Eastside Hockey Manager 2007 : Good and bad news - Page 2

Muppetus Galacticus · 01-30-2007, 03:13 PM

Just goes show that piracy is NOT a victimless crime as some like to make out.

As for EHM forums, there are the SI boards - http://community.sigames.com/eve/for...m/f/7121986355

Another one can be found at EHM The Blueline - http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/portal.php

BradS · 01-30-2007, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Recte44

American Football sim? Please???

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvam14

I think there are already enough text basketball sims, between Grey Dog, and Wolverine Studios, I would much rather see a real crack at an American football sim.

Quote:

Originally Posted by robster1225

Along this thinking, there's already Solecismic and Grey Dog is developing a Pro game as well. I think in the small world of text sims, that competition is good, but to much competition and we wont see any of these companies grow. What would be perfect is if SI brought in Jim from Solecismic and used his engine to create a pro football sim.

AGREED!

Renner · 01-30-2007, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robster1225

I heard it was a good simulator. But, as you can see, it may be late to jump on board, because they are no longer developing it.

It's a great sim. Sad news. I also hope the last patch fixed the Great Decline Bug...I knew something was wrong when my star went from Peter Forsberg at age 31 to Mike Keane at age 32.

Renner · 01-30-2007, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Muppetus Galacticus

Just goes show that piracy is NOT a victimless crime as some like to make out.

The cause of death of small independent music stores as well.

MattH3322 · 01-30-2007, 07:11 PM

I would love to see a Canadian Mounties game. You know going around on horse with those funny hates arresting people for saying "A" to much.

ihatenames · 01-30-2007, 07:15 PM

first pure sim and no EHM... 2007 has not been kind to the text-based gaming industry. I'm sad to see good games go.

treedom · 01-31-2007, 01:49 PM

.

1878 · 01-31-2007, 04:33 PM

Very sad to hear this. EHM got me interested in the NHL. A great game, hopefully it will come back in the not too distant future (although this may be a slim hope). Gutted for all the guys who worked on this, especially Riz.
A sad day for sport sims

thehatfield · 01-31-2007, 04:43 PM

Agreed with all of the saddened fans. I had the version when he first jumped to SI but then I really fell off anything hockey when they locked out the NHL for the season.

Lazareth · 01-31-2007, 05:02 PM

OOTP is next.

silvam14 · 01-31-2007, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazareth

OOTP is next.

I disagree with this post

eriqjaffe · 01-31-2007, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvam14

I disagree with this post

He meant "to be released."

Nukester · 01-31-2007, 08:49 PM

Games are suddenly going down like flies. EHM is shut down, Shaun has stopped work on PureSim baseball, Adam is not going to make another Wrestling Spirit......damn, time to sharpen up those programming skills

Bonedwarf · 02-10-2007, 11:17 PM

Piracy is a convenient scapegoat. If you actually go and look around the torrent sites etc... Every version of EHM that was released DIDN'T WORK. The crack was poorly executed. I have a keen interest in piracy. Unlike most of you, I don't immediately start waving my fists going "GRRRR!". I used to work in the games industry. So much is chalked up to piracy. About how many sales are lost etc...

Now let's get some facts here.

1) Not every download means a lost sale. In fact almost NONE would probably be accurate. I used to be into all that back in the early 90's, and in my experience, and if we got a GOOD game (Sensible Soccer, Chaos Engine etc...) we'd buy it. A lot of stuff is downloaded just because it can be. Not because of any desire to not buy the game, but more a case of "That looks interesting"...

2) If you truly believe so many sales are lost to piracy, then logic decrees that titles that were never cracked, like Starforce protected titles, or Bowl Bound (which I have never seen cracked) should be the greatest selling games of all time. But they're not. Piracy is blamed for poor sales when evidence does not back this up at all. Sure, you'll lose a few sales to it, just like McVities lose packages of biscuits every year. It goes with the territory, but the "THE SKY IS FALLING!" argument is spread about by developers who need a convenient donkey to pin the tail on.

3) Torrent statistics don't mean a damn thing. The postings seem to imply that the numbers on a torrent tracker were a determining factor.

Trust me SI, your game was NEVER that popular in the first place. You took what amounts to a niche sport for most people, and tried the "yearly release" pattern you do with FM and that EA do. Congratulations, you just got reamed by market forces, and quite clearly the suits you have making your decisions have no clue. Then in the most hockey obsessed country on Earth, did nothing to promote the title, then sit and blame piracy when it failed.

Piracy is the least of your problems, and it amuses me greatly all those acting like Moe from "The Simpsons". "Immigants! I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them."

Just subtitute "pirates" for "immigants" and you get the picture.

You all make me laugh.

Qrusher14242 · 02-11-2007, 01:50 AM

Yeah, the 2007 was never fully cracked. It still expired when the demo did. Which is suprising since FM was cracked. I dont think piracy was the cause, just a convienent scapegoat.

dougaiton · 02-11-2007, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bonedwarf

1) Not every download means a lost sale. In fact almost NONE would probably be accurate. I used to be into all that back in the early 90's, and in my experience, and if we got a GOOD game (Sensible Soccer, Chaos Engine etc...) we'd buy it.

I think you've got a point generally, but I can't agree with this. If you get a good game, you'd buy it? I understand you're railing against standard industry speil, but this is standard pirate spiel. It simply isn't the case, in my experience. Certainly Amiga piratry (I presume that's what you're talking about) meant I never needed to buy a computer game in high school. I'm sure you're experience was the same: there was no Amiga game I couldn't have for the price of a floppy disk.

Now, I wouldn't have bought all of these games, or even most of them. Nonetheless, however, that doesn't mean piracy didn't subtract from the Amiga industry. One of the reasons the Amiga died because Commodore started pushing stupid money into systems (like the CD32) that were supposed to deal with software piracy. Plus, how many of the old Amiga houses are still making software? The only ones that survived had themselves deeply grounded in the PC industry by the time the Amiga fell.

Again, I'm sure piracy wasn't as big a deal in the fall of EHM as was the fact it's just not a great market for text sims, especially in a sport well covered by EA and the likes. But just as I'm sure the myth of 'piracy destroying software' is slightly overblown, the myth of the 'try-before-you-buy' pirate is completely overblown.

Muppetus Galacticus · 02-11-2007, 06:01 AM

At least they had the balls to bring out another patch. The crew working on EHM already had new assignments I believe and didn't have to do that, that gets my full praise.

Honestly, how many people would do that?

Jpotapoff · 02-11-2007, 10:27 PM

Ya I don't think piracy had anything to do with Hockey Manager 2007's poor sales. The message posted in the Sports Interactive forum explaining why the game was shut down made it sound like the pirated game was widely available and thousands of people were playing a cracked version of it. But checking in on the bittorrent sites all I could find was a couple of torrents of the game which were not being downloaded well and poorly seeded and all had comments attached to it saying it was not cracked and did not work. And all of the threads I saw on the program was asking how to crack it, saying it wasn't cracked, etc.

It's clear that the game wasn't being widely pirated, in fact it looks like it wasn't being pirated at all. So piracy really can't be blamed on the 2007 version's poor sales. And the claims of the game being widely pirated are either uninformed or intentional misdirection. If the game was being pirated as much as claimed then really the company should have been incredibly worried about their copy protection strategy since Football Manager uses the same or similar copy protection scheme. But since NHL EHM wasn't actually being pirated then I guess they can sleep easy.

The company really should look at themselves to try and figure out why the game sold poorly instead of taking the easy route of blaming piracy. Were their overheads too high to cover the amount of sales they were getting? Did they make it easy for their customers to buy the product? Were they doing a good enough job of advertising the game? From what I've heard they did little to no advertising of the game in Canada which is shocking considering that is probably the largest market for a hockey game. Sounds like they only advertised it in the Scandinavian countries and with their existing customer base, expecting that their customer base, (customers who are into British Football) would be supportive of the company enough to buy a hockey game when only a small portion of that customer base is likely into hockey. And hoped that the people who knew of the game's free predecessor and general hockey fans would come to them.

There's also the factor that the 2005 version of the game seemed to do better than the 2007 version. The company needs to examine why that happened? Was it because of the change of distribution (2005 had a CD version sold in regular stores but apparently those didn't sell well enough to warren going that route for the 2007 version). Did people who played the 2005 version decide it wasn't worth buying the new version (either satisfied enough with the first version, didn't think the new version was enough of an improvement to upgrade to a new version, or didn't like the first version)

Seems to me that the reason why the game failed to sell was the people who were aware of the game's existence either 1) were too small in number in order to support the game, 2) didn't like the game enough to buy it, or 3) were unable to buy it. Piracy doesn't seem to be a factor at all. I'm thinking mostly reasons 1 and 2 are the culprits. And a cause of #1 being a failure to market the game well. Although I heard a fair number of people who were dieing for a text based hockey manager game who tried out the 2005 version and disliked the game, citing it's interface being the main reason why they didn't like it and saying things like it felt like Football Manager with a hockey theme forced onto it, or it wasn't that fun of a game.

I think a company does a disservice to themselves and the industry when they use the crutch of blaming piracy for a game's commercial failure instead of fully examining the situation to try and find the real reason behind it. Can't learn from your mistakes if you don't bother looking for them.

Dargone · 02-11-2007, 11:22 PM

But just as I'm sure the myth of 'piracy destroying software' is slightly overblown, the myth of the 'try-before-you-buy' pirate is completely overblown.

Exactly...

darkenigma510 · 02-12-2007, 12:06 AM

As someone who owned 2005 but didnt buy 2007, I'll just say, I tend not to buy stuff before its fully patched, esp for secondary games like hockey (I consider baseball my main sport to play). They were quite late with patches (it was out around the all star break) and frankly was still playing my 2005 so saw no need to upgrade just yet.

Shame they didnt market in Canada better because I think it would have done okay if anyone knew it existed. I bet a boxed version in Canada might have done okay if you put it in Futureshops and Best Buys.

01-30-2007, 07:11 PM	#25
MattH3322 All Star Reserve Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Chicago area Posts: 752	I would love to see a Canadian Mounties game. You know going around on horse with those funny hates arresting people for saying "A" to much. __________________ People say us Irish have a bad reputation for drinking and fighting. It makes me so mad that I want to get drunk and punch someone. Last edited by MattH3322; 01-30-2007 at 07:12 PM.

01-30-2007, 07:15 PM	#26
ihatenames Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Rockford Posts: 2,534	first pure sim and no EHM... 2007 has not been kind to the text-based gaming industry. I'm sad to see good games go. __________________ New Album coming soon!

01-31-2007, 01:49 PM	#27
treedom Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2002 Location: Transylvania Posts: 2,900	. __________________ A rake and a roustabout. Last edited by treedom; 06-29-2007 at 09:33 AM.

01-31-2007, 04:43 PM	#29
thehatfield All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: dirty jerz Posts: 1,339	Agreed with all of the saddened fans. I had the version when he first jumped to SI but then I really fell off anything hockey when they locked out the NHL for the season. __________________ AFBL - Maryland Bridegrooms SBC - Western Suburbs Magpies no pressure no problem

02-11-2007, 01:50 AM	#35
Qrusher14242 All Star Starter Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: CA Posts: 1,253	Yeah, the 2007 was never fully cracked. It still expired when the demo did. Which is suprising since FM was cracked. I dont think piracy was the cause, just a convienent scapegoat. __________________ "Go then, there are other worlds than these"

01-31-2007, 04:33 PM	#28
1878 Bat Boy Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 15	Very sad to hear this. EHM got me interested in the NHL. A great game, hopefully it will come back in the not too distant future (although this may be a slim hope). Gutted for all the guys who worked on this, especially Riz. A sad day for sport sims

01-31-2007, 05:02 PM	#30
Lazareth Banned Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 129 Infractions: 0/1 (4)	OOTP is next.

01-31-2007, 08:49 PM	#33
Nukester All Star Starter Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Newburgh, NY Posts: 1,923	Games are suddenly going down like flies. EHM is shut down, Shaun has stopped work on PureSim baseball, Adam is not going to make another Wrestling Spirit......damn, time to sharpen up those programming skills

02-10-2007, 11:17 PM	#34
Bonedwarf All Star Starter Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 1,339	Piracy is a convenient scapegoat. If you actually go and look around the torrent sites etc... Every version of EHM that was released DIDN'T WORK. The crack was poorly executed. I have a keen interest in piracy. Unlike most of you, I don't immediately start waving my fists going "GRRRR!". I used to work in the games industry. So much is chalked up to piracy. About how many sales are lost etc... Now let's get some facts here. 1) Not every download means a lost sale. In fact almost NONE would probably be accurate. I used to be into all that back in the early 90's, and in my experience, and if we got a GOOD game (Sensible Soccer, Chaos Engine etc...) we'd buy it. A lot of stuff is downloaded just because it can be. Not because of any desire to not buy the game, but more a case of "That looks interesting"... 2) If you truly believe so many sales are lost to piracy, then logic decrees that titles that were never cracked, like Starforce protected titles, or Bowl Bound (which I have never seen cracked) should be the greatest selling games of all time. But they're not. Piracy is blamed for poor sales when evidence does not back this up at all. Sure, you'll lose a few sales to it, just like McVities lose packages of biscuits every year. It goes with the territory, but the "THE SKY IS FALLING!" argument is spread about by developers who need a convenient donkey to pin the tail on. 3) Torrent statistics don't mean a damn thing. The postings seem to imply that the numbers on a torrent tracker were a determining factor. Trust me SI, your game was NEVER that popular in the first place. You took what amounts to a niche sport for most people, and tried the "yearly release" pattern you do with FM and that EA do. Congratulations, you just got reamed by market forces, and quite clearly the suits you have making your decisions have no clue. Then in the most hockey obsessed country on Earth, did nothing to promote the title, then sit and blame piracy when it failed. Piracy is the least of your problems, and it amuses me greatly all those acting like Moe from "The Simpsons". "Immigants! I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them." Just subtitute "pirates" for "immigants" and you get the picture. You all make me laugh.

02-11-2007, 10:27 PM	#38
Jpotapoff Minors (Double A) Join Date: May 2003 Posts: 182	Ya I don't think piracy had anything to do with Hockey Manager 2007's poor sales. The message posted in the Sports Interactive forum explaining why the game was shut down made it sound like the pirated game was widely available and thousands of people were playing a cracked version of it. But checking in on the bittorrent sites all I could find was a couple of torrents of the game which were not being downloaded well and poorly seeded and all had comments attached to it saying it was not cracked and did not work. And all of the threads I saw on the program was asking how to crack it, saying it wasn't cracked, etc. It's clear that the game wasn't being widely pirated, in fact it looks like it wasn't being pirated at all. So piracy really can't be blamed on the 2007 version's poor sales. And the claims of the game being widely pirated are either uninformed or intentional misdirection. If the game was being pirated as much as claimed then really the company should have been incredibly worried about their copy protection strategy since Football Manager uses the same or similar copy protection scheme. But since NHL EHM wasn't actually being pirated then I guess they can sleep easy. The company really should look at themselves to try and figure out why the game sold poorly instead of taking the easy route of blaming piracy. Were their overheads too high to cover the amount of sales they were getting? Did they make it easy for their customers to buy the product? Were they doing a good enough job of advertising the game? From what I've heard they did little to no advertising of the game in Canada which is shocking considering that is probably the largest market for a hockey game. Sounds like they only advertised it in the Scandinavian countries and with their existing customer base, expecting that their customer base, (customers who are into British Football) would be supportive of the company enough to buy a hockey game when only a small portion of that customer base is likely into hockey. And hoped that the people who knew of the game's free predecessor and general hockey fans would come to them. There's also the factor that the 2005 version of the game seemed to do better than the 2007 version. The company needs to examine why that happened? Was it because of the change of distribution (2005 had a CD version sold in regular stores but apparently those didn't sell well enough to warren going that route for the 2007 version). Did people who played the 2005 version decide it wasn't worth buying the new version (either satisfied enough with the first version, didn't think the new version was enough of an improvement to upgrade to a new version, or didn't like the first version) Seems to me that the reason why the game failed to sell was the people who were aware of the game's existence either 1) were too small in number in order to support the game, 2) didn't like the game enough to buy it, or 3) were unable to buy it. Piracy doesn't seem to be a factor at all. I'm thinking mostly reasons 1 and 2 are the culprits. And a cause of #1 being a failure to market the game well. Although I heard a fair number of people who were dieing for a text based hockey manager game who tried out the 2005 version and disliked the game, citing it's interface being the main reason why they didn't like it and saying things like it felt like Football Manager with a hockey theme forced onto it, or it wasn't that fun of a game. I think a company does a disservice to themselves and the industry when they use the crutch of blaming piracy for a game's commercial failure instead of fully examining the situation to try and find the real reason behind it. Can't learn from your mistakes if you don't bother looking for them.

02-11-2007, 11:22 PM	#39
Dargone Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Interwebs Posts: 2,862	But just as I'm sure the myth of 'piracy destroying software' is slightly overblown, the myth of the 'try-before-you-buy' pirate is completely overblown. Exactly... __________________ I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken -- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.-Margaret Mitchell

02-12-2007, 12:06 AM	#40
darkenigma510 All Star Starter Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The Wild West Posts: 1,353	As someone who owned 2005 but didnt buy 2007, I'll just say, I tend not to buy stuff before its fully patched, esp for secondary games like hockey (I consider baseball my main sport to play). They were quite late with patches (it was out around the all star break) and frankly was still playing my 2005 so saw no need to upgrade just yet. Shame they didnt market in Canada better because I think it would have done okay if anyone knew it existed. I bet a boxed version in Canada might have done okay if you put it in Futureshops and Best Buys.