriented games like OOTP and FM (soccer).