[Syd Thrift]

I think that above getting blasted for no new features, I'm seeing a lot of people - many of whom haven't even purchased 23 - blast it for playing differently. Sorry, but rebuilding the engine is going to introduce new issues. Yeah, they can be a bit annoying (although I have to say, other than the "you can cheese steals super hard" thing, I haven't really seen anything major - even the "the uniforms got reworked and even though the old unis still sort of work they won't work as well as the new format" is not, I'm sorry, that big of a deal unless you're playing out games in the early 20th century, in which case you probably have bigger issues than the unis not looking right), but it is indeed a side effect of some much needed updates. Sadly, the flak they received will probably disincentivize them from doing such changes in the future, so this year's engine rework might well be the last we see until/unless they switch to a physics-based, true one-pitch mode (and I say "unless" because it's entirely possible that OOTP never makes this switch).

I also get the notion, frankly, that people just don't play FM as much as people play OOTP in a pure hours-per-version sense. They most certainly don't play it in the breadth of ways people play OOTP. FM is great with any of the higher tier European leagues (which, sure, gives you more leeway than initial OOTP), not as good with lower leagues, pretty trash with 3rd and lower tier leagues, and a buggy mess with anything outside of that. Also, there's no historical play, period; anything you do to make it do "historical" is a mod, unsupported, and probably not terribly realistic (and in fairness, FM would have to deal with ever-changing strategy whereas OOTP simulates a game where the basic way baseball is played has been relatively static).

OOTP also simulates a game where a toooooooon more work has been done with stats and as such has a fanbase that is going to be much, much, much more angry when a top hitter mashes homeruns 10% of the time as compared to 9% of the time (we've even had a long-running debate as to whether guys like Roger Maris in 1961 should average 61 HRs or somewhere in the low 50s; that's several paradigms away from debate in FM). So I'm not sure that FM is even a great comparison in that regard.

So who else? DMB and SOM are single-season sims. As much as people try to use OOTP as SOM lite, they're entirely different games and don't completely appeal to the exact same crowds. There are a couple of basketball games out there that have promise, maybe, but with DDS:PB in particular you're basically locked in to modern basketball (I've had some success with updating the config file in FBB to make it sort of work with historical leagues but that game is a. 8 years old and b. veeeeeeeeery dry). American football would seem to have a bigger audience but there's a game that hasn't been supported for years (FOF), a game that is, not to be mean but very much a single dev's labor of love (DDS:PF), and a game that's a pure game-to-game coach's sim (Pro Strategy Football).

It's clear that, for better or for worse, OOTP has a very specific, carved-out niche that's not quite like anything else.