Football Manager Live

If you're a Football Manager nut you might already have been glued to your seat in FM Live's virtual dugout for a while now, but Miles Jacobson, Sports Interactive studio director, reckons the game will also appeal to less ardent and more time-pressed series followers too, plus auction fans and social networkers (that's everyone covered then), come the game's retail release later this month.

Here, amongst other things, he explains how the game's different to traditional Football Manager titles (it's an MMO, but won't feature orcs or elves), the various competition formats on offer, and talks about post release update plans and what it'll take for him to deem the series a success.

What are the key factors that make Football Manager Live different from a regular Football Manager game?

Jacobson: Whilst still being a football management game, it's very different from the FM or FMH series - imagine, if you can, a cross between Football Manager, fantasy football, an auction website and some social networking, and you'll be just about there.

It's also played completely online against other human managers, and rather than you taking over as your favourite team as you might do in FM, in FML you create and manage your own football club, choosing your team name, shirts, badge, ground name, and then deciding which players to sign from our extensive database of real players. All clubs start off with a budget, and you pick your players accordingly.

On top of that, you start off with very basic managerial skills, and can choose which path to take with your skills, so you could decide to specialise in one area, such as tactics, or get basic knowledge across all disciplines in the game. The longer you play, the more skills you build up.

What is your intended target audience - regular Football Manager players or a wider audience?

Jacobson: We're going for a wider audience over time. FML is designed to let the user play as much, or as little, as they want, so it's perfect not just for the hardcore player, but also people who might not have the time to dedicate to the full FM experience - in the same way as us at SI have got older over the years, and some have less time to play the game now with kids and other life factors taking over, we know that each year we lose some people who just don't have the time to play our games anymore. With FML, they will hopefully find an experience that suits them.

Does the released product accurately reflect what you had in mind from the outset, or is the game radically different from how you envisioned it?

Jacobson: It's been in development for around five years, and has changed quite a bit since then. The year long beta test has been invaluable for feedback, and many changes have been made since the original announcement about the game, even down to quite major changes, such as having structured league competitions and football associations inside the game rather than just leaving it completely freeform (although all the user generated options are still there, so you can play friendlies or arrange competitions outside the association structure).

Other things, such as skills, were also added during this phase, and we will continue to add new features to the game. Rather than taking the standard MMO model of releasing a game, then releasing expansion packs every couple of years, we've decided to use a "constant" development model, and will be adding new features every few months as part of the subscription price.

As long as it passes through QA without issues, the people who have been subscribed to the game for a while will get their first update at around the time of the game's launch at retail.

Why have you decided to wait until late January to release a title that was ready since last year?

Jacobson: We released the game online quietly in November to limited numbers. The boxed release was left until January to give us time to get a marketing plan together, get retail on board, and also to not get in the way of the launch of Football Manager 2009.

So it's been available for a few months - but we haven't told anyone about it yet, apart from those who had already registered interest. The beauty of what we are doing, with Sega's support, is not worry too much about "day one" sales, but build FML up over time, as from our studies, that is how all the successful MMO's have taken shape.

What will the game offer for traditional MMO players?

Jacobson: Well, it's not a traditional MMO, but certainly doths its cap toward other MMOs in the way the economy works, and the skills path, which is a bit like levelling I guess.

However, there are no plans for us to include orcs or elves into the game, nor weapons.

Could you tell us a bit about the various competition formats available across FM Live's different gameworlds?

Jacobson: There are a variety of Football Associations [in] each gameworld, which are time based. So if you are likely to play mainly in the evening, you'd join an evening FA.

Inside each FA, there are league and cup competitions, not just first team, but also reserve and youth competitions, and there are inter federation competitions too, for the ultimate test.

Then there are as many competitions as the managers inside the gameworld want to set up, with freedom with regards to entry fees and prizes for those competitions, with cups and leagues all possible from an easy to use wizard. They can also be ranked, or un-ranked competitions, with the ranked competitions going towards your gameworld ranking and club reputation. The higher the club reputation, the more supporters you will get in the ground, and the more money you'll be making each day.

How are points and rankings awarded?

Jacobson: Points in competitions are defined by the individual competition's rules. Rankings are gained through your club reputation - winning a big competition, such as a Premier League or an inter federation cup will raise your reputation higher than winning a small one, but signing a big name player will also have an effect.

Live is a new direction for the FM series. What would you consider a success sales and subscriber wise?

Jacobson: Seeing as I'm still not happy with the success of the FM series (and only will be when the game is PC no.1 every week of the year in every country we release in), if every football fan in the world with a PC or Mac is subscribed to FML, that's when I'll personally deem it a success. However, we reach "break even" point much earlier than this.

What are the chances of FM Live appearing on other platforms? You've mentioned potential DS, PSP and Xbox 360 versions before...?

Jacobson: We'd love to make FML available on as many platforms as possible, but that's very much a long term thing for that to happen. At the moment, we are concentrating on the PC and Mac service, first in English, then many more languages. Once that process is done, we'll sit down and talk about other platforms.

Tom Ivan