- Football Manager: the diary of a descent into madness - 1 April 2014
Written by Iain Macintosh While putting together the book, Football Manager Stole My Life, my co-authors and I trawled hundreds of personal accounts of virtual chalkboard addiction. We spoke to games journalists, psychologists and actual, real life footballers who had been afflicted. We even went back and played innumerable seasons of classic Championship/Football Manager too. Just for research. Oh Christ, here come the sweats. We never set out to help cure anyone. All we wanted to do was to let people know that they were not alone. That there were others like them out there, wandering this world in body while their minds were elsewhere entirely. Probably scouting the Eredivisie for 19 year-old wingbacks. All roads lead back to Holland. What follows is an amalgamation of stories designed to show you what lurks in the shadows of this hidden world, a bit like those one of those videos abo…
- Football Manager 2013 release date announced, pre-orders come with beta access - 28 September 2012
Attention, ballfoot fans! Get out the iron and flatten out those touchline suits. The latest iteration of Football Manager will go live on Steam at one minute past midnight on November 02, and you can get in two weeks early if you pre-order from one of these places. That's according to an announcement post on the Football Manager 2012 site, which explains that the beta version "will be very close to the final game." It'll include "FM, classic mode & challenges," but no network game. Beta saves will be compatible with the full game when it's released. You can hear about this year's updates, and the new classic mode, from the ever-affable Miles Jacobson in our Football Manager 2013 interview. If you'd rather get the goods via your eyes have a look at the Football Manager 2013 announcement video.
- Football Manager 2013: Miles Jacobson interview - 7 September 2012
“I’m pretty happy with the way it is at the moment,” says Sports Interactive boss Miles Jacobson of the latest edition of the world’s most popular footy management sim. After yesterday’s video announcement, we rang Miles for a chinwag about challenges, cheats and camera angles – and why this year’s edition promises to be the most accessible Football Manager in years. This year’s big new addition is the streamlined Classic Mode. What prompted you to introduce it? It’s been in planning for a few years. There aren’t many features that we come up with immediately and put it into next year because we tend to work in three-year cycles - so at the moment even though I’m directing FM13 I’m still involved with designing 14, 15 and 16. But something we’ve seen happening more and more over the last few years, particularly in comments sections on more mainstream games sites and in newspapers for ex…
- Football Manager 2013 announced – video reveals new features - 6 September 2012
By Chris Schilling It’s that time of year when the leaves turn brown, the air gets chilly, and the ass-shaped groove in your favourite chair gets a little deeper. Yes, it’s almost Football Manager time – and, much like a new boss cheerfully clutching a wad of petrodollars from an obscenely wealthy overseas backer, this year’s edition arrives promising wholesale changes. The headlining feature of Football Manager 2013 is a welcome one for those who’ve grown rather overwhelmed by the feature creep in recent years. The new Classic mode – or ‘FMC’ as the press blurb is keen to refer to it as – cuts out many of the minor responsibilities, allowing you to focus on the fundamentals. “We decided to try to find a way to accommodate players with limited free time, without significantly diluting the experience,” says Sports Interactive’s Miles Jacobson. SI suggests that FMC allows players to compl…
- Why I play Football Manager: the story of Shane “the wonder kid” Paul - 26 October 2011
Football Manager 2012 has been released, and like every year, the same questions are being asked: Why does a game that looks like Microsoft Excel sell so well? Why would you want to manage footballers when they could be playing them? Why do so many people play it for hours on end? Well I've played a lot of Football Manager over the years, so I'm going to try and explain why. It's because despite all the stats and number crunching, Football Manager is a game about stories. It's about the little narratives that emerge from every game. Like this one. The story of Shane Paul. This tale comes from way back in Football Manager 2006. I was doing the same thing I do every year; trying to win the Champion's League with my beloved Aston Villa. In my way were Italian giants Inter Milan, who had more money, a better squad and a long tradition of winning things. The first leg of the game had not gon…
- Football Manager 2012 demo out now - 6 October 2011
The Football Manger 2012 demo is available now on Steam, offering the first half-season of 11 quick-start leagues set in England, Australia, Scotland, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. If you manage to put together a decent squad and can't bear to lose them, you'll be able to carry over all of your progress into the full version when it's released on October 21. "The demo includes the biggest leagues in the world and allows you to put your managerial skills to the test on a global stage," reads the Steam blurb, which explains why it weighs in at just over 2.7 GB. That's 2.7 GB of pure, sweet footballing data. Yum.
- Football Manager 2012 Steam DRM enrages fans - 28 September 2011
Football Manager fans have voiced their anger at the integration of Steamworks into Football Manager 2012. The move to Steam means copies of the game will need to be activated online before being able to play. Eurogamer indicates 40 pages of comments reacting to the news on the Sports Interactive forums, with thousands of posts from fans angry with the changes. Some fans are threatening to boycott the series until the online activation requirement is removed. Sega tell Eurogamer that Football Manager has moved to Steam to combat piracy. "Make no mistake, if a quarter of the people that usually pirate the game switch to purchasing Football Manager 2012, the sales of the game worldwide would more than double," they say. "This would lead to increased development budgets and more benefits for all of you who do buy the game." "We've taken this decision because we believe that the steps the c…
- Football Manager 2012 release date announced, scouting detailed - 13 September 2011
Sports Interactive recently announced that the latest entry in the veteran Football Manager series would be out later this year. Eurogamer have the date. It's October 21. The release date announcement was revealed in the first entry in what will become a series of blog posts providing detailed info on FM 2012's new features. Today, Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson discusses improvements to the scouting system, and talks about the unique inside access the studio has to professional scouts in the field. Update: slotted in the latest trailer above. Thanks to The Reticule for the heads up. "We’ve very luck at Sports Interactive to have a large number of fans in amongst football, including many scouts who, with permission from their employers, give us the real scouting reports that they put together for teams when watching them for the manager." writes Jacobson. This real wo…
- 5 essential Football Manager 2011 mods - 12 July 2011
Football Manager 2011 has plenty of custom leagues and new skins, but mods themselves are pretty scarce. Still, we've selected the top five Mods to customise and streamline your Football Manager 2011 experience. Click through for the mods, and details of how to download. 1.Genie Scout Genie Scout is the ultimate spying tool, everything you ever wanted to know about a player, staff member or club is available at your fingertips. Search for anyone present in your save game database and find out every last detail, including those special hidden attributes that you never get to see in the game. The best time to use it is when you scouts recommend a player from Belize but don't reveal many of his stats. Hit up Genie Scout and you will learn everything you want to know about him, from his current ability to his potential ability. If David Cameron had this, maybe he would've seen Andy Coulson'…
- Five essential Football Manager 2011 mods - 12 July 2011
Football Manager 2011 has plenty of custom leagues and new skins, but mods themselves are pretty scarce. Still, we've selected the top five Mods to customise and streamline your Football Manager 2011 experience. Click through for the mods, and details of how to download. 1.Genie Scout Genie Scout is the ultimate spying tool, everything you ever wanted to know about a player, staff member or club is available at your fingertips. Search for anyone present in your save game database and find out every last detail, including those special hidden attributes that you never get to see in the game. The best time to use it is when you scouts recommend a player from Belize but don't reveal many of his stats. Hit up Genie Scout and you will learn everything you want to know about him, from his current ability to his potential ability. If David Cameron had this, maybe he would've seen Andy Coulson'…
- Football Manager comes out on top for 2010 - 21 January 2011
Statistics for new retails sales across 2010 have been released, and it's been a big year for SEGA with Football Manager 2011 and 2010 taking the titles of first and second best-selling PC games., respectively. Read on for the full top 10. The top 10 PC games in 2010 were: 1 - Football Manager 2011 2 - Football Manager 2010 2 - The Sims 3 4 - World of WarCraft: Cataclysm 5 - StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty 6 - The Sims 3: Ambitions 7 - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 8 - Call of Duty: Black Ops 9 - The Sims 3: Design & High-Tech Stuff 10 - The Sims 3: World Adventures The chart, which only includes new retail purchases and not Steam sales, shows that the world continues to love The Sims and are still enthralled by Blizzard's games. PC gamers were also less enthusiastic about Call of Duty this year; Black Ops came in at number one for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms, but failed t…
- Football Manager dev awarded O.B.E. by the Queen - 1 January 2011
Studio Director of Sports Interactive, the studio behind the stellar Football Manager series, has been awarded an OBE by the Queen in the latest round of honours awards. In full, O.B.E. stands for Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and is one of a series of chivalric awards created by George V, the highest of which makes you a knight of the British Empire. Suffice to say, not too many game developers have made the esteemed honours lists. The co-founder of Sports Interactive, Olly Collyer, congratulated Jacobson on the Sports Interactive site, saying, "we think this is very much deserved for all the hard work involved in not only establishing a good sense of business to a raw and young Sports Interactive all those years ago, but also evolving the studio into an equal and more professional partner with its publisher and also a responsible one, via the involvement w…
- Football Manager 2011 review - 5 November 2010
In a pretend press conference, I’m being asked multiple choice questions by a faceless interviewer. It’s my first season in Football Manager 2011 and I intend to take it seriously. To help me see through the clinical stylings of the game’s UI, I imagine I’m being asked these questions by a beige PC wearing a reporter’s hat. “Is this your dream job?” Yes, I suppose it is. If I had to tell a squad of man-children how to punt a ball around an enclosed grassy oblong, well, yes, I’d like to do it at Leicester City, my hometown team. But I’m being cagey – FM 2011 does its best to stamp the importance of media comments in keeping players sweet, and I don’t want to throw my new underlings off with fawning praise. “I won’t be commenting on that.” Press conference concluded, I didn’t get much of a reaction. In my inherited squad, I see even my most valuable players aren’t really fussed – except v…
- 10 essential Football Manager 2010 mods - 28 October 2010
The next instalment of Sports Interactive's monolithic management series is just around the corner, but that doesn't mean Football Manager 2010 is out of the picture. Since release, the Football Manager community have even set about improving the game with new mods, databases and utilities. We've picked out ten of the best. Ever wanted to play in a league containing every single team in the world? Read on for new leagues, coaching tools, photo packs, UI overhauls and much, much more. 1. FM Genie Scout One of the most well known utilities in the Football Manager world, FM Genie Scout is a program that allows you to veiw any number of visible and hidden stats in a game in progress. The most obvious use is to check the potential of youngsters and regenerated players, but it can also be used to see reputation, finances and many other things. Some might call it cheating, but we've left it up…
- Football Manager 2011 demo out Thursday - 18 October 2010
Football Manager 2011 is out soon, dooming many of us to dozens of hours of horribly addictive management action. If you really, really can't wait, then you'll be glad to know there's a demo coming to Steam on Thursday. The demo will come in two flavours. The 'strawberry' version, as Sports Interactive are calling it, will feature 12 playable leagues including England, Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The smaller, 'vanilla' version will contain the English and Scottish leagues. The strawberry demo will hit Steam on Thursday, with both the strawberry and vanilla versions becoming available for direct download from the Sports Interactive and Football Manager sites on Friday. For more information on what's new in the latest edition of the huge management sim, check out our preview and our interview with Sports Interactive's stu…
- Weeklong Sale - Football Manager 2010 at 50% Off - 6 September 2010
Save big on Football Manager 2010 . Purchase before September 13th, 2010 and receive 50% off!
- The World Cup final is here - Save now on Football Manager 10! - 8 July 2010
In celebration of Sunday's World Cup final, Football Manager 10 is on sale now through Monday, July 12 at 10AM PDT. GOOOAAAAAAAL!
- Football Manager 2010 Update Released - 1 March 2010
Updates to Football Manager 2010 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include: Football Manager 2010 * Fixed crash when clicking on the backroom advice button; * Players who say they are willing to leave the club to help with the clubs debts no longer get upset if you transfer list or offer them out. * Fixed scouts completing thier nation assignments too early for small reputation clubs. * Adjusted generation of names for Croatian newgens with second nationalities. * Fixed older newgens in some cases getting youth contracts instead of regular contracts. * Playing for a clubs A and B teams now does not count as having already played for 2 clubs in a season when joining a new team. * Past meetings tables are now sorted by goal difference and goals for after points. * National team facts information panel now o…
- Football Manager blogs return with MirrorFootball.co.uk - 18 September 2009
For the last couple of years in the run up to the release of the new Football Manager, we've done blogs which have shown off both the already announced, and some unannounced, new features. Well, this year we are delighted to be able to announce that we've partnered up with the Daily Mirror and Daily Record and their new football website, www.mirrorfootball.co.uk to be able to provide a unique insight into Football Manager 2010 with blogs most days between now and the release of the demo of Football Manager 2010, which will, as always, be a couple of weeks before the game is released. MirrorFootball will also be the exclusive host of what we call the "vanilla" version of the demo of the game, which will be English language only and feature the UK leagues. We will provide the multi-language version with more leagues from here. The FM2010 blogs are now live at www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opin…
- Football Manager 2010 - Press Release Part 2 - 21 August 2009
Feedback from matches has been improved to give the user better insight into where their team is going wrong, or right. A new Match Analysis tool lets players see where shots, passes, crosses, headers, tackles, fouls and interceptions have been made on the field for all players on the pitch. Managers can view this analysis both live in-game and post match, allowing them to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of both their team and their opponent’s and adjust their tactics accordingly. Football Manager 2010 features a brand new User Interface, with a light and a dark skin to choose from as part of a vibrant new look and has undergone a complete navigational overhaul. The side bar navigation of previous years has been replaced by an intuitive tab system at the top of the screen, making Football Manager’s famed depth easier to navigate and will make the game more accessible to new player…
