Fanatic Evertonian Paul Collyer, one half of the duo who created the world famous Football Manager series has taken time out of his busy schedule to answer a series of questions posed to him by members of GrandOldTeam.com.
1. How did you and Ov come up with the idea for Championship Manager all those years ago?
We simply wanted something more immersive than the existing management games. There were for example no real players outside of your own team in most of them. We grew up in quite a remote spot in Shropshire and there wasn’t much to do so it kind of made sense to spend all those hours locked away working on a management game ;-) Initially I should add we created it for ourselves rather than any grand plan to get it published. That came a little later on……..
2. Did you ever envisage your game to have such an effect on the footballing landscape? I have no doubt managers across the world could easily find out out about players theyve never heard of; have have you had any feedback from real life Managers about being able to research players so thoroughly?
Absolutely not. Personally the first time I realised it was becoming something big was around CM97-98, when it outsold all the publisher’s ( Eidos ) expectations. I am sure many teams have used the database in some way, even if it was only to follow up a player who was highly rated in CM/FM. There have been one or two anecdotes out there along the way for sure…
3. As an Evertonian yourself, in the early days did you deal with any criticism suggesting of bias towards Everton in the game?
Water off a duck’s back in all honesty. We would never have intentionally set out to bias it, but in fairness Big Dunc never got injured as much as he should have done in the early versions ;-)
4. Would you ever consider investing into the club? There were rumours several years ago that you and your brother were planning a bid for Everton? Was this true? http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers_to_bid_for_Everton_F.C.?
Its way way out of our league. Besides, I don’t know if Everton is a good business proposition anyway, at least not with the expectations us fans have against the financial limitations the club have. My personal opinion is that us fans should own it collectively, as there are so many Evertonians out there with good ideas and good qualifications and I am sure if done properly we could make a go of it, in a democratic and organised fashion. The current board and the ones going back as far as Carter’s in the 80’s have just made so many mistakes, it’s a miracle we have survived in the Premier League this long to be honest. I honestly think David Moyes came along at the time when the wrong choice would have buried us. I cant deny BK the credit for that in fairness, even if he did take some convincing at the time! Now I just don’t see how we can increase our income significantly enough without something along the lines of Kings Dock….Kirkby will just make things worse, it’s too much risk and downside for too little gain.
5. One of the biggest features of the game for me is being able to find skins, facepacks and the like to be able to completely edit the game to suit your own style. Was this something you planned or did the fans of the game just make it happen?
When we created the CM4 engine we made a conscious choice to do this. I think it works so well with the community we have built up around Football Manager.
6. Football Manager 2009s scheduled release date according to several media outlets such as Play.com is 31/10/2008, Is it still likely the game will indeed be released by then?
We haven’t set the date yet…..erm…watch this space ;-)
7. Piracy. Has the advent of internet piracy affected your sales? Have you, or even can you take measures to stem the flow of illegal downloading of your program?
It’s a problem, and I am sure it does cost us and Sega a lot of money, but at the same time if a kid downloads our game out of curiosity and then buys it as a result then that is positive. It’s a tricky issue, and it wont go away. Even in the old days we all used to make tapes of our favourite records and share them around. I don’t really have any answers to be honest, just hope people can do the right thing
8. Can you ask Paul about, Elevate, the group he used to play bass for.Tell me what has happened to Tim and Graham? Tell him this is theone-time Elevate (Evertonian - True Blue) drummer, Mark, who now livesin New Zealand. Please pass on my email to him. I would love to hearall his and the other guys news.
I will mail Mark – fantastic to get that btw
9. Could you reveal any exciting new features in FM09 which we may not have heard about?
Sorry, I cant do that here. All should be revealed in the next few weeks anyway!
10. Finally. Pineapple on pizza. What are your views? Is this acceptable in todays society?
I don’t like pineapple full stop, so no its not acceptable.
1. How did you and Ov come up with the idea for Championship Manager all those years ago?
We simply wanted something more immersive than the existing management games. There were for example no real players outside of your own team in most of them. We grew up in quite a remote spot in Shropshire and there wasn’t much to do so it kind of made sense to spend all those hours locked away working on a management game ;-) Initially I should add we created it for ourselves rather than any grand plan to get it published. That came a little later on……..
2. Did you ever envisage your game to have such an effect on the footballing landscape? I have no doubt managers across the world could easily find out out about players theyve never heard of; have have you had any feedback from real life Managers about being able to research players so thoroughly?
Absolutely not. Personally the first time I realised it was becoming something big was around CM97-98, when it outsold all the publisher’s ( Eidos ) expectations. I am sure many teams have used the database in some way, even if it was only to follow up a player who was highly rated in CM/FM. There have been one or two anecdotes out there along the way for sure…
3. As an Evertonian yourself, in the early days did you deal with any criticism suggesting of bias towards Everton in the game?
Water off a duck’s back in all honesty. We would never have intentionally set out to bias it, but in fairness Big Dunc never got injured as much as he should have done in the early versions ;-)
4. Would you ever consider investing into the club? There were rumours several years ago that you and your brother were planning a bid for Everton? Was this true? http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers_to_bid_for_Everton_F.C.?
Its way way out of our league. Besides, I don’t know if Everton is a good business proposition anyway, at least not with the expectations us fans have against the financial limitations the club have. My personal opinion is that us fans should own it collectively, as there are so many Evertonians out there with good ideas and good qualifications and I am sure if done properly we could make a go of it, in a democratic and organised fashion. The current board and the ones going back as far as Carter’s in the 80’s have just made so many mistakes, it’s a miracle we have survived in the Premier League this long to be honest. I honestly think David Moyes came along at the time when the wrong choice would have buried us. I cant deny BK the credit for that in fairness, even if he did take some convincing at the time! Now I just don’t see how we can increase our income significantly enough without something along the lines of Kings Dock….Kirkby will just make things worse, it’s too much risk and downside for too little gain.
5. One of the biggest features of the game for me is being able to find skins, facepacks and the like to be able to completely edit the game to suit your own style. Was this something you planned or did the fans of the game just make it happen?
When we created the CM4 engine we made a conscious choice to do this. I think it works so well with the community we have built up around Football Manager.
6. Football Manager 2009s scheduled release date according to several media outlets such as Play.com is 31/10/2008, Is it still likely the game will indeed be released by then?
We haven’t set the date yet…..erm…watch this space ;-)
7. Piracy. Has the advent of internet piracy affected your sales? Have you, or even can you take measures to stem the flow of illegal downloading of your program?
It’s a problem, and I am sure it does cost us and Sega a lot of money, but at the same time if a kid downloads our game out of curiosity and then buys it as a result then that is positive. It’s a tricky issue, and it wont go away. Even in the old days we all used to make tapes of our favourite records and share them around. I don’t really have any answers to be honest, just hope people can do the right thing
8. Can you ask Paul about, Elevate, the group he used to play bass for.Tell me what has happened to Tim and Graham? Tell him this is theone-time Elevate (Evertonian - True Blue) drummer, Mark, who now livesin New Zealand. Please pass on my email to him. I would love to hearall his and the other guys news.
I will mail Mark – fantastic to get that btw
9. Could you reveal any exciting new features in FM09 which we may not have heard about?
Sorry, I cant do that here. All should be revealed in the next few weeks anyway!
10. Finally. Pineapple on pizza. What are your views? Is this acceptable in todays society?
I don’t like pineapple full stop, so no its not acceptable.
