Only got 1.3k reviews, 560k owners but it's got 77k people ingame right now, it's the third most played game on Steam, I'm confused.

8 years ago

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It's highly addicting, especially if you're a football fan.

8 years ago
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Not a good reason at all, Fallout 4 is also addicting, got way more sales but still lover player count than this, there must be something that only players of this game know.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Oh?

8 years ago
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Lol been playing it since 94, when you had to buy one game for each different league. Probably the sum of hours I spent on every fallout since FO1 doesn't amount to any single entry of PC Futbol/CM/FM.

TL;DR: All COD and no FM makes jack a dull boy.

8 years ago
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As someone who's got 450 hours in FM 2014, believe me, it can consume your life. All you want to do is get that small lower league team and climb the divisions and turn them into a global superpower. To do that you have to play games of course, and FM really captures the essence of "just one more game / turn", and before you know a whole night has passed.

I think one of the reasons that FM has such a high player count compared to the sales is that it's sorta 'niche'. If you buy FM, you do have to have some interest in football to even purchase it. It also has a very loyal (and addicted) player base, many of whom purchase the game every year. And also probably because there aren't any real competitors to FM. Similar situation to FIFA.

8 years ago
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Funny how you ask your question and outright deny the correct answer.

But maybe some data will help you.

  • The average playtime for all FM15 users, in total: 350 hours
  • The playtime for FM16 in the past 2 weeks: 35:02 (average) 22:09 (median)
  • The playtime for Fallout 4 in the past 2 weeks: 15:07 (average) 05:34 (median)

So yeah, people tend to play any Football Manager A LOT more than any Fallout game. And that will probably never change.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Except Goal Line Technology, offside ruling, back-pass ruling, substitutions, the ball and so on, but yes, football, it never changes ;)

8 years ago
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The good reason is that Football Manager is endless. Fallout 4 is mostly linear (in terms of story) and the quest types are usually either deliveries or cave clearings.

8 years ago
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I guess FM is a lot easier to just Alt-Tab out of and leave running as you do other stuff, then returning to it when you get time. Thus increasing the playtimes and current player counts.

8 years ago
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Because people play that game a lot.
I'm a genius

8 years ago
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damn, was about to post the same.

8 years ago
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We love you anyways :)

8 years ago
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Because it's addictive. I used to play Championship Manager and Football Manager a lot. If you're not a football fan, then I can't explain this to you.

8 years ago
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I used to play champoionship manager like ... like 10-15 years ago.
Those games can consume your soul ...

They are super addictive for football fans , so its not a big surprise .

Not everyone is Pew pew i kill ppl with guns player , nor have 2k+ hours into dota 2 >.>
Some ppl just enjoy some good old manager game .

8 years ago
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no body plays or watches football, it's just a scam to con advertisers out of money

8 years ago
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Totally no one watches it.

8 years ago
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not to be confused with soccer which the rest of the world watches for lulz hoping to see someone kicked amazingly hard in the groin

8 years ago
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WTF are you talking about? xD

8 years ago
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What are you sending me? I don't even understand. Most of the countries in the world are watching football. Ever heard of Champions League? ;)

8 years ago
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half joking that they green-screened it all, not joking to say that the first thing that comes to mind with the phrase "Champions League" is knights and jousting; It's just difficult to imagine someone going to something so boring when they could go to a Yanni concert or something else interesting instead. I guess not everyone thinks like me; I just thought better of you all ;)

8 years ago
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Well for me a Yanni concert is boring as well (so is soccer), but I get your point. It really depends on the person. Some people actually enjoy watching it, while others think it's a waste of time.

8 years ago
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Because it's the most popular sport in the world and everyone who loves football has an opinion on how to best manage their favourite team(s). FM allows them to do just that.

8 years ago
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Mainly because the Europe is fanatic with football/soccer and FM is a very awesome manager/strategy simulator.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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It's not soccer. It's football. :B

8 years ago
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Europe has nothing on Africa or South America when it comes to football worshipping. :)

8 years ago
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There are people playing that game since late '90s. And I'm pretty sure a lot of FM players don't play other games at all.

8 years ago
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There's a distinct lack of football games on Steam. So this one probably gets more than its fair share.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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Positive (964) Negative (329)

Not really I guess

8 years ago
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Not really based on those numbers?

Average playtime: 118 hours, 39 minutes, this is out of 500k players...yeah you're right, they play it because its not good.

8 years ago
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Reviews don't mean much in this type of iterative games. People know what to expect when you buy this game, most of the reviews are probably about some new or (un) improved feature like "Ohh this game sucks, press conferences are totally unrealistic" or like I many times wanted to write "This sucks, matches are totally scripted and you can't win a game".

8 years ago
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Still waiting for a proper answer and not "it's addictive, and if you're not a football fan you won't understand" answer.
Guys, even though I don't like Dota or football generally, I can understand the mechanics / management aspect of certain games. One does not need to live something to understand it.
So please, honor us with a proper explanation, we can understand it.. Easier for the long-time players to explain why they find it so good than me to buy and then to figure out why others like it.

8 years ago
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Don't play it, but there's strategy, there are tactics, and there's ability to kick arse of that stupid team I hate.

So, it's Starcraft, but without forcing you to be Asian so you'll be able to click 200 things in every 60 seconds :)

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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The game is very addictive. I have a few hundred hours in more recent versions of the game on Steam, but I had my real problems with Football Manager addiction around a decade ago that I had to move past and trust me when I say it can become life consuming.

The mechanics of the game are simple enough that a football fan can easily become engaged in the game and even have some success without having any wider interest in gaming. But the scale of the game is such that that are always more things to achieve and 'mastering' the game can become incredibly time consuming - scouting more and more leagues for the perfect player, spending more and more time developing the perfect formation, delving further and further into micromanagement of tactics and training in order to get the absolute most from your squad, and so on...

On top of that the game can easily be part of a wider obsession. Although I know that there are people who have taken up Football Manager without being huge football fans it is part of a wider lifestyle for many serious players. I listen to football radio shows a lot and it isn't unheard of for fans to phone in and suggest that their team should buy a player partly because of how they performed in their Football Manager game.

I used to play amateur football, I go and see the team I support play football (sometimes even travelling across the country), I've travelled to countries I otherwise wouldn't have visited to see my national football team play, while I'm doing other things I'll listen to football commentary on the radio or even just phone in shows on talksport if there is no live football on, I can go out to a pub just to watch football and talk about football - I have even been known to 'make do' with womens football if there if there is no mens football taking place anywhere in the world. And I'm not even an especially serious football fan. But I can certainly understand that the game with so many recognisable players and teams can easily become an extension of real life in a way that other games can't.

And then there is simply the nature of the software. It doesn't require a powerful gaming rig to run. It is easy to run it in windowed mode alongside other software or on an old laptop while watching TV or so on. More recent versions of the game support cross platform cloud saving with certain mobile devices. The game doesn't favour quick decision making and doesn't demand constant attention, and although it isn't resource intensive just to run certain aspects of the game can be time consuming (such as while the game is processing results from other leagues). So as well as the addiction it is easy for it to become normal to at least have Football Manager always running in the background somewhere (both on a computer and in your head), which is where I know a lot of people start to seriously rack up the playtime.

8 years ago*
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Look at my most played games, I believe the top 5 are different itterations of Football Manager. I have been playing Football Manager since it was called Championship Manager on the Amiga.

Why is it so universally played? First of all you must understand how popular football is globally, probably(totally subjective) the biggest sport on the planet. Now understand that this is the most comprehensive game of the said sport. To the point where actual football teams use its database as a scouting tool.

Now imagine your local team, imagine they are crap, now put yourself in charge of that local team and take them to the top. No other game gives the same satisfaction of making something rubbish good.

If I had to draw a comparison, it is like making a good city thrive on a city building game. Or getting a good ship on FTL.

The replayability is pretty much infinite. I don't know how many countries are available to play in now, its a lot. 100's of thousands of players to sign in the database, with "regens" popping up every season to refresh the database. This is infinite as someone managed to simulate 1,000 years on Reddit.

It has a hardcore fanbase, people travel to clubs they manage, apply for jobs using Football Manager as their CV, its been cited as a reason for divorce, it really has traversed the "being a game" to being a way of life.

Saying you don't get it probably means you never will. If you like football, no other game even comes close to replicating the sport.

8 years ago
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I can understand it, and I'll stay as far as I can :D After I bought myself calculating how much time do I need in bloody Adventure capitalist to get to the new upgrade / reset time I realized I should stop it - similarly with farmville a lot, lot earlier. I'm pretty much afraid of these endless simulator / timelapse games as I tend to focus way too much on them, so I can totally understand if someone dwelves into and don't want to let it go :)

8 years ago
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Football Manager 2012: 956 hours
Football Manager 2015: 732 hours
Football Manager 2014: 611 hours
Football Manager 2013: 438 hours
Football Manager 2011: 378 hours
Football Manager 2010: 320 hours
Football Manager 2016: 249 hours(still playing)

I will say that FM has a LOT more substance than Adventure Capitalist and Farmville type games.

8 years ago
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Of course, of course! Really, how wouldn't it be, you mentioned championships, countries, teams and the scouting part. I just said that the fact that was a time when I was sleeping only 7 hours a day (I could have more) only to plant the new rotation of a vegetable that was growing for 8 hours... I won't say addiction because after that I simply left the game and never went back, but until I pull the breaks, I can go quite fanatic over simpler games as well when it comes to "optimal gameplay".

8 years ago
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Ideally, the most successful games are those that pull you in and don't let you go for a long time. In Football Manager's case though it has allowed the developers to release the same game every year with only database updates and very small additions. It's a money maker for Sega.

8 years ago
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people like futball, and they play the game. Lots of people love sports games and they play those sports games for hours.. Either you love it or hate it.. If you love it you'll play it like crazy...

8 years ago
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Reason is absolutely obvious. Same thing with FIFA 2016. Just because football is popular.
And I like manager, it's a great game.
good article about FM

8 years ago*
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I don't know if the number of reviews is low compared to the number of owners as I haven't looked at the number of reviews for games owned by a similar number of people. If it is low, then my theory would be that more players of Football Manager are only interested in FM and not (PC) gaming in general or the Steam community compared to players other games. They don't write reviews as they're not familiar with the whole reviwing process on Steam, don't care about Steam and only come to Steam because that's the thing they need to launch to play FM. Plenty of times I've seen people saying on the SI community forums or FM Base etc. that Football Manager is the only game they play, or the only one on PC. I did the same myself at one time.

Edit: Just thinking on, you don't even need a gaming PC/dedicated GPU to play it . I really do believe it attracts lots of fans of football who aren't necessarily big gamers overall, or console gamers who have a run of the mill PC/laptop who like football.

8 years ago*
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Because Football Manager is more addictive than crack. And also I know at least some people are like me and have it running a lot in windowed mode or on a laptop while doing other stuff (like avoiding work, ignoring loved ones, discussing football on facebook, phoning in to talksport or watching actual football on the television). Because the big decisions can take a lot of thought and if you absolutely have to have the biggest database it can take a while for all the results from other leagues to process...

8 years ago*
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I know, right? How many people does it take to manage one football?

8 years ago
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If you're not a fan, you won't know why it's so addictive and thus many fans/playerbase.

8 years ago
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its more realistic than real football you saw on TV (there are no corrupted football organization like FIFA in here :D )

8 years ago
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Well, why are people sinking thousands of hours into a game where all you do is run around on a very small level, the same few levels over and over, doing a modern version of "tag, you're it" even though you don't play that actual kindergarten game for at least two decades now, because you are "too old for it".
Yet that is one of the largest e-sports now. Same with FM. People like to mess around with stats and act like a boss without bossing around actual people; trying to create an effective, efficient team, like with most manager/tycoon type games. And, frankly, I can understand sinking hundreds of hours into a management game, where finding a good combo can take dozens of hours, than re-running the exact same three-minute level for the 500th time. And, well, FM is probably the most mainstream, most advertised, and most known of these management types.

8 years ago
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Tag is an e-sport now?

I'm missing out!

8 years ago
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I don't know what game you're describing, but I want to play it.

8 years ago
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What game is super popular, level-based, has few-minutes matches– where the goal is supposed to be setting up or defusing some bombs, but usually ends up a twitch reflex contest on who manages to put the cursor on the other first (since all weapons one or two-shot everybody)?

8 years ago
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It sounded more fun when I didn't know what it was. Thanks a lot.

8 years ago
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Yep, with the proper phrasing even League of Legends could sound like a fun and interesting, complex game. ^.^ So if that is possible, CS should be too. :D

8 years ago
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Football!!!

FM players don't give a efff about writing a review etc. It's only about playing the game, about football. Football is everything. Football is better than sex. Football is... well....life.

8 years ago
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"Football isn't a matter of life or death, it's much more important than that."

8 years ago
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Seriously though, my top 7 most played games are Football Manager.

Football Manager 2012: 956 hours
Football Manager 2015: 732 hours
Football Manager 2014: 611 hours
Football Manager 2013: 438 hours
Football Manager 2011: 378 hours
Football Manager 2010: 320 hours
Football Manager 2016: 249 hours(still playing)

Why? Because quite simply it is the most complete footballing game ever made. No other game offers such a complete experience. As I've said in an above reply, it has become more than a game, it is a way of life.

As for no reviews, why? I for one could care less about reviewing games. I'm sure the vast majority of people who play it are the same. I got steam literally to play FM. A high percentile of that playerbase will only own steam FOR FM and therefore not care or perhaps even know about the review system. In FM 09 I believe the change happened which forced you to get steam to play it. A large chunk of fm players are older married family men who could care less for ANY game other than FM.

Also, the stories they give you are incredible, here is mine.

So I had a two player save with my friend, we both started in the lowest division in England we could. We were rubbish. I signed a striker from Bury, Glynn Hurst. He wasn't amazing, but he did the job and before I knew it he manages to get us promoted to League Two. His stats really didn't be-fit League Two but I persisted with him and once again he fired in goals to get me promoted. This continued all the way to the Premiership before the save got finished due to the new game coming out. Years later, I went to university, during my first week I was in PE and I got paired up with another man. Low and behold, he was none other than my hero, Glynn Hurst. I actually became friends with him after an awkward first impression when I blurted out "I HAVE YOUR PICTURE ON MY PC!"

8 years ago*
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Watching the FM Documentary (An Alternate Story?) will make you understand how the game works on some peoples live. Cheers! When I bought it for my little bro this X-Mas you could feel his happiness :)

8 years ago
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People enjoy football. That simple really.

8 years ago
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8 years ago
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