Subject: Is Sokker dying?

A lot of "established" teams are quitting. But surely this is a natural thing. If you play a game for 5 years or more you are bound to get bored & want to try something else. Even more so if your team is not competitive. For years I used to play Football Manager every spare moment I got. Now I am bored of it & prefer sokker instead.

The problem is we are not replacing the users who are leaving. We need better promoting/marketing of the game. I'm sure we would have more users in Scotland if people knew this game existed.

we had a massive influx of users a few seasons back even expanded from 3 levels to 4 levels, but we couldnt retain the users and very few of the more established teams remain and alot have all left at the same time which is a shame

same with the US

i vote for a complete server reset so everyone starts from square one again =D

The problem isn't established teams leaving, it is with a lack of replacements reinforcing the number of users. Because the user base is shrinking, there are too many old players available for less than trainable players. The transfer market is no longer efficient because there isn't enough demand for good players.

And the problem with getting new users is there are other games out there that are more complex or interesting or at least are different. Current users, bored as they may be, don't sell the current game because it isn't getting better, and new users are overwhelmed because the navigation is difficult and getting good here is tough to figure out.

I am curious - what changes are coming? Is there a reason why Greg won't give a coming attractions statement? The season is over in a few weeks. If there aren't changes in the off-season, then it will be at least 4 more months until changes are rolled out, and the user base will be below 50k by that point.

Well, that's true - but it's not the only reason. I've been playing since 2005 september, but this is my last season here. I'm not bored. Sokker simply isn't fun any more.

---

i think half the reason i like ultimate manager (only other game i could find with a good tactic/match engine) is because i get to start completely over. sokker was at its best when it was new and you could play trainees in high divisions and still win, divine players were hard to find, without tons of 30yos floating around

there is a big difference between me just personally starting over here vs finding that game where everyone is starting from scratch

Instead of complaining, all Sokker managers can do something positive and help Sokker by getting more users to play Sokker through advertising Sokker, and earn FREE PLUS months by doing this!! So you aren't only helping Sokker and your country, but most definitely also yourself :)

It really won't take that much time to do some Sokker advertisement! Do you want to know how to earn FREE PLUS months, read the text below for more information.

And if you do some advertising, thanks a lot for helping Sokker! :)

Sokker advertising information
The Google search algorithm determines popularity of a website partially by the number of links to the site on a per-country basis. This means that more www pages linking to Sokker in your country will result in a higher position in search engines results.

For example, if a user in Poland searches for 'soccer manager' in Google he will get Sokker on the first search position. Similarly is with other keywords eg. 'football manager online'. This is because Sokker is such a popular game in Poland. Please check how it looks in your country for that keywords and write here - is it in first 10? 100? :)

With bad search placement, people searching for a new soccer/football game in Google will find other games before Sokker, so don't register. In turn these lost users won't link anywhere on forum or their personal webpages, thereby continuing the chain of not improving Sokker's placement , and not enabling us to grow.

Where to add links and info about Sokker?
The most obvious place to add links and info of Sokker is anywhere you can find through searching in Google. The easiest is on forums advertising games or page catalogs [/i](Guac: what is this??)[/i]. By locating these through searching on Google, it ensures that Google will see the page and will count links to Sokker.

Of course you can also advertise for Sokker on closed forums (not able to find by Google eg. like hattrick forum). This will also result in new users as well, but will not change Sokker's position in the search engines in your country. But still helpful to do so.

How to search forums in Google to use for posting Sokker advertisements?
These are examples for .com, replace text and .com to your own language and country code:
soccer phpBB site:.com
soccer forum site:.com
soccer game site:.com
presell site:.com (presell pages are created as sites that anyone can register and write an article, it is one of most easy ways to advertise)
etc. - all depends by your creativity

List of country codes (to paste your own country code instead of .com) you can find here or just check Google option 'pages from your country only'.

Also, please do try not break rules of the forums you're posting in. I'm not trying to send you all out to attack other games and forums by advertising illegally or with offensive amounts of spam!!


Sokker advertisement
Important is to include link(s) to Sokker when you post advertisements! And also very important is to use keywords in these link(s) related with football, games, etc. You can find the most used soccer game keywords in your country with the help of Google AdWords.

Here are some ideas how to make a good advertisement (translate to your own language and post these advertisement on websites from your own country).

FREE PLUS!
If you make links like this [ url=www.sokker.org/?buddy=your_login]Sokker Manager - football manager game[/url], you have a chance to earn FREE PLUS months!! Replace 'your_login' with your own username, without spaces, for a chance to earn FREE PLUS months!! The more new managers using your link to start playing Sokker, the more change you have to earn FREE PLUS months.

IMPORTANT: read rules, chapter 1 for more information how to get FREE PLUS!

Title of the advertisement text
These are good titles + link to use for your Sokker advertisements:
Sokker Manager - football manager game
Sokker Manager - football manager online
Sokker Manager - free soccer manager
Sokker Manager - soccer manager with live matches
etc. - all depends by your creativity
(important to post in title keywords related with football, games, etc.)

Description
This is an example text, ofcourse you can make your own advertisement text as you like it:
Sokker Manager - online soccer manager game with really unique live flash animated matches and great almost unlimited tactical possibilities. Managers take control over the club and must make decisions about the players, what to train, what coaches to hire/buy, if they will invest in a junior squad, or if they will buy a player from the transfer list, among many many other option. Just come check it out if you are interested in this great online soccer manager game!

Extra links
Links that can be used in the advertisement text (highly recommended):
online soccer manager
free soccer manager
online soccer manager game
online football manager
free football manager
online football manager game
etc. - all depends by your creativity
(important to post in links keywords related with football, games, etc.)

Bottom link
www.sokker.org

You can for example also add a Youtube video or a picture of Sokker to your advertisement. Just use your imagination to make an interesting advertisement text.

(Thanks guacamole for the text.)


Sokker promoter
Do you want to be sure you earn a lot more FREE PLUS by promoting Sokker? Contact your Admin and ask if your country need a promoter!

(edited)

I'm afraid it won't help.
The game takes too much time if you want to play it well. But it's very difficult, so many students are scared of too.
There is just no real group this game is trying to persuade...

His post about free users is a post from greg to promoters, or very similar ;)

sokker is dying, it's not a secret;]

It's a bit more 'difficult' as other soccer manager games, but still no rocket science ;) And it's really not that difficult if new managers have a simple 'what to do guide'. Here you can find the one that I made:
Forum Newbie Questions - How to get started with Sokker, explained in only 6 steps. (page 3)

Besides, Sokker had more users so this can be turned around again if enough managers start actively advertise Sokker on the websites :)
(edited)

it takes a LOT of time in the beginning no matter what. And you won't succeed immediately with the tactics. Many players that work irl, don't have the time. Players that have the time, don't want to spend to much on it, because they are still youngg and a bit "changeable", if you know what I mean.

Besides, Sokker had more users so this can be turned around again if enough managers start actively advertise Sokker on the websites :)

the problem is that majority of those who were potential long-term users already tried sokker and left.
the number of users registering are falling very fast...

i think a big reason people dont stay is that around half of all countries have less than 100 users... and half of those users in small countries have played a long time so new users have no healthy competition with other new users

there should be an international league like in UM to pool all the small countries together. i wouldnt like UM at all really if i was in a league with just the other 20 US users...

the problem is that majority of those who were potential long-term users already tried sokker and left. the number of users registering are falling very fast...

Yeh :) But there are also millions who never heard of Sokker Manager before and they are all potential new users ;)