Game World Social Activity
Posted on 12th April 2016
Many years ago my younger brother was introduced to a play-by-mail football manager game. A few weeks later both myself and my older brother also joined. This was in the mid-1990s when Serie A was the league to follow and there were a glut of football management games for the PC.
Even though the play-by-mail was a simple concept, it was an addictive game and most importantly it was social.
There was something about filling your turn-sheet in by hand and posting it off before the deadline of when your turn was going to be played. The thought of writing numbers on a grid of where you wanted your players to play and ticking boxes for your tactical instructions will probably amuse the younger generation, but it’ll bring back memories of those who are over-30.
It also generated excitement waiting for your results booklet to be delivered through your letter box by the postman and most days I hoped that this would happen before I set off for school.
It also generated tension as you wanted to find out if you’d bid the most for a player who’d just been added to the database for example.
How did we negotiate transfers with other managers? We picked up the phone and called them! I remember on numerous occasions calling managers from my league and asking to speak to the [insert club name] manager so that we could hammer out a transfer.
I also competed in the same leagues as my brothers and their friends. This made getting one over them in the transfer market or the league extra special.
In a way our multiplayer game has many similarities with the play-by-mail that I used to play. You set your tactics. Make transfer offers. Interact with other managers. Wait for your result to come in. Watch your game and either celebrate or despair at the end result.
Since day one I have enjoyed competing in leagues with friends and family and like with the play-by-mail, you can’t beat the satisfaction of getting one over them.
We always encourage managers to play in the same leagues as their friends and family because from experience this is the best way to play. That is the main reason why we introduced the Custom Game World initiative in December 2015.
There is however one area of the game that we are wanting to improve and we are already undertaking the work to do this. It is to make the game even more social because we believe that is what makes a multiplayer football management game.
Some Game World News Feeds are buzzing with activity and that is brilliant to see, but others are like the Mary Celeste! Some managers also interact away from the game on our forums or even set up their own blogs like the excellent Top 100. This is something we want to embrace and also move into the game.
That is why we are taking a two pronged approach to improve the social connectivity in Game Worlds by improving the News Feed and also the social aspects of the multiplayer game. In a nutshell we want to make it easier and better for managers to interact with one another.
These are some of the things that will be introduced or improved:
- Improved News Feed:
- Like button;
- More share buttons to Facebook, twitter etc;
- Similar style to social networks:
- Show manager name / picture first,
- Auto share more information such as:
- Records;
- Big results;
- Internationals.
- More sharing of your Club Messages.
- Make Manager List more prominent:
- Box on first page on both app & desktop;
- Show list of who’s recently been online;
- Slide up when manager comes online – app.
- Friend / social buttons more prominent.
We believe that with these changes (along with a whole host of other improvements that i’ve not touched on) it’ll make the game more social and interactive because that is what helps make a multiplayer game.
About the author – Steven Gore
Steven is one of the co-founders of Soccer Manager and has been playing SM Worlds since August 2005. He can be found in Gold Championship 7 (Game World ID 3065) managing Castilla if you’d like to join him.
