CVG sat down with Miles Jacobson of Sports Interactive, who has always been renowned for quality football management games - from the heyday of Championship Manager all the way through to the imminent release of Football Manager Live.
So how is everything with FML at the moment? What's the buzz on it from players?
Miles Jacobson: It's all going pretty well. Beta Gameworld 4 has just opened, so it's quite hectic getting them up and running, and new features are going in thick and fast, whilst bug fixing too.
The buzz is really good - as long as people aren't going into it thinking it's online FM, they seem to really enjoy it, and word is certainly spreading amongst friends of those playing, judging by our bulging inboxes for people who want to be testing.
Do you think there'd ever be a market for an SI online football game where you had to train your teams for weekly matches, as opposed to the instant ones FML caters for?
Jacobson: Yes - it's called Football Manager 2008, and is available from all good, and some bad, retailers now. You can play that online, and play proper seasons. If you mean spending the realtime week training players, for one match on a Saturday, then no, as I don't think there would be enough for people to do.
The closing of multiplayer services can happen for a number of reasons. Sometimes there just aren’t enough people using a product to justify keeping it running while in others it could be down to complicated legal wrangling, like expiring licensing agreements, or even a desire to bring out a new installment.
One thing is clear though – many of these discontinued games simply don’t deserve to die, to be cut down in their prime leaving players without a viable alternative and waste all that time the audience invested in them. With that in mind, this article will count down the 12 games least deserving of being shut down, the ones that players the world over wished had kept going.
IncGamers' James Chalmers chats to Football Manager Live's game producer Marc Duffy about the MMO's relaunch and whether it was a success, the upcoming 3D match engine patch and what other plans the team have for Football Manager Live. Oh and he also tries to find out whether Football Manager 2011 is in production.
Sports Interactive has confirmed to IncGamers it will be opening more game worlds for Football Manager Live.
