To the uninitiated, Football Manager is a video game that is “just clicking”, “spreadsheets”, and where “you don’t actually play the matches yourself”. For those who know better, it is an incredibly engaging sports simulator, complex role-playing game with unlimited repeat value, a sprawling database full of real-life information and applications, and, quite frankly, a cultural phenomenon.
With millions of players including many within the actual football industry itself, the hugely successful series, developed by Sports Interactive (SI) and published by Sega, releases a new title annually. Each of those titles also has a downloadable mid-season update. The games allow players to take control of their own manager or head coach persona, and lead different teams around the world to glory, while conducting training, transfers, contract negotiations, and press conferences.
SI, founded by brothers Paul and Oliver Collyer in 1994, was originally a bedroom-based enterprise in Shropshire. The Collyers created a similar series, Championship Manager, and published several games with Eidos Interactive, before ending that partnership in 2005.
The split saw Eidos retain the naming rights for the series, but SI kept the games’ databases, source codes and match engines. SI began to make games under the rebranded Football Manager name with Sega, and before long had comfortably eclipsed Eidos, which has not released a new Championship Manager title for over a decade.
Miles Jacobson, SI’s studio director, joined the company in 1997. A former music executive, he was an avid fan of the original Championship Manager games. He was recruited as an early tester for the series and later became an unofficial business advisor. The value of his detailed feedback and creative input was quickly realised and he assumed the role of part-time managing director in 1999, before taking the helm on a full-time basis two years later, while the Collyers moved upstairs so to speak.
