When it came out in 1992, Champion Football Manager (CM) was met with harsh reviews from the media, but has since become the most popular football game and caused the most amazing split in the history of the game.
The director of the company behind the scenes was a former person in the music industry
Miles Jacobson is currently the director of SI Studios (which develops the famous FM Football Manager game), 30 years ago, he was the manager of the record label and one of the first players of CM, the brothers Paul Collier and Oliver Collier (CM creators) originally wanted him to create background music for the game, but Miles, who is passionate about football, made more valuable suggestions for the game, so the Collier brothers invited him to join their CM team.
30 years later, Myers always joked that the Collier brothers created CM because they were still studying and didn't have a girlfriend. Paul said he and Oliver wanted to create an authentic, dynamic world of football.
Paul and Oliver had the idea of creating CM back in the mid-80s, when they played all the football management games on the market, such as League Division One, Mexico '86 International, and Football Manager, but they didn't like it, and finally decided to create a better game on their own, so they started writing code during their studies.
After a few years to develop the original CM, the two immediately pitched to publishers across the UK, only to be rejected by big companies such as EA for a lack of "real-time action."
Fortunately, a company called Domark saw the opportunity and teamed up with the Collier brothers to release CM on September 1, 1992.
After the advent of CM, despite the disdainful attitude of the media, the game quickly spread among many players who realized the unique fun of CM, and even pirated copies. After Miles joined SI Studio, CM's influence has grown day by day.
Dave Black, who first came into contact with CM in 1995, is a die-hard fan of the legendary game, authoring two books on the subject and still running the CM fan site. "After coming into contact with CM, I was quickly attracted by the lot of details about the players' abilities. For a fan like me, managing a star like Ronaldo in the gaming world is a dream come true. ”
By CM97/98, the Collier brothers had made more improvements to the game. The improvements were immediate, and although CM wasn't yet available on the dominant Atari ST and Amiga platforms at the time, players had started to become more and more frenetic.
"My most memorable signing in the game took place at CM97/98," Dave recalls. "When Alain Shearer was injured for a long time, I signed Ibrahima Bakayoko from Montpellier for Everton. As a result, Bakayoko showed signs of surpassing Shearer, and that was my most memorable memory. ”
Dave also listed some of the players he bought in CM who would go on to become real-world football stars, including Robert Pire, Jose Chiravit and Rio Ferdinand, and many players, like him, are obsessed with early detection of players who might become famous in reality through CM.
The monster reality in the game may not be successful
Paul believes that part of the appeal of the CM97/98 comes from the refinement of the game engine. Next, he and his team completed a third iteration of the engine, followed by the launch of CM 01/02. CM01/02 is not under CM97/98, and several of the monsters: Samba, Frey, West, and Santa Cruz have become superstars in the game.
Samba, who retired early due to injury at the age of 30, has not left much of a bright spot in the real football world, but in CM, the demon who rose to fame in Millwall scored 132 goals in 32 games at the age of 13. Today, Samba is not averse to talking about his glory in the virtual world, saying, "No one can take away me of my achievements in the game, it's a part of me, and I'm willing to talk to people about me in CM." ”
In Myers' view, the main reason for the popularity of CM01/02 is that there are too many overrated so-called "demons" in the game, and Paul agrees, pointing out that this is due to a database error. Later, Paul and Oliver took control of the CM database in an effort to make the game more balanced. As for Dave, he thinks the CM01/02 has lasting appeal, and a few years ago he and a few of his peers replayed the game that would stand the test of time.
In 2003, the release of CM04 was a step backwards, and the game became more buggy than before, but the team behind the scenes quickly modified it with patches. Meanwhile, Paul et al.'s SI Studios parted ways with publisher Eidos (the original publisher was acquired by Eidos in 1995). The end result of this most amazing split in gaming history was that Eidos got the CM name, and SI Studios kept the game engine and huge database. It's clear that the database is the essence of the game, so after this not-so-friendly breakup, SI Studios was followed by the vast majority of CM fans.
Speaking about the breakup with Eidos, Myers said, "It's a lot of risk, but we're confident. Because we have our own forum and customer base, we are incredibly sure of our fan loyalty. Next, SI Studios found a new publisher and began working with Sega to launch FM.
It is worth mentioning that SI Studio is a group of people who trust each other and rarely argue with each other. Paul said: "Oliver loves to innovate, I love to improve existing products, and we have worked with other development members of the team for many years, complementing each other and never having disputes or disagreements. ”
Boas is a huge fan
CM is a virtual game, but for many people, the world in the game is incredibly real.
Bjorn Heidenström has made only four appearances for English third-division side Leyton East. But in the 1996-97 season, he was a great midfielder in CM. Impressed by Bjorn, Dave said: "Bjorn joined the CM online community and he was delighted with the fame he gained in the game, and later players composed a heavy metal rock song for him. ”
In fact, the football manager game has always affected people in many ways. Ben Breten Diaz, for example, was called up to the Chilean national team because CM's data collectors keenly discovered that the Blackburn striker was of Chilean descent and updated that finding in the game database.
Myers is accustomed to this, saying: "I often get calls from national football federations asking me for a list of multi-nationality players who are likely to join their national team, and every year I send out this list of about 3,000 players. In addition, Myers revealed: "Before Boas, he became Chelsea's chief scout with the help of CM, and French star Griezmann was a huge fan of CM. ”
Today, FM, which iterates every year, is getting better and better, more powerful, and is about to join women's football competitions. Dave is still a superplayer of the game, saying: "People look back on the game and rarely talk about the features or gameplay, but rather are impressed by the players who have incredible performances in the game, which is completely different from other games." ”
How many more years will the football manager game last? Faced with such a question, Paul said with a smile: "It's hard to predict, but if we could go back 30 years, we wouldn't have thought that this is still a very popular game today." ”
(Compilation: Sit-ups/Yun Pace)