How I started.. Playing Sports Sims

[basketcase49 0]

I've honestly only played GM games on mobile devices for the past few years, but ever since last year I got Pro Football 2021 and really enjoyed the aspect of being a Football GM, so I've opened up to other gm games just to see how it goes.

[jmnccrr 0]

I started playing sports sims going all the way back to Tecmo bowl in 1989. I played every new edition of that series that ever came out. Around the same time I started playing Madden 89, and have played most of that series ever since. Front page sports football first edition in 1992, and it is my all time favorite, as i continued to play the 95 and 98 edition for quite a long time. Through out the 90's i also played every baseball sim their was, and pretty much every major spots sim for any sport. To date i would say Football manager series and OOTP series are the two best sports sims of all time, and i play them constantly. I wish their was a American football game on par with those two series. The closest thing to date would be the Draft day sports series, which is very good. I will update to this thread if anything else comes to mind.

[Doddieoso 0]

Football Manager because I hate the FIFA series, lol. 

[SimonBlond 1]

Championship Manager 03/04 was the first one. Have been playing every version of Football Manager since.

[SpeightTheVillain 1]

NFL Head Coach 07 & 09 as bad as those games were.

[Guybrush 1]

I just got into Sport Sim games recently with FM 2020. Played multiple seasons with clubs from my country (Luxembourg) and from Germany (which leagues I regularly follow). I played it more like an RPG, imagining a background story for my manager and even writing it down. I had a blast playing it, but then I got into baseball an LOVE it, even if that's quite unusual for an European. Naturally, if you say baseball, you say OOTP. And what can I say, that game is amazing, even if its presentation is clunkier than FMs, not so polished and you sometimes get the impression you play a game designed by the same guys who designed excel for Windows. 

I played basketball for nearly 20 years in a club, so I didn't hesitate to buy some basketball sim games during winter sales on steam. Have still to play them though.  

I also play MLB The Show 20 + 21 and NBA2k22, but 2ks business model which relies heavily on microtransactions turns me absolutely down. The Show is much more generous, you get a lot of diamond cards for free or without grinding for hours.  

Feel free to contact me, if you want to play some of the games mentioned above  (sadly, my spare time is limited (father of 2)) 

[agathosdaimon 1]

Hi!  this is a good topic to reply to - i have only gotten into sport sims more recently. i have alway sbeen into strategy games, but sports games and sport in general never interested me so much until i started collecting old DOS games and the EA NHL hockey and Dino Dini's Goal got me interested more adn more in sport - but then to get NFL Pro League Football from Microsports really made me come to enjoy sports sims far more - they are strategy games after all too, and i really like the Pro League Baseball series too

I have been looking or Maximum Football 2.0 on the matrix games forum but then saw Puresim baseball mentioned there and that has led me here

[doa_jeff 0]

Techmo Bowl for me

[tomservo 1]

On 4/13/2014 at 2:18 PM, Chris said:

Let me start..

I thought this would be an interesting thread to start here at GM Games. I am really curious to know about how you found out about playing these types of games. We've had several blog entries from our feature contributors telling us their story about how they got started playing sim sports.

What's your story??

I played some Football game I can't remember on my old Commodore 64, but I go all the way back to the original John Madden Football. Ah those were the days on my 80X86 PC with 1MB RAM and 20MB hard drive trying to get the himem.sys configured so it could use all 1,024 KB of my PC's memory and load the game. I've also played Front Page Sports Pro, NFL Fever (when on PC), Monday Night Football, Playmaker, and Coaches Club. I've soured on Madden as most people have lately but it's been my dream to have a fully customizable PC football title, right down to uniform design, custom teams, league structures, uploading uniforms and other custom graphics. Who the heck needs an NFL license anymore, really? We've shown with these games that the mod community can handle the NFL part well enough. Lately though I've gotten into going back to the classic Madden PS2 era (Madden 2002 - 2012) and I can have hours of fun on that without even playing an actual game.

The NHL series I've also been into on a lesser extent. I go all the way back to NHL 2002 with that one. And some basketball games. I was into the NBA 2k series but haven't played basketball on PC or console, or even watched it in decades.

[Ogie 0]

i started with a friend inviting me. He quit ans im still in a league 4 years later lol

[acas76 0]

Started with Bundesliga Manager 2000, moved to the FIFA manager games and now playing the SEGA Football Manager.

[slider15 0]

I started all the way back in '87 with Earl Weaver Baseball, then there were a couple I can't remember that were really labor intensive with 3.5in floppy discs having to swap back and forth. I played Tony La Russa then really got into the Front Page sports series both baseball and Football. There was also an omni-point basketball that I spent alot of time with. One of my all time favorites though was the first Baseball Stars on NES and Baseball Simulator 1.000. I think I've probably played most baseball games up to the early 2000s. Now I'm trying to get back into things with Ootp 22 and Draft day sports series 

[Xtreme3094 2]

mmmm. for fun like 15y ago, i was gm, then climb til commish

[Xtreme3094 2]

oh btw, its was on ehm 1.14

[FelippeRW 1]

I started with Elifoot, then CM and FM was the natural evolution

[Mota 0]

For me it was Front Page Sports: Football.  Saw it in a magazine and knew I had to have it.  I've pretty much played every sports GM game on the market since!

[Meat 0]

Earl Weaver  PC baseball.  Entered all the stats from some almanacs.

[FR3DJUNK 1]

I actually was never big into sports. Like at all. Getting an Xbox and game pass changed that a bit though. I tried madden 22, nba 2k22, mlb the show 22 and fifa 21. I enjoyed those games, but it was their franchise modes more than the actual gameplay (I mess up to much for fast pace action to be enjoyable). I ended up looking for games that were exclusively management and now I'm here. Still need to pick teams to follow for real though...

[B0900223 1]

I just found out about these games today. A lot of my old PS2 and PS3 era equipment keeps breaking and I figured this is a good alternative. I hope the games are as fun as they look on paper. So far so good.

[TeegeSeaweed 2]

I discovered OOTP in 2011 and couldn't believe it had existed for so long without me knowing about it. I always hated the lack of customization and immersion in MLB The Show and other console games. I finally found a game where I could create the entire universe and have a realistic simulation engine to play out the future.

[TeegeSeaweed 2]

And I literally JUST discovered DDS Pro Basketball--so I'm going to go play that for roughly 47 consecutive hours.

[faraday-baseball 2]

Started playing Micro League Baseball, graduated to Earl Weaver Baseball, and at some point ended up with OOTP.

[mansorg 0]

I started playing when I got NBA 2k11 for the PS3. I was particularly bad at the game but I loved the team building and simulation aspect of the game. Ever since then, I've been hooked on these types of games and I cannot get enough of them. 

[tomatomac 0]

3 minutes ago, mansorg said:

I started playing when I got NBA 2k11 for the PS3. I was particularly bad at the game but I loved the team building and simulation aspect of the game. Ever since then, I've been hooked on these types of games and I cannot get enough of them. 

that's actually pretty similar to my story. As a European, I played the fifa games since I was like 4, but I started to get into american sports around 2009/10 when I was like 13/14 which got me hooked onto games like 2K11, the show and madden. But I didn't have the money at the time to play ultimate team or NBA 2k equivalent (I cant remember the name). So I mostly just played the franchise modes in them games for years (I loved the team building and as a newer fan it was an easy way for me to get to know all the players). I think it was like 2016 when I first found OOTP and the depth of it changed how I viewed the franchise modes in other games. I then just played franchise modes on console for the gameplay and OOTP and FM for the in-depth fun. Hoping to find an equivalent for basketball.

[feltzz 1]

I started with a football manager in 2008 and have been playing every new edition ever since. In the last year, I started playing OOTP and FHM, and now I have started my adventure with basketball.