Adboard Patch removed from site

Anybody know why it's been deleted?

I recently noticed that my adboards have stopped working in game (just a blank black box) so I came to re-download & install the pack again, but it says it's been deleted..

https://sortitoutsi.net/content/58962/fm22-adboard-patch-v10-24102021-out-now

I noticed that too. I don't know what happened. Hope everything is fine.

Its like it on mine to

Sports Interactive directly asked us to this delete this content.

Please do not share links to it or upload it on our forums.

What a friggin' nightmare. 😢

@rabcp The fruits of your hard work (and many other community creators like you) have given FM that added sprinkle of realism and real-life football magic that keeps me playing it year after year. At least until now.

Each time I launch the early beta without the crucial additions, I realize how empty and unrealistic the vanilla game feels. The true spirit of my beloved real-life football emerges the same time as I get to install the versatile custom-made modifications and additions.

They really bring to life the game I WANT to love, WANT to play and WANT to never get tired of. But I think I already would have a long time ago, were there no such dedicated people contributing, creating and setting their brilliance loose on the skeletal frame of the game to add the meat that makes it more authentic and life-like.

My interpretation of what's happened:

SI have agreed new commercial deals with advertisers. They've agreed to have a set degree of visibility guaranteed for the advertisers.

To ensure that visibility to their adverts, SI have decided to take down custom adboards and force their set adboards in their place.

To those who defend SI and say they have no choice, it's the advertisers who require the specific visibility: wake up.

SI has sold advert space in your game and mine. They've chosen the greedy route and placed our virtual football simulation experience for sale. They've agreed to have adverts to be forced on us and data collected about our decision to click or not click the links on those adboards that lead to the corresponding web sites of said advertisers.

I'm upset. And the way I see it, this is on SI. They wanted to monetize the match engine one step further this year. What's next? No custom 3D kits? Will those be sold as DLC? One thing the game industry has proven time and time again is that its greed has no boundaries. However, individual companies can choose their way. It'll be interested which way SI are heading. That will effect my future decisions on whether to support and buy FM or not. (And whether it'll appeal to me anymore or not.)

The ability to customise - and thus make FM more realistc - has been the crucial factor behind my buying each FM game for years and years now.

I've bought Football Manager (or Championship Manager) since the 99-00 iteration, with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 games. If I end up getting off the train in the near future, I will be very sad about it. It will feel like losing a connection to my youth and the very core of my seemingly endless love for football.

Oh man, that is a big disappointment. I think @Tommy Hughes post says it all. Completely agree.  Unfortunately, I absolutely do think this will extend to kits, skins, logo, real names  … basically all mods in the near future.

This is only the begning, the end is very clear. Modding is a dying concept. Money talks, and players like us might just walk away, as this game without mods, is not worth it anymore. They do not give a flying **** about a few nerds getting upset. 

The reality is, most players do not use mods, and SI might go down the road of using DLC, but it will never be anywhere near the levels of details as the mod community have given us.  This is a sad day, and I hate painting all walls in black, but I really don't see any sort of positive outcome for us.

You both got a point there! But some modders are already asking money for some stuff and maybe thats why SI is jumping in now.


Btw no post on SI forums? Nothing on Reddit? People are just going to accept this? 

I think there is a big difference between modders asking for donations, and actually locking content behind DLC. I might be wrong here, but I think there are only one modder who got content you got to pay for directly, (Priisek pro skin.) At least that is the only one I know about. 

I don't know about you, but complaining about it on the SI forums or reddit, is like shouting at a fart. Nah mate, I doubt much will change even if it became a big debate, which it wont. 

True thing. But we still dont know why SI asked for it. Dont know if adboard still work or if SI did something with the patch to get rid of it

As of right now, it still seems to be working in my save. 

I hope @rabcp  decide to upload it somewhere else, where SI wont follow, or wont have any sort of possibility of following up on a lawsuit, and I also hope SI wont make it impossible to change these files. But that is a lot of hope, as they clearly have only one interest at heart here, and that is money. 

My guess, like @Tommy Hughes suggested, it must have something to do with commercial rights, maybe legal issues duo to companies seeing their advertisement on YouTube from content creators, or something along those lines. A 3rd party is in play here, otherwise it makes no sense to change it now, rather then 10 years ago when the first 3D engine came out.

Agree mate, the start of a slippery slope.

SI can only stop sites hosting, they can’t stop people creating content which is better than SI can do

@rabcp please carry on and find a way to distribute to your many disciples

Yeah if this is going the FIFA route, gradually losing licence after licence and facing big threats of legal action, when it's just a load of probably approaching (me, already there), who have the skill to put in time and effort to make those unlinced things still appear, will probably be the last time I buy it too. Without mods the game is nothing,  it's a brilliant game, sadly spoiled by certain clubs and leagues who get too greedy.

Sad times. I've played the since the original Championship Manager (when an Italian version of CM3 came out in a lovely blue box and that was the first time you could play a different. Look at the game, 25 years later, I'd hate to see it disappear without trace because of microtransactions etc. 

The fact it was made by so few people, was it's beauty, in my opinion. Mind you if I had to play this year's forever, I wouldn't grumble.

Well if SIGames take all our homemade graphics im out 

Cause SI can't do shit right, and again its all about money

I hope people will boycot the game if they go so far to ruin the game cause of greed

I sure will, and I played this shit since my childhood 

I tryed debating in the SI Forum but when u criticize anything from them your post is either deleted or u get a warning with a Ban 

I got 2 accounts banned in there just for saying the true

Nahhh .. Talk about the Money

Sadly, I feel this is a sign of things to come, SI's reasoning was the patch impacts on their ability to make revenue (in game advertising) and on their ability to obtain licences. Personally, I can see their first point (though I don’t agree with forcing adverts on people who have paid for a full version of the game in order to make extra revenue) however, their second reason is bizarre as through the editor we can make unlicenced nations playable, surely that has a bigger impact?

I feel this is a worrying prescient and hope SI don’t go after other mods, my gut feeling is they will. I don’t know what the future holds, I have a feeling that SI will hard code video adboard’s from FM23 onwards, or at the very least change their format or size. Should that happen then FM22 will be my last FM and I will rely on data updates as I don’t want to use the out of the box soleless match engine.

I have poured 1000’s of hours into this patch since 2009 and it has been a real labour of love at times. However, over the past few versions, I have continually been asked the same questions which have been answered countless times, I regularly receive a barrage of PM’s and countless requests. Sadly, over the past few years many previous contributors seem to have vanished too. This has been draining and at times puts me of coming on to the forums, I thought long and hard about letting the patch die but too much of my and other peoples work has gone into it. It will be back I just don’t know where and when.

@rabcp, well said, as per the comments above your work has helped make the game we love feel even more realistic and only enhances the game further. 

If I go out and buy a car and decide to change the badge on it or add my company logo onto it then surely that is my choice and I wouldn't expect to sign an agreement with Ford/Mercedes etc to say otherwise, so why do we pay for a game which we cannot customise it how we would like in the privacy of our own surroundings??

I can accept that the quality of the game has increased and SI have obviously had to employee more people etc so they need to generate revenue.  But if that's the case charge us £5 more for the game, also without looking at the numbers I'm sure the sales figures have grown year on year with all the marketing etc the game now has (added cost) so surely their margins are healthy enough without the external revenue.

Hopefully mate you can upload your great work somewhere else as I think all of us on here were itching for the latest Rev from yourself.

Thanks again

@rabcp Just wanted to say that I'm grateful for all of the hard work and own time that you and and any other mods have done for the FM Communities. It truly adds to the game and gutted to read this today. I hope you're not too disheartened but I wanted to say thank you.

I also have something to add. First they removed my pack from the SI forum. They wrote to me that I was violating the  rights of Manchester United. Directly irreparable damage has created American billionaires. Then the fmscout also turned out to post my pack, although before that Stam himself offered me. So appreciate those who do something for the game. Subscribe to Twitter - like it 🙂 

And lastly - they wrote about money at the top - in two years there was not a single donation! So it's not about money - it's about freedom of choice. I paid for the game. But I love the game because I can change it.

Ah I see, that's a real shame and like others have said.. a slap in the face of these fan made creators that try to improve the game off their own back.

Worrying times, but I guess Sega and SI want to force us with the ads that they have been/ are being paid to advertise by outside companies. 

Maybe we will end up down the mobile phone route, you need to pay an extra fee if you want to play without ads 😀

Can you guys provide us with an explanation on how to delete the adboards patch? Any idea on how to reset the original files?

Hi 

I've never used it so don't know which files were replaced 

However verifying the integrity of the game files in steam will set the game back to all default files

I have had to remove some posts and edit a couple due to language 

Guys we can't have any discussion on the forums how to bypass this or where to get similar mods from that's why the forum has been removed by the site admin

Thanks for all your hard work over the years. It's a shame SI have decided to do this and hope they are happy pissing off a lot of fans all for the sake of a few more quid.

You're one of the all time goats for mods.  Its disgusting what they are doing to your work. You have my eternal respect even if you are a Hibs fan.

Hey Rabcp, I have moved my content to Twitter, although for a different reason. It might work for you too

i think rabcp should still do adboard updates.  it can be through the Youtube channel, Fanpage on Facebook, create your own blogspot or it can be on Twitter too.

Although it has happened, the main reason isn't because of modding itself, It's using copyrighted imagery (sponsers etc) and animated adboards. i know of one example where a sponser has asked SI to do something to stop their images being used, and I feel like others would have as well. hopefully we can still add our own as i am all for it

I mentioned it on the Steam forum and it got shut down within seconds lol, talk about freedom of speech.

Copyright was not the reason given by SI, their reason was linked to the patch impacting on there revenue (advertising via bidstack), if it was down to copyright then they would be looking to remove other mods such as custom kits too.

I fear this a sign of things to come though, the press backgrounds don't work in FM22 and SI have confirmed that was an intentional change by them, that speaks volumes to me, I believe the days of being able to mod FM are coming to an end.

Its gonna be SIgames loss cause I and many others I think will stop playing the game because if we can't mod anything anymore the game is useless.

If atleast SI would listen to us regarding wishes in the game or do the game more crispy like we do with graphics but its money money. They don't listen at all its they way or the highway.

Sorry for my outburst but it's pissing me off so much