My Perception Of The Scene

Posted in Scene | On February 18th, 2008 | By Kazzy

In the past few years the whole concept of an FM scene has increased, whilst the activity of the subject in hand has decreased. In other words, when the scene was massive and buzzing, people barely talked about the scene (it was barely of interest), the focus was on the game. Now, the focus is less on the game and more on the scene. Naturally, people start pointing the finger, where there is a fall, there is a blame. Things can’t go wrong unless something happened to make it go down. Some people like to point at the fact of a lack of innovation across the scene. Speaking as if some of the webmasters of old were web carnations of Garibaldi, bravely leading a band of men into the distance to achieve great things. These great things came in the shape of The Dugout and Off The Bench, then the likes of Sortitoutsi followed suit towards the end of a golden era. Whilst Sortitoutsi are still alive and kicking, the others unfortunately are not (The Dugout existing now as a sole forum).

People are starting to reminisce of these days, bringing forward the fact that some of these webmasters/admins/general powerful characters are no longer there, or doing the same thing they used to do, blaming the demise of the scene on a lack of innovation from anyone else, that nobody anywhere is trying and that all it would take is a few people with the right motivation to completely reinvigorate the scene as it used to be.

My opinion, however, is different. If people want to look back at the old days, you see that these great sites lead by great people had the support, the numbers of members were huge and the online fanbase for “CM” back then was huge. If these same people were to try and recreate what they had done 4 year previous or so, then they would of found half as much feedback if they were lucky. Im not saying that there is a sufficient amount of innovation and enough sites with Unique Selling Points to go round and gather interest, but that the core reasons on a “slump” in the scene is from what the scene is all about. Football Manager. The fact is that not enough people are going from buying Football Manager to joining a website on the scene. Despite sales figures being adequate and the astronomical rise in those with Internet connections in the past 5 years, the number of FM players who go from playing on there own to going online isn’t showing through. That is not to say the scene is poor, there are plenty of sites in existance which offer things in their special areas and if I want tactics there is a site that caters for me, if I want GFX there is a site that caters for me, if I want an article based site that will show me to the best bits from across the scene I am once again catered for. What is missing is perhaps the general resource sites that held everything, but things evolve and whether that means we are better off or worse off is debatable.

We’ve seen from Sports Interactive themselves that they have distanced themselves from the Scene, the affiliates system is a dead horse and webmaster days are behind us now, if SI ever give TI a free copy of FM again in order to give away as a prize, which acts as a piece of marketing for both site and business then I’ll be shocked.

I don’t have a solution and I don’t think I know it all and can cure the “Scene Blue’s”. Whether it really exists or not, and I doubt anyone else here knows how to boost activity in general. Products have lifecycles, and at the moment the FM scene is in a coming towards the end of a slump. If you count the members posting in forums across the scene. That is not taking TI soley into account, I mean all sites. It’s up to SI and future FM games on what they deliver and bring to the consumers that will effect the activity of the scene. With great games will bring back the “great times” like people like to talk about from so long ago.

By writing this article however I feel like I am in risk of contradicting myself. The last thing I want is for this to get thrown into the politics and ego’s, which surround the scene/community/whatever you want to call it. I also think it is a sad state of affairs when a website about Football Manager has to feature articles, which in essence don’t have anything to do with Football Manager. If someone is reading this on the mainsite, chances are they will not have a damn clue what im on about. I have not told them what players to buy or tactics to employ. However, I wanted people to see things from my point of view and hopefully I have done this.

written by Adam

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