Sorry for the lack of replies and posting in this thread, with the World Cup and TFF 10/11 it has been rather hectic.

An update for you all. TFFO has got to a stage where it is it's difficult to run on the same basis as last year. It's become a niche game and the number of players has fallen below a level which allows the prize fund to remain competitive or attractive, and justify the resource needed to run it.

We have 5 weeks until the start of the season and have different options to consider, including:

1) Reduced prize fund and launching the game almost exactly the same as last season
2) Launching the game to start part way through the season (ie August transfer window) and spending time developing the game slightly
3) Changing the prize fund to be a percentage of entrance fee (so the prize fund grows with entries)
4) Setting the game around the Champions League (ie pick a squad from the Champions League teams)
5) Take a break for the 10/11 season and spend some time rethinking how a squad game could work for next year.

We can see from the feedback on FISO that TFFO has a strong fanbase. We also personally feel that a squad game has a place in our fantasy games 'portfolio', but at the same time we are concious of launching websites that we are not 100% happy with and feel that last season's game would require some work to allow it to please existing players and attract new players. We are going to make a decision on this very early next week, so would welcome thoughts on this asap.

TFFootball

1) Reduced prize fund and launching the game almost exactly the same as last season - What would be the prize fund?
2) Launching the game to start part way through the season (ie August transfer window) and spending time developing the game slightly - This would not work, as people would go elsewhere.
3) Changing the prize fund to be a percentage of entrance fee (so the prize fund grows with entries) - This could work
4) Setting the game around the Champions League (ie pick a squad from the Champions League teams) - Why not do this as an extra.
5) Take a break for the 10/11 season and spend some time rethinking how a squad game could work for next year. You will lose the existing support

TFFO - The only reason there was a drop in number last year was that the game was launched 1 week before the start of the season.

I say launch it again, but go with option 1 or 3.

Option 4 would work as a separate tournament.

Why not also give the option when signing up to TFF to buy TFFO credits in a package.

Game was 3 weeks to late in starting last year so most people went and played another game. The prize fund I think is not that important to me its the taking part in a very tricky game that requires a lot of input throughout the season.
It needs to be launched earlier and with more of a fanfare
long live TFFO

3, I think. Re-launch soon, giving players time to realise it's available and more importantly give them enough time to pick their squads (not an easy task). If, as Ashers writes, this generates more interest, it would then be worth investing a bit of time to improve it for 2011/12. To appeal to the masses, as I'm sure you're aware, the game needs to be evolved enough to allow the casual player to compete on an almost equal footing with the more serious player.

In TFF, it's quite common to see casual players at the top of the leaderboard, because they've picked a fantastic starting XI and made a couple of inspired changes. That's the dream for a lot of casual players, to one day get a top 100 finish, a top 10 finish etc. In TFFO, at the moment, unless you take it very seriously, you haven't a hope of finishing in the top 100. As soon as you forget to set your team up for the weekend, you've no chance. I wouldn't mind betting that by around February / March time last season, there weren't any more than 300 teams being set up each week.

Even having prizes for the below would attract more interest:

Starting Squad Total Points - £500
Top scoring squad £1,000
Decent mini league prizes - This is the future of fantasy football.

Last year's game was fine and there is a core of us that will play this year, what ever the prize.

If you use the same players as TFF (like last year) it is only a case of seperateing defenders.

It needs to be advertised more as if you have not played TFFO before then you don't get to hear about it.(maybe put the TFFO alongside TFF in the paper) Just because its on line does not mean you can't advertise it.

You need to get TFFO available so people can sign up now. (the players are there and use last years set up and ammend as soon as to make better.) Longer you leave it the more entries you lose.

TFFO is the BEST Fantasy Football game by a mile.(most enjoyable as you have interest in nearly every premiership game with 18 players)

You don't get people buying teams just to try and win a monthly (ie if your squad does well in a month you have a chance)

If you did the prizes on a percentage then I am sure we the TFFO fanatical would do some advertiseing for you by speading the word.

PLEASE BRING TFFO BACK AGAIN THIS SEASON

By its nature, this thread will attract comments only from diehard players.

Those of us who've sampled TFFO and decided it wasn't for them are unlikely to participate in any dialogue. So, at the risk of upsetting the game's zealots, here's an alternate view:

- ensure TFF, the most popular of the Telegraph's footie contests, is totally unaffected by system and server contention issues

- reduce prize fund to balance cost of running the game; those who are drawn to TFFO's unique qualities may still play

- launch the game a month rather than a week before the season begins (or not at all).

1) Reduced prize fund and launching the game almost exactly the same as last season - what wouldn't be the same as last season (apart from the prize fund)? How much of a reduction are you talking? As 1st prize was 20 times that of 2nd prize last season, could most of the reduction take place in reducing the gap between 1st and minor places?

2) Launching the game to start part way through the season (ie August transfer window) and spending time developing the game slightly - this would lead to a lot of similar entries once the bargain players to pick would become obvious, and picking teams before the season starts is one of the skill elements of the game. I'd also think that by starting late there would be even less people playing as they'd already spent their entry money on other games.

3) Changing the prize fund to be a percentage of entrance fee (so the prize fund grows with entries) - what kind of percentage of entrance fee? As in (1), could most of the reduction take place in reducing the gap between 1st and minor places?

4) Setting the game around the Champions League (ie pick a squad from the Champions League teams) - my least favoured option as I don't play Champions League games and it means the end of a Premiership Squad game. Seems more suited to a discussion of what you want to do with the Champions League game

5) Take a break for the 10/11 season and spend some time rethinking how a squad game could work for next year. - Big danger here is will it come back if you take a break for a year? Been pretty obvious since last August that entry levels in TFFO were down again, so why haven't you been spending some time since then rethinking how a squad game could work for this year?

I'm disappointed that with less than 5 weeks to go before the season starts there is not even a decision on whether the game will run (especially with TFF already up and running). I think this, and my comment for point (5), reflect how low a priority this game is for the Telegraph.

Will any of the game options mentioned gain the advertising they need to succeed? I think the Telegraph should realise that entry levels are down largely due to the profile (or lack of it) they give to the game. Little needs changing with the product (please take note of how many people call it their favourite fantasy game) apart from the Telegraph's attitude to it and how much exposure they give it.

The simple fact is more people outside of FISO would play it if more people knew it existed. That doesn't take a year out to rethink, but whether advertising space could now be found, leaving it so late (even incorporation again with TFF entry bundles), may mean this year's game will be a small affair whatever you do now, and I hope if a game is run it is not judged simply alone on entry figures (as has seems to have been done on last year's game despite its minute advertising and comparatively late start) and a similar train of thought at the Telegraph next season sees the axe finally brought down on probably its best contribution to fantasy games.

In my view the Primary reason for falling participents is the increasingly late start time and lack of advertising for this game over recent years.

You've taken until the 11th of July to ask a question that could have been asked at the end of May. You'll make up your minds next week giving you about two weeks to launch the game in whatever format you can come up with, so inevitably it will fail to attract sufficient entries yet again.

Personally , I think this is just another sign of how TFFO has been mis-managed over the years. That, or you've already decided to scrap it and are just paying us lip service.

I love TFFO and will continue to play it in whatever format it has, providing it doesn't start after the Season has begun, which would ruin it ( Just as the Cricket competition has been spoiled).

If this is the end of TFFO though, then it'll probably be the end of my participation in all Telegraph games out of principle.

Long live TFFO

I vote for option 3. As has been mentioned, the reduced level of entries last year was not primarily due to there being anything wrong with the game per se. Far from it - it is the best game out there in my opinion. It was down to a) late launch b) game not advertised adequately c) server problems over the 24 hours or so before the first matches kicked off [this game is sufficiently demanding that missing the ability to set up teams for those first flanges dramatically reduced any chance of winning the game, so interest for some immediately fell off].

You did a great job of sorting out the various problems with the website. If you launched it now and advertised it now you would get more entries than last year. Without advertising (or with too late advertising) players will tend to be drawn from the hard core who have played it for long enough to know about it, and appreciate its demands and subtleties. Potential newcomers need to be made aware of the game and its attractions.

I would be very disappointed to see TFFO abandoned, and would not get so much enjoyment from any of the other games which, frankly, I find rather dumbed-down and needing less skill to win. Ie they are not so challenging or satisfying.

Prizes are not why I play fantasy football - happy to go with the flow on that aspect.

Thanks for the update Mr TFF, but gutted to hear that TFFO is in 'critical' condition.

Personally, I would like to see option 1 or 3 (or a combination: something like "top prize £5k, plus an extra £2 per entry beyond 2500"). I wouldn't be interested in a Champs League version, and although I probably would play a version starting in September it wouldn't feel 'right' to miss the first weeks (and I agree with FrankieFrog above, the bargains will have started to become evident, removing the fun of pre-season selection).

Thinking of the bigger picture, I agree with Ashers that option 2 would probably lose you entrants, as people have already put their money into other games that have started on time. Also I'm not sure how option 3 will go down with prospective entrants, people may be put off by the uncertain prize fund, and/or there could be a case of everybody waiting to see the entry numbers get high before entering themselves, and so many people end up never entering.

I feel option 1 is the best way of launching the game this year, and I really do believe that launching asap will be the biggest factor in getting most possible entrants, closely followed by advertising the game well. Many other games will be launching soon and people will be deciding where to put their money, and as I've said before I think last year's very late launch and low advertising was a big reason for the lower numbers. Obviously having as large a 'headline' prize as possible will also be a big factor (more so for the non-FISO masses possibly, though it's not the biggest worry for me), but I don't know how large a prizefund you feel you can feasibly offer in the present situation.

I don't know how much work on the website you feel is necessary/desirable before launch. Maybe there is some work necessary to 'integrate' with the 2010/11 TFF design (I'm not sure how much that one's changed from last year). But for me, last year's TFFO site layout and infrastructure was fine to work with, and if at all possible I'd urge you to get the game up as soon as possible with something based on that, and make changes and tweaks on that over the coming weeks (even after the season's underway). I think the main thing that people were unhappy with was the speed of team selection/set-up, but I'm sure you don't have to have that fixed before launch? Say if you launched the game next week with a statement "we are working on an improved team selection mechanism which we hope to have ready by September", I'm sure that would go down well. I think if you can manage this, and make a reasonable effort on the three things in bold in the previous paragraph, TFFO can still do well this year.


Finally, I hate to contemplate option 5, but maybe, if you conclude you just can't get the game up within the next 2 weeks with a semi-decent prize, it will turn out to be the only option. Unfortunately, for the long-term benefit of the game (as long as you do work on ideas for bringing the game back in 2011/12), it is probably better to have a season off than to run the game with little time pre-season for entries to come in and measly prizes, which could completely kill the game off. You may lose a few customers over the year off, but as long as the game is prepared well for 11/12 there would hopefully be a rebound of extra entries from people who have missed the game and/or people who will see it as a new thing.


If you've read all this Mr TFF, thanks! One last thing: I saw a comment on another part of FISO a few days ago from a regular FPL player saying he intended to "have a crack at TFFO" this year. If this is anything to go by, the demand for this fantastic game is far from dead.

Maybe it is the fact that the TFFO is dearer than the TFF If they were the same price I know I would go for the TFFO everytime. So its dearer for TFFO to make the prizes better but if it was cheaper (same as TFF) you would get more entries so its then a case of what do you do.

If both came out at the same time and with the same advertising and the same price it would only be a matter of time before TFFO would be the most popular game around.

Long live TFFO I will play it whatever happens.

Just to add to my earlier thoughts. While the website does (ideally) need some development to make the setting up of flanges less clunky, it is not essential, and certainly not worth delaying launch for. Given that player prices are the same as TFF etc, it would seem obvious to advertise TFFO alongside TFF - barely any additional advertising space would need to be bought.

I do not know whether there is a worry that TFFO will materially cannibalise TFF but, if so, I do not think that would happen. And making TFFO the same entry price as TFF would not have that effect either. They are 2 entirely different games, suiting 2 different types of player. I very strongly think that overall you would gain revenue.

Happy with 1 or 3. (Having read previous posts, I tend to agree that having a certain, rather than variable, prize structure would be an easier and better proposition to put to potential players).

Ah, that's a shame. I was first to reply on the original tffo on fiso thread back on may 24th - over six weeks later, and I can only repeat what I said then, that the game should launch earlier and hence would be more likely to be a success again. Am doubting that all that time has gone by and no decision has been made - and can only reiterate what many others have said above. Bottom line, if the telegraph aren't prepared to advertise the game, it won't survive whatever option is (or has already been) chosen.

1+3

My suggestion for what it's worth.
Work out a way so that the rest of the world can play too...when we were allowed to play about 3 seasons ago i thought it was the best fantasy football game around.
Some fantasy organizers seem to get around it.
I think it would generate a lot more players, I'm sure you have the figures to show how many players had to drop out when you put the block on aliens playing.
Must be someway around it, even if it meant that any prize money had to stay in the UK instead of sending prize to say USA. This would favour me as I still keep a bank and credit card a/c in the UK but realize not every expat would have that advantage.
I for one would certainly play your fantasy game again.
ps...also possibly many expats still have some connection with the UK, family or friends etc.

Last season I remember TFFO finally capitulating and including the dreaded MOTM awards. I think this then bought the scoring structure completely into line with TFF. At the time it was probably done to make TFFO happen, but having been done, surely there is very little required now. With TFF reverting to nearly the same scoring structure as 3-4 years ago I see no problem with doing the same with TFFO. The niceties of the scoring structure are not what's important about TFFO, it's the highly interactive nature of the gameplay. I usually enter one TFFO team and it has the effect of satisfying my tinkering urges so my TFF team(s) can be left to tick over properly.

So, you have a player list (albeit someone needs to classify fullbacks and central defenders), you have a scoring system and you have a manager database. You also have last seasons playing interface which did the job. As has been mentioned there could usefully be improvements to the team set-up for each set of fixtures (we call them flanges), but that isn't essential right now. What is essential is that the game launches ASAP so that the majority of players who want to play have some budget left. I'm sure there were people who wanted to play last season but couldn't wait until the last week because of holidays etc. They've seen the game did start, and if they see it available earlier this season then they will probably play. It needs some advertising, but that doesn't need to be too onerous. A prominent spot on the site login page will do wonders. A quarter page in the paper alongside the main game advert would I'm sure generate interest. And word of mouth through FISO, Facebook, Twitter etc. Sorted.

The prize fund is the difficult one. You've already seen how the reduced first prize affected TFC last season, so clearly it does need to be a reasonable figure. That said, for it's core supporters the real fun is in competing, trying to work out a strategy to navigate the season. I think you do need a set prize structure, so perhaps we do need to take a hit on the first prize. If it helps, perhaps the weekly/monthly prizes could be related to the overall entry. Say have a base figure which would be topped up by £10 for every say 250 entries. They could even get slightly bigger as the season progressed if more people joined later on.

I really hope you do decide to keep TFFO. So much of it's costs are already covered by TFF and it's existing development it would be a real crime to kill it off. Launch with last seasons interface now to maximise entries and make improvements once the season is underway. Aim to slot in any work during one of the usual international breaks so that an unforeseen consequence isn't a disaster.

I would really miss TFFO, I played it for the first time last season and I thought it was the best game to play.

This is bad news especially given the recent 'downsizing' of the cricket game ~ no one-day cricket, so that effectively half the summer of cricket is empty (for those of you that don't know).

I would echo Bram's comments above and hope that a solution is found that saves TFFO.

Ultimately, if the Tele keep on reducing its games, a bit like a sculpter that can't stop chipping away, there will be nothing left.

Having just taken advantage of the TFF offer of £2.50/ entry (okay, bought many more than I know what to do with at present) but the multis that will buy many more at a higher price will spend their budget on either more teams or keep to the number that they'd normally buy and have a lot more left than they'd have expected. If TFFO credits had been available at the same time at a similar reduction that spare cash could well have gone into that game, now it may be used for more TFF entries or quite likely more for YTM/ SDT and anything else with a decent pot.

Agree that TFFO is a niche game but as said above it generally lacks support from yourselves which in turn means it gets by-passed by the FF players at large. FPL is quite a niche game too, free with no pot at all and it's played by millions!

TeamBoss took you on a while back with the 18 man squad game and couldn't make a go of it (fortunately for me I make a few k whilst the sun was shining), they misread the market whilst you of course have a great deal of experience.

For me, slash the entry fee and the pot, 2/3/4 quid for an entry and if that means only a couple of thousand in the pot then so be it. Give the masses of people that play FF a cheap game to play on the side, give them the chance to get hooked over a few seasons then think about upping the ante and pot, but not massively for either.

Sorry, with 2 million players I can't agree that FPL is "niche"! Don't think you can compare it to TFF/O though, as the fact it's a free game makes it an easy choice for thousands of work/friends leagues.


Also have to disagree on this, I don't think TFFO can ever be a "bit on the side" due to its high-maintainance in having to set up teams each week. Maybe the masses would be tempted by a cheap-to-play game, but I doubt many of them will stay for more than one season and 'get hooked', once they realise how much involvement it takes. Given that it's a game for the more dedicated type of FF manager, I think the £10 cost is fine.

Evening,

Personally I would go with option 1 or 3, to me it's not as important to have a massive prize fund as I play this game out of enjoyment & if I could ever manage to win anything then it would be a bonus! I think if TFFO was to "take a break" for a season, a) you would lose support & b) It would probably never re-surface.
I Do not usually take part in the TFF as it's a completely different structured game & not the type I overly enjoy, so for me, if TFFO did not show this year then like others I will not be playing TFF (Unless I win my Super 32 Final tonight in the WC game).
You can't start the game mid August as too many squads will be similar, totally destroying the pint of this game to spot the bargains!

Personally TFFootball, I would stick to the format as last year, launch it quickly over the next week or with decent advertising & possible package inclusion with TFF. If your still thinking of not doing these options then just drop the prize fund a little to make it cost effective from your point of view.

Here's hopeful of another season of my beloved game!

Looks like TFFO is wanted.

TFF Football - Please make it happen.

Hear hear!! Obvious from the number of replies in such a short space of time that a) this is wanted and should be launched in last season's format asap and b) there is general agreement on what the main problems were last year. There is no need for any protracted thought - cause and solution fairly obvious. But speed is of the essence.

In which case it will never be cost effective for the game provider as £10 is way to high to attract new blood in the current market, especially if the game launches late with a whisper.

£5 would be better, which less prizes.

I think there's a lot of merit in the suggested £5 entry fee.

None of the hard core regulars have complained about the present £10 entry fee which they evidently consider good value for money.

They would probably spend no less if the fee was reduced,but simply buy more teams,especially knowing that doing so could help ensure the game's future.

So,no loss of revenue to TFF there.

However,a reduced £5 fee would probably encourage a lot of newcomers to try TFFO,on a "give it a go for a season" basis.

A £10 entry cost, in the present economic climate especially, is likely to deter most newbies from entering,not just because we're in the middle of a deep recession at present,but because such a high entry fee (higher than that of any other FF game) may lead people to think it must be a complicated,time consuming game - which by all accounts it is. So they give it a miss. £5 they may be more willing to write off. Once hooked however,their attitude will change when next season's comp comes round.

It's a recipe for growth.

TFFootball, after your above comments of 7 weeks ago I am absolutely astonished at today's developments. We all naturally assumed that you and GFM had taken on board our suggestions and would be ready to launch the TFFO 2010/11 game at the same time as TFF, ie. this weekend.

As has been previously mentioned FPL (a game actually not too dissimilar to TFFO and far higher maintenance than TFF) last season had 2.3 million managers playing. I am staggered that you and your colleagues are even considering not trying to tap into that enormous potential customer base.

I would very much appreciate it, TFFootball, if you honoured your above commitment to us and at the very least offered us the same website as last season.

Option 1 appears to be the most sensible option along with reducing the entry fee to encourage more players to give TFFO a go. Offering a free TFFO team to every TFF league chairman or player with 5 or more TFF teams will boost the numbers and hopefully gain a few more players for the following season.

Option 2 sounds familiar! Didn't the original squad game start a couple of weeks into the season? TFC starts 2 weeks in, I have no problem with this option.

Why don't the telegraph promote the game more? It gets no mention in the paper on Wednesdays.

I have played TFFO for years and find it the most challenging and rewarding game to play and will be sad to see it go.

None of the above.

Options 1 and 3 are the only ones that make partial sense - but, considering, that TFF now has a 100 grand prize pool for an expected entry of 250,000 - it's impossible to see how TFFO can ever fit into that kind of 'model'.

IMHO the only viable solution, at this relatively late stage, is to offer a game based on last year's site with some non cash prizes and a low entry fee. This model worked very well for the 2008 International Cricket games - which were highly enjoyable. It would give the Telegraph some return on the investment made on last year's site, retain most of the existing player base and give more time for deciding how to take the game forward.

However, my feeling is that the game is up - even with yet another stay of excecution - as there is no hope of ever attracting a signficant number of new entries without a decent launch date, better prizes and proper marketing; and none of these appear to be on the agenda. The numbers attracted by the old monthly prizes seems to be nothing but a fond memory for the players and a statistic that has been wiped from the organiser's database.

I'm also extremely disappointed, although not surprised, to read the game is in doubt. I vote for reduced prize fund and run same as before. Obviously it depends on the drop but if the top prize dropped from 20 to 10k I doubt you'd lose anyone. Plus there wasn't a lot wrong with the site itself by then end of last season.

OK, now for the rant.....

It hasn't just 'become a niche game and the number of players fallen' out of the blue. You have made this happen by driving away your customers. When I first played this there were about 30,000 players. The next two or three seasons the game remained exactly the same and number of entries remained in the high twenty thousands.

Since then every season either the rules have changed, the site has changed (sometimes making it almost unusably bad) the game has launched late, or launched not fully finished. It's been an absolute shambles and the fact there were still several thousand entries last year was miraculous and shows just how loyal your existing customers are. If this was a new game that launched two years ago you'd have been lucky to get over 100.

Added to this the game is never promoted, despite being run by a company with their own newspaper!!! Why on earth wouldn't you use this to promote the game? You have free access to millions of potential players yet don't even bother to use that advantage at all.

So you're never going to attract new players, it's just a case of how many old ones you can hold on to. Combine this with the shambolic treatment, particularly the last two seasons, and it's little wonder numbers have dropped. If something gets continually worse eventually you stop buying it.

Unlike other games where they seem to being trying to attract players, playing the telegraph squad game is like joining a secret society. I have to keep checking on fiso each year just to discover if the game is even running or hope for clues to a launch date. OFL manage to keep me informed about their games and I haven't even played them for four years!! Then the launch is so late and secretive most people aren't even going to notice let alone take the trouble to sign up when they're already in numerous other games by then.

I spoke to someone about TFF the other day. They've been playing it since Matt Le Tissier was the top midfielder, they read the Telegraph every day and yet they had no idea what the squad game was. If a Telegraph reading fantasy football enthusiast didn't even know it existed the how the hell is anyone else going to?!

And again this year the newspaper game has already launched and the squad game is nowhere to be seen. Why is it always such a problem? Other games come back year after year exactly the same with no problems. This one is like you throw everything away, forget it existed, and are really confused about it by the start of the next season and have to start everything from scratch again as if it had never existed before. And then the same thing happens the next year. And the next year.

You can't be surprised entry numbers have fallen surely?! How could they not? It looks like you want it to fail

Rant over.

On the entry fee business surely it's beneficial to both TFF and TFFO to have package deals. Last year I only entered TFF because I was doing TFFO and you could get value buying them together. If TFFO doesn't run I won't bother entering TFF alone.