Need an American Football game....latest version of Second and Ten released.

[FlickJax]

Thanks Nefaro, pretty comprehensive and pretty disappointing in it's own way.

[JudgeDredd]

Thanks Nefaro. Very informative.

However - this

Obviously part of the problem is that the sport is pretty tough to properly simulate in a program.

Is it really that much harder to simulate American football compared to Football Manager? FM takes into account a VAST number of teams and leagues and even includes national sides along with FIFA's own rules...American football has - what? NFL and AFL with 5? 6? groups of 4 teams?

And also

I also don't think that text management sims have much visibility at all in the US so that doesn't make for much of a player base out to buy them.

OOTP is a German company making a game of an American sport. I mean everyone knows about baseball - but it's hardly a national sport in many countries

It just needs a developer with a set of nads to make a decent one.

I've often wondered why the OOTP boys didn't get in on the act, given the success of their baseball sim...and then they dropped the bombshell of a hockey game!

[Nefaro]

Thanks Nefaro. Very informative.

However - this

Obviously part of the problem is that the sport is pretty tough to properly simulate in a program.

Is it really that much harder to simulate American football compared to Football Manager? FM takes into account a VAST number of teams and leagues and even includes national sides along with FIFA's own rules...American football has - what? NFL and AFL with 5? 6? groups of 4 teams?

I think that if a company has previously created a sports manager sim of any kind, they should be able to do the same for an NFL one.  However, the sport plays very differently from most other such popular ones.  The core of these games is the match engine.  Baseball fits quite well because it's just one player batting, one pitching, and an outfield for when there's a hit.  It's also very stat oriented so gels well within a mathematical program frame.  A step up in difficult are what I would consider the "Goal" style sports - soccer, hockey, basketball, etc.  These are free-flowing games that don't require quite as much focus on play-calling/guessing so much as tactics learned from practice and plain 'ole teamwork.  This kind of stuff is mostly quantified in player & team stats in these sims.  These Goal games are also very similar to each other in the general way they're played, even though much of the small details are different.  I'd expect, for instance, the creators of Football Manager to be able to turn around and create a Hockey game fairly quickly.  Actually, they have in the past, and their last one had many similarities to their Football Manager games (including the game engine of course).

The oddball is american football, with it's set-piece 11vs11 plays wherein every player, on both sides, is involved in the ball play no matter where they are on the field.  Again, this can be done with all the stats but you also have the playcalling side of things, which is extremely important.  There's a huge focus on play-calling strategy, and trying to out-guess or out-wit your opponent from a neutral stand-off is what it's about.  From what I've seen, it's difficult to program an AI to think like a human when it comes to making and calling plays in these sims because there are so many possibilities to be had on each Down & situation.   It just plays differently from the fluid 'goal-type' games and it must be tough to get the gameplay strategies all modelled.  Fortunately it fits into a turn-based strategy style of game rather well!

And also

I also don't think that text management sims have much visibility at all in the US so that doesn't make for much of a player base out to buy them.

OOTP is a German company making a game of an American sport. I mean everyone knows about baseball - but it's hardly a national sport in many countries

It just needs a developer with a set of nads to make a decent one.

I've often wondered why the OOTP boys didn't get in on the act, given the success of their baseball sim...and then they dropped the bombshell of a hockey game!

Well.. baseball (and obviously hockey) is much more popular around the globe than american football. That's not to say the latter is only enjoyed in the US, but baseball has definitely branched out more in the past.  Perhaps that balance is slowly changing, I dunno. *shrug* 

It certainly only needs a developer with the will to get it done.  It also needs enough people enjoying & purchasing them else they won't keep doing them.  I'm just thankful we have a handful who put a little time into making some at all, even though I wouldn't consider them all feature-complete.  With all the ease of distributing indie niche games available nowadays, there's hope that someone will go the distance sometime in the future.

[JudgeDredd]

And so you give me a masterclass in the nuances of American Football v Soccer. I bow.

Lets hope some dev (like OOTP devs) think there's a market and make one. I'd pay a good amount of cash for a decent one.

[Nefaro]

I think someone will eventually start putting out a series that will be of higher quality than the current set.  Whether it's one of the current developers, one of the other sports management teams, or a whole new indie group.. who knows?

I do believe there has been a slow increase in the amount of people playing these games, including a-football.  The proliferation of the popularity of "Fantasy Football" in the States makes the argument that a well-made one could do better than we'd think, if given a well-done iteration with some publicity.

I know numerous people who used to get Madden Football on their consoles just to play multi-season career mode in single-player.   If someone could build a decent looking management sim they could probably expand into that market too.