The PC Centric Extravaganza 07.22.08

Posted by Chris Evans on 07.22.2008

In a PC Centric Extravaganza special I talk to Marc Duffy and Miles Jacobson from SI Games.

The PC Centric Extravaganza 22nd July 2008

Welcome to this special edition of the PC Centric Extravaganza! This week sees my recent interview with Marc Duffy and Miles Jacobson from SI Games. We talked about the Football Manager games, E3 and Piracy!

This is all there is this week as due to my week with PC Zone last week I wasn't able to keep track of all the E3 news. Expect things to be back to normal next week.

SI Games Interview

The latest patch for FM08 was released this past Valentine's, is this going to be the last patch for FM08 or is more work going to take place on it?

MJ – The Valentines Day patch was the final patch for FM2008.

Has work started on the next iteration of Football Manager? If so, what new features are planned for it?

MJ – Yes. Some things were started on a while ago, some just after 08 came out, and some after the patch. The main new features will be announced towards the end of August/early September.

Many people on the SI Community Forums complained that FM08 was only a small step up on FM07, can we expect a big overhaul for the next game in the series?

MJ – We would disagree that 08 was only a small step up on 07! There was loads of new stuff in the game that if people go back and play 07 they'd notice missing, which are really important to the gameplay experience.

You have been releasing the Football Manager games on consoles and handhelds recently, has this been a successful move and why did you make the decision to diversify?

MJ – The PSP game (Football Manager Handheld) has been a massive success, and has got new people involved in the game and brought others back to it, mainly those who felt that the PC game had got too in depth for them. We want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy our games, but also don't want to have to compromise on the PC/Mac game.

The Xbox 360 version was a success from a technology point of view, and has helped improve the PC/Mac game a lot due to the restrictions that are faced working on a console. Getting the control method right, and the screens right for a low-res TV has been very challenging, and we're not sure we're there yet. What's been interesting for us is seeing what Firaxis have done with Civilization on consoles, and how it's possible to make a "cut down" version that still feels and plays great, so if we decide to do another console game, it might be different to previous ones using that as inspiration. But no decisions have been made yet, and we are not working on any console titles at the moment.

The Football Manager games have been running for a long time under one name or another, how much have you enjoyed working on them? Doesn't making the same type of game get boring after a while?

MD : Certainly not. If anything working on these games means I don't get as much time as I would like to spend enjoying them. There is always something extra we want to do with them so every day presents new challenges. I guess the day it does become boring is the day I'll decide to try something else.

MJ – I can't speak for everyone on the team, but I love every minute of it. Working on my favourite game is pretty special, and I would hope most of the team feel the same way. We certainly don't have a lot of people leaving the studio, so we must be getting something right!

It's still a challenge every year, trying to improve things in the game. But then if we ever thought we'd made the perfect game, there'd be no point carrying on, so we'd likely give up – thankfully technology keeps getting better, and we've still got masses of ideas for versions long into the future, plus new people joining each year who also have new ideas. So no, it's certainly never boring.

How is work on Football Manager Live going, how far along in development are you?

MJ - We're pretty close to finishing the first iteration now, as in the code that will be released. The game will likely never be "finished" because, like FM, there are loads of ideas for features, and we are taking a stance of "constant development", meaning that there will be new features and updates every few months for those that subscribe to the game, which will be part of the subscription.

MD : FML has pushed us into areas that we've never worked on before so it's been something of a different development process up till now. "Constant development" will mean a lot of extra work our side to keep new things coming but from a users perspective it's going to be excellent. It's been great seeing ideas pop up in the beta forums and within a few weeks they are in the game – I'm sure for those suggesting things it must be an exciting moment.

What or who was the driving force behind the FM Live project?

MJ - The game was originally Oliver Collyer's idea, and he's the driving force of the game side of things, with lots of input from the other members of the dev team and the core team, as well as ideas coming from other people at SI, Sega and the forums. But it's still very much Ov's baby, and something he came up with when he left SI and was traveling.

MD : Yep, Ov turned up in London after his travels with what he termed was "a blueprint for the next generation of football management games". I'm not sure how serious we took him at first but once you read what he had planned (this was a thick document) you immediately understood and had lots of questions to fire at him.

You currently have a few beta game worlds for FM Live, can we expect to see more appear before final release?

MJ – There are 10 currently, and a couple more due to open very soon. I can't see many more being added before final release, but that all depends on when final release is!

Are there any pricing and subscription models set in stone for FM Live yet?

MJ – They're still being discussed. We (SI and Sega) want to ensure that the game is great value for money, so these will be finalized very late in the process to ensure that we're able to pay all of the costs (servers and bandwidth are not cheap!) and still deliver the game as cheap as possible to the customer.

Do you have any plans for taking FM Live to consoles, or is it a PC only project?

MJ - It's PC and Mac to start off with. The possibilities are endless for other versions, but we're concentrating on delivering a great game for PC & Mac first, and then will discuss other platforms once it's all done.

Any closing comments regarding the Football Manager series and Football Manager live?

MJ - Just thank you to everyone who keeps buying and enjoying our games.

Do you have plans for expanding the SI Games repertoire outside of you current line up?

MJ - We have a R&D team who are always coming up with ideas, and when they come up with one that everyone likes, they stop being an R&D team, much like OV and FML.

Has anyone gone to E3 this year for any big announcements?

MJ – No. It's very much an US based show now, and we don't sell a lot of games in the States, so there's no need to be there. With the exception of one year, I'm the only person at SI who normally goes, and it's much more important for me to be in the studio at the moment with everything that is going on.

Do you still view E3 as a must attend event as a developer, or do you prefer events like the GDC?

MJ - I prefer Develop, in Brighton, because I can get the train home and sleep in my own bed! We aren't well represented at any of the conferences really – making annual releases means we tend to be too busy to lose weeks out of the schedule, and you can always grab all of the lectures from the web if there's an interesting subject.


What are your thoughts on the recently announced PC Gaming Alliance?

MJ – We're the third biggest PC gaming brand in Europe, and no one from the alliance has been in touch with us, so I only know what you know about them. I have deep respect for most of the people involved, so I hope they can do some good things, although we don't really sell games to the typical PC gaming consumer that they are targeting.

I myself find the Football Manager games endearing due to the lack of complex anti-piracy measures, what is your position on piracy and anti-piracy tools?

MJ - They are becoming more and more important, but also less and less effective. The sales we lose each year to piracy are huge, and the time and cost spent not only implementing copy protection systems, but also shutting down pirated versions of our games made available for free or for a charge, is absolutely massive and incredibly depressing, as there are people out there who think stealing is fine. But wouldn't do if it was happening to them.

Unfortunately, every copy protection system penalizes the legitimate user in some way (normally by insisting that the disc is in the drive all the time), so, with the huge help from Sega, we spend quite a bit of time researching newly available technologies that could be less intrusive for legitimate customers, whilst hopefully doing it's job and stopping the game from being copied. It's a "holy grail" though, and something that will take many more years, and we'll take it one step at a time.