CAPTAINS
OF INDUSTRY
Daniel Dawkins
Editor-in-chief, Future Publishing
DANIEL DAWKINS, Editor-in-chief of three Future Publishing gaming magazines, knows better than anyone the effect that Football Manager has had on the gaming industry.
I didn’t discover Football Manager until 2006. A colleague was obsessed with it, and kept badgering me to give it a go. In the end, he left a copy on my desk with a note saying ‘Try it for an hour’. I did and – despite initial bewilderment – soon saw my crude strategies affecting results. Within a week, I was playing four hours a day. Within a month, I’d ‘borrowed’ a work laptop to play it everywhere I went. At the height of my addiction, I’d covered my work computer in Post-it notes, scrawled with tactical permutations and lists of South American midfielders.
I’d even pretend to go to bed, then sneak away from my girlfriend on all fours using a noiseless weight distribution technique I’d dubbed ‘the spider’. She told me I needed to see a doctor.
It was one of the first mainstream titles to harness the powerful and addictive mechanics of Role Playing Games (RPGs) – ie a persistent universe of statistical variables requiring constant attention. In 2012, every big game is an RPG – and not just literally, like fantasy adventure Skyrim. Call of Duty’s success is due to its complex XP and online ranking system, while FIFA makes £80m a year through its stat-chasing, card-collecting, Ultimate Team mode.
FM’s addiction lies in its interlinked density of feedback-response loops, almost like a stack of cards. Simple decisions are layered upon each other, until you’re terrified of making minute changes – or baffled why dramatic decisions aren’t having the impact you’d hoped. Trying to ‘see through the matrix’ is a core part of FM’s appeal, trying to deduce the variables that really matter and how they interlink. At core, FM is a giant interrelated database that just happens to be about football.
The ‘just one more go’ feeling stems from an innate human desire to impose order onto chaos, whether through banal daily routines, or complex formulas. There’s always the feeling you can ‘fix’ bad decisions, or improve even when things are going well – exacerbated by the game’s tight feedback loops.
Aside from the broad objective of winning games, you can set yourself achievable micro-tasks, like building a new backroom team, or scouting a top RB for less than £25k. In short, it’s never, ever, boring.
It’s known when to evolve, even when little was wrong, like Manchester United’s tactical evolution under Carlos Queiroz. FM’s scouting network and vast player database is still peerless, while its online communities are vibrant and well served. Every yearly update directly addresses fans’ feedback, and bug fixes are regularly applied. Equally, FM has never been afraid to make contentious changes, like the initially disliked in-game match engine – now you can’t imagine FM without it. Miles Jacobson is an active evangelist for his brand, and happy to speak to anyone. FM Live was a mixed success, but a bold attempt to harness the power of social networks. Even now, people in work play FM by ‘taking turns’ on one computer. Rivals can’t compete with FM’s scale, quality, authenticity and the ‘peer pressure’ impact of its networked community.
It’s even casting an influence outside its genre. Console football games dabble with management modes, and during the mid-2000s, Pro Evolution Soccer’s engrossing Master League mode played a key role in its critical superiority over FIFA. Much like FM, Pro Evo’s Master League offered a huge, authentic, player database, with player stats that evolved subject to performance. FIFA fought back with an increasingly authentic Manager Mode – in fact, one of FIFA 13’s most requested features is richer atmosphere, plus transfer market and tactical depth to rival FM.
THE EMPATHY
MACHINE
Iain Macintosh
Co–Author, Football Manager Stole My Life
IAIN MACINTOSH is co-author of this book and one of Twitter’s ‘Football 50’, the social network’s most influential voices on the game, according to TEAMtalk . He believes that his addiction to FM has actually helped his development as a writer. That’s what he tells himself anyway.
The Football Manager games have been a constant companion to me for the past 20 years, much as heroin was a constant companion to the cast of Trainspotting. I asked my wife to sum the game up in one line and she just scowled in silent distaste, which I think paints a picture more profound than any words could hope to emulate. And she only met me in 2005. She wasn’t around for the darker days. The days when I convinced my parents I was revising for my GCSEs when I was actually guiding a Nii Lamptey-infused West Ham side to the Premier League title. The days at university, when I put so much work in to my Southend United team that I overslept and missed February. The days when I would walk out of my mind-meltingly dull data entry job on a Friday evening, buy a selection of frozen pizzas and tea-bags, and then play through to Sunday night, restoring Aberdeen to the pinnacle of Scottish football.
The present-day reality, an occasional hour-long session while she’s watching X-Factor, is like Oliver Reed supping a lemonade shandy to a disapproving glare.
I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be here had it not been for these games. I don’t mean that in a mortal way – my laptop didn’t stop a bullet or anything – I mean here, writing for a living. Like Rory Smith, this game gave me the wealth of knowledge I needed to understand an increasingly global game, but I think its greatest gift to me was empathy. I don’t know if I really have a writing style, beyond frantically slapping the keyboard like a chimpanzee and hoping that something half-decent appears, but I have noticed that I tend to be more sympathetic than other journalists. It could be just that I’m too soft-hearted to ever prosper in this industry, but I think the truth is that I’m yet to come across a situation in life that I haven’t experienced in the alternative reality of my musky bedroom.
I’ve taken the mantle of a legend, I’ve worked my way from the bottom to the top, I’ve tried in vain to haul a club out of a nose-dive and I’ve come to realise that real football managers aren’t actually know-nothing morons stealing a living. They’re experienced football men doing their very best to succeed against the odds. They are my brothers.
Not everyone agrees. Some people think, quite correctly, that the rise of these games has spawned a bastard generation of impatient, unrealistic fools who believe that if they can convince a pile of numbers and variables to over-perform, then it can’t be that hard to do it with real people. But you know what? I don’t think I’m alone.
I like to think that 20 years of this glorious game, 20 years of bedroom-based toil, has created a legion of like-minded individuals. And I firmly believe that when a hapless manager is twitching in his technical area, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, at least one person in the stand behind him is thinking, “Chin up, gaffer. I’ve been here. And I came through it.”
CHARITY
SHIELD
Gaming4Charity
By Rik Mollloy
My friends Alex, Jake, Tom and I were playing a network game and talking over Skype. We realised we had 2000 subscribers from the Football Manager community. I suggested that audience should be put to good use.
We decided to raise money for Cancer Research UK, as we’ve all been affected by cancer in one way or another. We eventually agreed on a 24-hour network game that we would stream live – with a donation page for people to chip in as we went along.
Five days beforehand we received a single donation of £1000, which blew us away and made us rethink our original target of £500. Jake took it to the next level when he managed to get hold of the Reading striker, Adam Le Fondre, who, to our amazement, agreed to join in. The donation page was retweeted by Miles Jacobson at Sports Interactive, which gave us great exposure.
When the big day arrived we were stocked up with coffee, food and a load of Red Bull, while we were inundated with questions for Adam. We had moderators in a chat room posting
the donation link every five minutes, while we encouraged the viewers to tweet celebrities to generate some publicity.
Even between the hours of 3–5am we still had hundreds of people watching and talking to us.
Donations poured in from the likes of Bryan Swanson at Sky Sports News and the BBC’s Manish Bhasin – as well as Adam and Miles.
In total we received 115 separate donations which raised £2,288.99, so now we’re looking to turn it into an annual event for different charities.
Playing for 24 hours isn’t easy but we’re all crazy on the game, so you can hardly call it a chore. It also shows the power of the Football Manager community, especially when it’s complemented by social media. In this case it will hopefully help change lives.
http://www.justgiving.com/gaming4charity
EXTREME FM
And you thought wearing a suit
for a cup final was a big deal
SUIT UP
The starting point. If you don’t dress up for the big occasions, you can’t think about this stuff. It’s going to blow your mind. You get through that semi-final, you know you’re going to have to get measured. If you don’t wear a suit for a cup final, it’s like you’re just playing a computer game.
XFM tip: Old suit looking a bit tired? Why not complete the look with a fresh carnation in the button hole? Won the final? Why not top it off with a scarf and novelty hat, thrown on to the pitch by an adoring supporter during your lap of honour.
TOP TUNES
Music. Makes the people. Come together. So sang Madonna and as manager, you want to pack out stadiums just like her, using tactical genius where the ageing pop queen favours fishnet and calisthenics.
Champions League You’ll need to download Handel’s Zadok the Priest. A search for ‘Champions League theme music’ will do the job, but know this music existed before Uefa put it on their mixtape
FA Cup final Tradition dictates you need the hymn Abide With Me. It’s okay to cry, but try not to let your players see you. It’s confusing for them.
International job? You’re going to have to keep on top of national anthems. And remember, Kazakhstan deserves the proper respect. We don’t do Borat.
Supporters’ anthems. For example, Liverpool and Celtic managers should fire up You’ll Never Walk Alone five minutes from full-time. After a home win at the Camp Nou, the Barca hymn should ring out. Find out if your club has an anthem. Make it authentic. Playing Into the Valley by The Skids before every home game may be reason enough to start a new save as manager of Dunfermline Athletic.
GIVE YOURSELF A SHAKE
It only takes a second, but the pre-match manager’s handshake is a key scene-setter to the contest ahead. Some of you use the doorknob of the room you play in as the opposing manager’s ‘hand’. We’re not judging.
XFM tip: Remember to factor in your relationship with the manager on a game-by-game basis. Mutual admiration? A good firm grip, plenty of eye (door) contact. Adversarial comments in the press? A cursory tickle while looking out of the window. Out-and-out vendetta? Offer the hand then withdraw, pretending that you were just fixing your hair.
MEET THE FAMILY
At least one of you takes the handshakes to the next level on FA Cup final day, moving down the team line, introducing the attending member of the royal family to your players.
XFM tip: Remember, no kissing.
CLIMATE CHANGE
Away in Europe? A quick check on the seasonal forecast in the country you are visiting should provide you with all you need to up the realism stakes yet further.
A trip to Ukraine on a bitter November night should be undertaken with the window open and your hands in the pockets of your navy blue, knee-length quilted manager’s jacket. Away to one of the fanatically supported Turkish giants? Complete your ‘Welcome to Hell’ by setting fire to some newspaper for that hard-to-acquire flare/smoke bomb combo effect (thank you, Fudge from the Pie and Bovril forum)
MEET THE PRESS
Your dealings with the press are an essential part of your career and many of you get in as much practice as possible. Lining up teddy bears and/or action figures post-match may not sound like your thing, but don’t knock it until you try it. Just as popular is the in-shower press con, prompting co-habitants to wonder if that’s the latest Plan B you’re riffing on under the power jet. Not unless his new song’s called It Was Never Offside and I Hope They Realise It’s Cost Us The Game.
DOING A BUNK
Simple yet brilliantly effective, although exclusive to players in a room with bunk beds. Increase the pain of that touchline ban by sitting on the top bunk during the match.
BUS PASS
Thanks to Tony Jameson, the Newcastle-based comedian preparing a Football Manager show for the 2013 Edinburgh Festival for this one. Winning a trophy for a provincial club can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for supporters and brings an entire community together. Why deny them the gala atmosphere that surrounds an open-top bus tour? Most large settlements offer open-top tours, especially in the summer, and a small trophy can be purchased at little cost. Raise it aloft to passers-by and watch their chests swell with civic pride.
XFM tip: Try to imagine that the tour guide’s commentary is in fact a club official introducing your players to the crowds that have slowed your bus’s progress through town to a crawl.
THE PRICE IS RIGHT
This is from the Football Ramble forum, posted by Juan Flo Evra The Cocu’s Nesta. Drink that in. And move on.
“My friend told me about a network game with his housemate. It all started when he found a specific player through his scouts. He was arranging a deal, when the other housemate spotted it. He liked the look of that player too and duly bid. The other housemate offered him £20 in real life to stop him from bidding. Since then they’ve been offering each other incentives and bribes for favourable results, fielding weakened teams, arranging transfer deals etc.”
SCOUT’S HONOUR
Football Ramble again. TV Party gives us the only instance we found of real-life scouting for FM players.
“I was playing as Barnet in season 2000/01 and negotiating the signing of Dale Watkins from Cheltenham. Barnet were broke and Cheltenham wanted a bit more than I was willing to pay.
“I decided I needed to sleep on it and the next day went to visit a mate who happened to go to university in Cheltenham. Watching Football Focus, I realised Cheltenham were due to play Bristol Rovers at home. Seeing this as a good opportunity for a scouting trip, I convinced my mate to go to the game and sit through a horrendous bore draw in the worst weather imaginable. Dale Watkins didn’t even play. I cancelled the transfer as soon as I got home and never looked back.”
THE RETIRING TYPE
The psychological realism possible within FM is almost without bottom. However, our favourite example comes from Andrew Coyle, who started a game as St Mirren in CM 01/02 but was soon poached by Rangers. There, he signed a young striker from Asteras called Alexandros Papadopolous.
The Greek goal machine powered Rangers to four Champions League titles and made Greece European Champions in 2004. As he grew older, he became captain, then player-coach and finally player-assistant manager of Rangers.
“Two conflicting thoughts were in my mind,” writes Andrew. “On one hand, winning everything easily was becoming boring. On the other, Papadopolous was well past 900 goals for the club. I decided I would stick with the game until the landmark 1000th Papadopolous goal and then step aside. As a club legend who had also been my coach and assistant, I wanted to see Papapolous appointed as my successor, so I decided to resign, not retire, and watch what developed.
“The historic day came and Papadopolous scored goal number 1000 in the first half. I subbed him as soon as it was scored, just to mark the occasion.
“After the game, I resigned from the club, but only after an emotional and imaginary media conference. I then sat back, waiting to see my protege enjoy his golden moment. Rangers stalled on making the appointment,
but I wasn’t worried. Who else would they choose?
“Unbelievably, instead of a record-breaking, 1000-goal scoring, multiple European Cup winning player, coach and assistant manager, Rangers appointed former Celtic manager Davie Hay, who hadn’t had a job for seven years. I shouted, swore, switched off my PC and didn’t touch ChampMan for a year and a half.”
THE
HEIDENHEIM
CHRONICLES
by Iain Macintosh
In 2010, light on work and with time to kill, I rattled out my first ever piece of Football Manager fiction. Messy, experimental and deeply narcissistic, I really didn’t think that anyone in their right mind would ever be interested and I was absolutely right. What I failed to realise was that there are plenty of people out there in their wrong mind. I expected about 50 hits. I ended up with tens of thousands. The cult success of the story, which ended after 10 episodes, led to work with Official Playstation Magazine, Sports Illustrated and, ultimately, to the longer ‘The Ballad of Bobby Manager’, published by The Blizzard. That one afternoon of pissing about on Football Manager turned out to be one of the most pivotal moments of my brief and largely inconsequential career as a freelance writer. It’s a funny old game.
I have to admit, I thought it was a wind-up at first. I mean, who wouldn’t?
“Herr Macintosh,” wheezed the voice. “Long have we admired your work.”
“I beg your pardon?” I asked, pulling the phone away from my ear to check the number again. 0049. Where was that?
“Long have we admired your work,” repeated the voice patiently. “Your columns, your match reports, even that feature where you described Harry Redknapp as a top class manager. How we laughed at that one! You may not realise it, but your Football Fables is now on the required reading list for all Bavarian students and there is much talk of a mini-series based upon your opus Everything You Ever Need To Know About Golf. They’re thinking of casting Andreas Brehme as the narrator, you know.”
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