Football Manager 2008 Q&A Feature

Already developing an online version of its illustrious franchise, TVG recently attended a presentation by Sports Interactive at their London-based studio, as they confirmed Football Manager 2008. Pencilled in for release on PC (and another format called a 'Mac') this side of Christmas before versions on PSP and Xbox 360 arrive in 2008, SI have revealed that FM2008 - and subsequent editions in the coming few years - will be more of an 'Evolution rather than a Revolution' for the series. Several features are being integrated into the game, aimed at creating a more streamlined user-friendly experience, especially for newcomers to the series.

TVG sat down with Miles Jacobson, Studio Director at Sports Interactive, to discuss this year's iteration of the franchise, its relationship with online cousin FML, and why Football Manager will not be gracing PlayStation3 this year...

TVG: How has the development team approached the production of Football Manager 2008 differently this year, when a second team is already hard at work on Football Manager Live?

Well to be honest, the two things are run pretty separately. Obviously, the teams sit next to each other and they do talk. Certainly, part of the idea for Match Flow where you've got the tactics screen with a mini-pitch is something that we've tried out in FML first. Having different teams, it's not just FML and Football Manager; you've got the console team and the handheld team, has really helped the development of all our games because you've got people working in their own teams coming up with ideas and then you think, "That's cool, we should have that in this game as well." Grabbing bits from the different games and separate teams means that you have a lot more creative people working.

When you've got one huge team working on a project you have, in my opinion, stifles creativity, and that's why so many of the bigger teams have so many designers where they're telling the coders "You must do this!". We've never worked that way, we're democratic with the way things are done. We don't have any designers in the company, we all have our jobs to do, but nobody has the title 'Design Overlord' or whatever. Having the different teams more creatively free and not stifled by being in a big team where people are normally more scared to speak up, is working out really well for all of our games because we're able to get features that are being worked on in one title into all our games.

TVG: So it's actually a more organic process...

Well we've always been an organic studio, the way that our growth has been from seven people ten years ago. We're just below fifty now, including our full-time QA [Quality Assurance] people, which for a development team today is small if you're working on one game let alone four: Football Manager, Football Manager Console, Football Manager Handheld, Football Manager Live, then there's our quiz games as well, which aren't made here but are created in conjunction with us. There are four full-time teams here, all working separately; the creative flow is superb, and having everyone in an open-plan environment means that everyone else knows what everybody else is doing very quickly.

TVG: You mentioned there that the real-time tactics in Football Manager 2008 first appeared in Football Manager Live. Is the idea of using FML as a test bed for features something that'll continue in the future, or only whilst it's in Beta?

Well it was never our strategy to do that, it was just one of those things that we saw in FML during the Beta that's worked really well, and we thought that it might as well be in FM08 because it'll work well there too...and vice versa. The teams are able to borrow form everybody else within the studio.

I think that the biggest influence to FM08 this year wasn't any of the other games that we have in development, it was a bunch of usability studies that we did at the end of last year. We've never really done focus groups and things like that before, and rather than use focus groups, it was all one-on-one sessions, us getting videos of people playing the game, and watching people's eye movements when they were playing. That certainly helped with the design of the skin this year, and the Adviser system that's been added so people should never get stuck on a screen - the menu's been changed. It's actually quite strange because I sat down and looked at the big dropdown menu in the game with all the options as it's been written down rather than in-game, and thought: "Well actually, this doesn't make much sense." Things were in the wrong order, so we just jiggled some things around and bunched some things together to make the game a lot easier to navigate around now.

TVG: That actually leads onto a number of points. Football Manager 2008's announcement highlights about a dozen key adjustments in the game...

It's more like a dozen headlines with lots of little features bunched together under those headlines...

TVG: ...But how many of those originally came about because of the user feedback?

Six of them came from fan feedback and the results of the usability studies.

TVG: So the feedback helped to mould a significant proportion of the changes in FM2008?

It does every single year, and a lot of elements that go into other features also come from the feedback. The actual direct ones, like the International Manager overhaul definitely, the game being easier to use definitely, the idea that was born into the Transfer Centre came from forums, the Awards and Financial rewrites were there. A lot of it came from there, but we make the game - and as this is on tape, I'm now laying down like I'm on a psychiatrist's lounger...

TVG: OK, so tell us about your mother...

Nah, I can't possibly tell you about my mother...she'll kill me. My mum's great, she's wicked. Scary, but fantastic.

If we weren't listening to fans of the game, then there'd be something seriously wrong with us because we're all fans of the game. We make the game for us, and the fact that there are millions of people who enjoy the game every year is a right bonus, because it means we can keep on making the game for us! But by 'us', I mean fans of the game. We're fans of the game here, the people on the forums are fans of the game, and their views are just as valid as anyone from SEGA. Even here in the studio, everyone's ideas are just as valid; there's no hierarchy to ideas. It doesn't matter where it comes from, if it's a good idea, it's in the game.

TVG: And it's another instance of the organic development of the game. Was there any one idea from user feedback that you guys just hadn't thought of at all?

Well I think I mentioned one earlier - the menus being higglty-pigglty. It was something that we just got used to, and we saw a bunch struggling on the screen saying, "I can't find this...", and we were going "Just press that button, it's just down there." Then you look at it and think that it shouldn't be there, it should be at the top.

There are always a few Eureka moments each year when you read through the forums, and you go "Doh!", so things do happen in that way. It's normally a seed that you find on the forums that grows internally when it goes through a few people involved with that module. So everything tends to start quite small - redesigning the menus myself and another SI guy called Nick went through that on the train going to an AFC Wimbledon game. We just took a screenshot of the menu and the menu flow and tried to shrink it down whilst still having the options there. It's just how we do things here.

TVG: Is that part of the idea that this year's instalment is more 'Evolutionary not Revolutionary'?

I think we're going to be sticking with that line for quite some time. There are certainly revolutionary features in there for the genre. The Confidence [system] side of things is superb. Being given fan feedback after every single match that you play and every signing to you make o how they're feeling...I've actually changed my tactics a few times because the fans have been saying we're boring. So I've gone and made it a little more attacking in the next game, and they're like "That's more exciting!" Some fans would rather lose 1-0 by playing attacking football than draw nil-nil. So you've got to adjust to that as well.

Things like that are revolutionary, and we expect they'll be ripped off in our competitor's games within two years, as most of our features do. But as long as we can keep a couple of years ahead, then we're laughing.

TVG: You mentioned the Confidence system. Besides letting you know as a manager their feelings on players and the team's performance, do the supporters also affect the morale of players?

Yeah, they do, very much so. If the supporters are p***ed off, they won't be cheering players, and the players' morale is going to drop. You can quite easily lose the confidence of the players if you don't have the support of the board or the supporters, and I think that's the same in any real life football situation. It takes somebody strong, and a very strong team mentality, to ignore everything that's going on around you...I don't think there are many managers that can do that.

TVG: And does the idea of respect fit better into the game because of the inclusion of the Confidence system?

Yes, very much so. It's something that's been there for a very long time, it's just been difficult to display it in any way. If I've been manager of Watford for ten years and taken us from mid-table to winning the Premiership, or just getting into the Champions' League, it's a lot harder to get sacked even if you have a disastrous season. You're more likely to get sacked if you're not in the top few places at the end of the season than if you get relegated and you've done really well for the club.

We felt that having those kinds of elements in there makes it difficult to not to say that it's an RPG, because your character has to grow.

TVG: Football Manager 2008 will also include a revamped International Management system; can you elaborate on what gamers can expect?

I'm going to get out my special piece of paper now. I'm cheating for the purpose of this interview because I want to make sure I know what we're announcing so I don't give away too much, because there's going to be some nice new stuff for people to find out themselves:

The International Management gameplay has been completely revamped for Football Manager 2008, including but not limited to - and that's the important bit - media improvements, international retirements, player interaction, international scouting, improved Pool Selection, Captain selection, and a separation of international and club morale for players.

That last one is very important because someone's national side could be having a pretty bad time, but you could be doing brilliantly at the club...

TVG: I'm Welsh and a Man Utd supporter...

Ok, well you know EXACTLY where we're coming from here; you wouldn't want Ryan Giggs to be p***ed off playing for Man Utd, so we've separated those things out. My favourite thing in the International Management is a tiny little feature, but it's so cool, and that's how your assistant will recommend to you matches to go and watch, and point out players you should go and see. When you're there, the commentary will actually mention that the international manager of whichever team is in the crowd, rumoured to be watching those players, and will sometimes tip you off about some other players that your assistant manager might not have mentioned to you.

Having international scouting is also great, as well as having the ability to persuade players that they should take your nationality rather than be picked elsewhere. It's something that happens in real life football, particularly with the Irish teams - at the moment they're getting players whose grandparents are from Northern or the Republic of Ireland.

TVG: Sure, the Welsh Captain used to be Vinnie Jones, and he's from the London area...

Well he's from near Watford, which is where I'm from, not London. He's about as North London as you can get, which is near enough...but his surname is Jones...

TVG: ...which was good enough for us! One last quick question - you confirmed that a PSP version of Football Manager 2008 is also in the works, and we can assume that an Xbox 360 version is also happening. Will this year mark the series' debut on PlayStation3, and if so will there be any connectivity with the PSP?

Football Manager 2008 will not be appearing on PlayStation3. I'm not saying that we're never going to make a game on PS3, because we have the machines and we're looking at it, and we like it - we'd love to do it in the long term.

But this year it's on Xbox 360, and we're spending a bit more time on the version to make sure that the control method is really, really good. The first year was ok, the second year was good, this year want it to be really, really good. Who knows what the future holds but at the moment, we're not working directly on PS3.

TVG: And was there a main reason for that decision?

Yeah, there was. We advertised for a bunch of console coders earlier in the year and so far haven't managed to find any that match what we need here. So even if we wanted to do it, we don't have the manpower to do it, and I wasn't prepared to let one of the other games suffer in order to do that. It's purely and simply that we couldn't get people in quick enough - we're still looking for coders for our PSP and console projects, so if anybody's interested, they know where we are...

TVG would like to thank Miles Jacobson for taking the time to answer our questions. Football Manager 2008 is scheduled for release on PC and Mac before Christmas, with PSP and Xbox 360 versions coming in 2008. And if there are any football-mad coders out there, you know where to apply...