Players now have jersey numbers, and teams can retire jersey numbers of former players
Basketball GM and Football GM now have jersey numbers for players! This is something people have been requesting for a while. It took me so long to do it because I just don't really notice jersey numbers. If you quizzed me on jersey numbers of popular athletes, I would fail horribly. But this isn't about me, it's about you guys! And I know jersey numbers are important to a lot of you.
You can view jersey numbers in a few different places: on player profile pages, on the Player Bios page, and on the little popup when you click the stats icon next to a player's name. On player profile pages you can also see the full history of jersey numbers for a player, which was inspired by Basketball Reference:
You can edit jersey numbers by enabling God Mode, going to a player's profile page, and clicking Edit Player. Eventually I will add support for editing jersey numbers (and other things that don't actually impact game results) outside of God Mode.
Additionally, teams can retire jersey numbers. You can do this by going to Team > History. You can retire the jersey number of any of your past players, or add a custom entry for a player on another team (like how all MLB team retired Jackie Robinson's jersey) or really any reason you want (maybe retire number 13 because it's bad luck?).
A little more detail about how jersey numbers work...
For real players rosters, jersey numbers are historically accurate. For random rosters, players are given random jersey numbers. Popular jersey numbers from NBA history are more commonly selected. This isn't implemented yet for Football GM, so there will be more players there with "weird" jersey numbers.
But what if a conflict arises, like when a trade or free agent signing results in two players on the same team with the same jersey number? In that case, then the new player is the one who has to pick a new number. I know it might be better to base that on ability or age or stats. Maybe later.
The exception to this is when you manually change a player's number in God Mode. If that conflicts with another player who already has that number, the other player is the one who has to pick a new number.
Jersey retirement is simple, a player with that number just picks a new number. But what if you retire all numbers? You can do that if you want. Then players on your team will not get any jersey number!
Overall, I think these new features are pretty fun. The game feels a little more immersive with jersey numbers, and jersey number retirement helps build historical narratives. I hope you agree!
