EHM The Blue Line

maxrsp wrote:
Dear OOTP, I wanted to assist you in generating a higher market share (and therefore profit) by introducing a concept alarmingly foreign in today's business world - customer focus vs sales focus. By releasing a full price version of the game every year you may think you're driving more profit but in fact you are lowering your overall sales volumes as players like myself will simply skip versions that we don't feel bring enough value or innovation. This pattern has in-fact been proven on EA Sports games like their own NHL and Madden NFL franchises. If you instead moved to an approach where each new version is discounted 40-50% if you own the previous version then you will find your overall revenue would net about the same but you would have a consistently higher active installed base because players would be far less likely to skip versions. This would lead to a more engaged and committed fan base which I'm sure you understand the value of.

When you focus on the customer the sales take care of themselves. I'm pretty sure they used to teach that in business school...

I understand where you're coming from, but a small developer would quickly go out of business with this type of business model. I'm not aware of any sports management series that goes this route. Is there one (asking honestly, in case I've missed something)?

IMO, the pattern you describe has not been proven by EA Sports. EA charges full price each and every season for its games, and their company has a license to print money. Despite mediocre titles, they rake in the cash year after year.

Sure, for the consumer, it would be nice to get a discount for owning the previous year's game, but it just isn't practical for a small company to sell its games this way.

Just bought it

Just having a quick look around.

How do I find the CHL page? I'm playing as the Steelers so it's not a competition my team is playing in currently.

Also still cant carry a spare import have to demote an import to advance

Smetana wrote:
I understand where you're coming from, but a small developer would quickly go out of business with this type of business model. I'm not aware of any sports management series that goes this route. Is there one (asking honestly, in case I've missed something)?

IMO, the pattern you describe has not been proven by EA Sports. EA charges full price each and every season for its games, and their company has a license to print money. Despite mediocre titles, they rake in the cash year after year.

Sure, for the consumer, it would be nice to get a discount for owning the previous year's game, but it just isn't practical for a small company to sell its games this way.

Football Manager does this, the more you have the older versions the bigger the discount from newest

Saapas wrote:

Smetana wrote:
I understand where you're coming from, but a small developer would quickly go out of business with this type of business model. I'm not aware of any sports management series that goes this route. Is there one (asking honestly, in case I've missed something)?

IMO, the pattern you describe has not been proven by EA Sports. EA charges full price each and every season for its games, and their company has a license to print money. Despite mediocre titles, they rake in the cash year after year.

Sure, for the consumer, it would be nice to get a discount for owning the previous year's game, but it just isn't practical for a small company to sell its games this way.

Football Manager does this, the more you have the older versions the bigger the discount from newest

That's a 20% discount, max. On a $50 title. Not "40-50"%. Bit of a difference.

And if memory serves right I got 50off from Motorsport Manager for owning any other SI product

MWE wrote:Just bought it

Just having a quick look around.

How do I find the CHL page? I'm playing as the Steelers so it's not a competition my team is playing in currently.

Also still cant carry a spare import have to demote an import to advance

The CHL is so hard to find. Go to a team that plays in the CHL, wait until the CHL has actually started (25th august IIRC) and then check on the schedule. Clicking here or there you should be able to get it.

Saapas wrote:And if memory serves right I got 50off from Motorsport Manager for owning any other SI product

Guys, do you have a clue how much money the SI makes with FM?
I guess it's at least 100x what OOTP does. So, of course they can afford more of this kind of promotions.

Played 11 hours so far and ive found a bug where European prospects wont accept a two way contract even though its entry level hopefully it gets fixed soon

Alessandro wrote: Guys, do you have a clue how much money the SI makes with FM?
I guess it's at least 100x what OOTP does. So, of course they can afford more of this kind of promotions.

SI is like a 100years old! , I was playing Championship Manager 2 on my first PC more than 20years ago.

Special promotions like the one from FM have to be setup by Steam and they don´t do it for a small dev like us (we asked them 2 years ago).

We always have a 10% promotion during the first week (and for pre-orders as well), so that is like owning the last two games. We also do regular sales for the game, so if you wait a bit, you can get it cheaper if you want.

TheGleed65 wrote:Played 11 hours so far and ive found a bug where European prospects wont accept a two way contract even though its entry level hopefully it gets fixed soon

We can´t get to reproduce it here (but we had a similar report earlier). Could you give me a few more details and/or upload the save so we can look into it? Thanks!

TheGleed65 wrote:Played 11 hours so far and ive found a bug where European prospects wont accept a two way contract even though its entry level hopefully it gets fixed soon

Sorry for the triple post but the moment I wrote my last post we got it to reproduce. We will now look into it and hope to fix it for the first update.

As a possible workaround: it looks like it only does not work when you change the minor league money value, so leaving it as it is could help until the update.

Alessandro wrote:

MWE wrote:Just bought it

Just having a quick look around.

How do I find the CHL page? I'm playing as the Steelers so it's not a competition my team is playing in currently.

Also still cant carry a spare import have to demote an import to advance

The CHL is so hard to find. Go to a team that plays in the CHL, wait until the CHL has actually started (25th august IIRC) and then check on the schedule. Clicking here or there you should be able to get it.

You can't get to it through the schedule I found it by going into the EIHL league standings page and it was on the right hand side.

Regarding the CHL (and the Memorial Cup): we know that it is suboptimal how it is presented in the GUI. Once we have a bit of time we will think how we could do it better in FHM 4.

Alessandro wrote:

Saapas wrote:And if memory serves right I got 50off from Motorsport Manager for owning any other SI product

Guys, do you have a clue how much money the SI makes with FM?
I guess it's at least 100x what OOTP does. So, of course they can afford more of this kind of promotions.

I know SI is much bigger and much older company, but the argument was that "no sport management game has discounts like that"

Smetana wrote:

maxrsp wrote:
Dear OOTP, I wanted to assist you in generating a higher market share (and therefore profit) by introducing a concept alarmingly foreign in today's business world - customer focus vs sales focus. By releasing a full price version of the game every year you may think you're driving more profit but in fact you are lowering your overall sales volumes as players like myself will simply skip versions that we don't feel bring enough value or innovation. This pattern has in-fact been proven on EA Sports games like their own NHL and Madden NFL franchises. If you instead moved to an approach where each new version is discounted 40-50% if you own the previous version then you will find your overall revenue would net about the same but you would have a consistently higher active installed base because players would be far less likely to skip versions. This would lead to a more engaged and committed fan base which I'm sure you understand the value of.

When you focus on the customer the sales take care of themselves. I'm pretty sure they used to teach that in business school...

I understand where you're coming from, but a small developer would quickly go out of business with this type of business model. I'm not aware of any sports management series that goes this route. Is there one (asking honestly, in case I've missed something)?

IMO, the pattern you describe has not been proven by EA Sports. EA charges full price each and every season for its games, and their company has a license to print money. Despite mediocre titles, they rake in the cash year after year.

Sure, for the consumer, it would be nice to get a discount for owning the previous year's game, but it just isn't practical for a small company to sell its games this way.

Ha! I knew I should have stopped with the review but I just had to do a rant...

Not to sidetrack this thread but just to clarify my thesis - OOTP would not see a material impact to sales because additional volume would offset lower price. Now this may or may not be 100% accurate to the penny depending on final math of discounts and units sold, but a couple things are objective truths: i) lower price will sell more units, and ii) a fan base of an annual franchise is more engaged and invested if they get it every year, not just when they think its worthwhile.

As for EA Sports, I agree they do well every year but my point was they would do even better if 100% of last year's players bought the following year's release. We do know for a fact this is not the case but I honestly don't know how low the repeat buyer percentage is - if its 80% or better then I guess I'm wrong, but if its less they should think about the math of a loyalty discount as well.

Now, back to playing hockey

I was undecided about purchasing (I was at least going to wait for a sale), but I saw what I thought were unreasonable posts about FHM4 (and brief/reasonable responses from those that worked on the game) and rather than causing me to avoid the game they nudged me towards buying it now to support those working on the game! I was already close to buying based on believing in supporting the ongoing development of a hockey sim (I'd bought all previous versions of FHM upon release).....



I never really "played" much FHM before (with the editing/testing focus I never "played" much EHM over the years either! HaHa), but so far I'm enjoying the experience!...yes there's a few known issues/bugs at this time, and I'm not sure yet if IMO the potential has been realized enough or not (i.e. do the things that are talked about regarding tactics/attributes/etc actually work as intended/described?), but overall "so far so good"

Of course I'm playing in Historical Mode! I started in 1969, simmed forward a year to July 1st 1970 and took over the brand new expansion Vancouver Canucks (I grew up in BC, so the Canucks were the "hometown team" of my childhood).

I did the expansion draft, the NHL/amateur draft, signed free agents, made a few trades and a waiver claim, and I'm just about to start my first season
I'm using the FHM engine for development/aging (not recalculating each year based on IRL history)

Just finished my preseason (went 1-5-1), about to start season one!

I haven't given FHM a chance sine their very first release ... how far along has it come now? Would it be on par with the reborn EHM or close at least?

EDIT : I should clarify, what I like most about sports management sims is year after year play ... for example in OOTP14 through 18 I set up a custom fantasy league starting in 1905 and just keep playing my team year after year

Apparently i'm playing Sparta 3 times in my CHL group

Mordrehl wrote:I haven't given FHM a chance sine their very first release ... how far along has it come now? Would it be on par with the reborn EHM or close at least?

EDIT : I should clarify, what I like most about sports management sims is year after year play ... for example in OOTP14 through 18 I set up a custom fantasy league starting in 1905 and just keep playing my team year after year

It has come a very far way since the first release. I would suggest to try FHM 4, it is not overly expensive and will continue to be updated throughout the year until production for FHM 5 begins.

hi,
can anyone upload logo pack for fhm 4 please?

paja_ko wrote:hi,
can anyone upload logo pack for fhm 4 please?

You can find logo packs at the FHM/OOTPD website http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/f ... php?f=3874

Thanks for the report, we looked into it, found the error and fixed it. Will be in the next update (which should be available later this week).

MWE wrote:Apparently i'm playing Sparta 3 times in my CHL group

Alessandro wrote:

Saapas wrote:And if memory serves right I got 50off from Motorsport Manager for owning any other SI product

Guys, do you have a clue how much money the SI makes with FM?
I guess it's at least 100x what OOTP does. So, of course they can afford more of this kind of promotions.

Hi, are you from Russia? Me too. Can you give me your e-mail?

Bottom line for me personally is FHM4 is still mostly unfulfilled potential.....there are things I like and things I don't, but overall for me it's ultimately just unsatisfying/not enjoyable to actually play the game (the ingame presentation of the game itself is just not close to good/engaging/interesting enough - this is the biggest problem for me)

IMO to much that is interrelated shows signs of not working well/not working at all (AI setting of lines, tactics functionality, goalie starts, etc), and for a game on a yearly release cycle this is concerning

I still think things are spread to thin (trying to do to much) & it still seems the game is more for the "quick sim/fantasy fan" and not enough for the "complete simulation fan"