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prove to be popular.
“Having a visual display of the
manager is certainly something that’s
been requested by a lot of people,
and it’s been in our plans ever since
we added 3D,” Jacobson explains.
“But there were much more
important things to get sorted first; players
will find the feature hugely customisable.”
Another new mode is Fantast Draft, an
online only mode that allows up to 31 friends
to fight it out for a cup competition, or five
mates for a league comp. You get a budget,
blank teams, and conduct a ‘round robin’ to
choose the players you want, and then it’s on.
Finally we ask Jacobson if there are any
plans to return the franchise to console?
“We have no current plans to do so as
one of the issues we had before is that FM
is a great value for money game and people
spend a lot of time playing it,” he replies.
“Taking over the living room for
those kind of long periods
doesn’t tend to go down
that well – especially when
the missus wants to watch
Masterchef!”
visit FEATURE GAMES
070 NOVEMBER 2015
F ootball Manager is the
greatest time chewer on the
planet. You sit down with
the sole intention of playing a Cup
leg or perhaps just a couple of league
games, and before you know it, even
the dog has gone to bed. According
to studio manager Miles Jacobson,
there are millions around the globe
who, like us, are thoroughly addicted
to the game.
“We know how we sell a couple
of million a year across our home
computer and mobile games,” he
says, “and we also know that FM13
was played by more than 10m
people – it’s great to be entertaining
so many people each year. And even
better when they buy it, so that we
can carry on making it in the future!"
However, it’s not just the humble gamer
who enjoys the challenges of being the boss
of a football club. There are plenty of actual
practicing coaches who use the game – and
its data – to their advantage.
“The game is actually used by the LMA
(League Managers Association) in their
training courses and in a few sports degree
courses in the UK, so there are lots of
managers who use it,” reveals Jacobson.
“André Villas-Boas was the first to come
clean about using the data in the game to
aid scouting, but again, there are loads of
clubs who do that now we license our data
to football clubs around the world via our deal
with ProZone; it’s very much part of football,
rather than just a computer game.”
There are a whole host of new features
being introduced this year, including over
2,000 new and improved animations and
some significant tuning to the match engine
to give the AI a welcome boost. Players
can now fully customise exactly how their
managers look; a feature that will undoubtedly
ProZone Recruiter
Sports Interactive now supply its stats and player information to ProZone Recruiter, an online
database that provides detailed player analysis, video footage and stats to football clubs around
the world. The online global scout network retains the information of 80,000 players, taking the
hard work, travel and expense out of traditional scouting methods. The web-based service offers
biographical, positional and contractual information on all the players.
So, what’s your management style? Are you a vociferous competitor? A master tactician?
One of the boys, or perhaps an old skooler? Well, you’ll get your chance to test your
management skills this month with Football Manager 2016 heading to JB.