Football Manager Live Portal | Interviews | Episode 39 – FML Game Reset: An Interview with Sega / Sports Interactive

Episode 39 – FML Game Reset: An Interview with Sega / Sports Interactive

Interviews, Podcasts | Written By Jordan Cooper | December 2, 2009 | Comments

The most pivotal time in the short history of FMLive is upon us as the developers make an announcement that drastically alters the game at its core. The community is up at arms and blame is being passed around – will this spell the demise of Football Manager Live or usher in a newer and brighter future for the game?

We discuss the radical solution to the ever decreasing gameworld population with the company itself. You’ve submitted your questions and represented your sentiments – Now it’s time for them to face the music and address your concerns!

Joining us are Marc Duffy, FML Product Manager at Sports Interactive and James Schall, FML Marketing Director at SEGA.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There was a problem with the recording and approximately 30 minutes of the interview was lost. We’re incredibly sorry about this and will look to rectify this for our listeners. James & Marc have agreed to answer any of the questions asked in this lost segment by e-mail and we will post their responses as soon as possible in a new article on the website as well as this podcast post. Such questions were as follows:

Why should anyone play FML for the next four months?
What’s going to happen to GWs now with people leaving left right and centre?
When can we expect to see 1.4 released in the live GWs?
What do you plan to do if this reset doesn’t work? Is this the last throw of the dice?
Why won’t a GW reset only postpone the inevitable death of FML?
Will you hold firm on this decision to give the game its best chance of survival in the future, or will the pressure of the current subscribers enforce concessions that will undermine that future?

Blogs & Websites Mentioned On This Episode:
Future of FML announcement Part 1 Part 2
Sports Interactive community forums
Official Football Manager Live website
SEGA Developer Diaries blog
Jakswan’s blog
PC Gamer article Football Manager Live to reset in March, players furious
GW1 article The FML Council: Is Sports Interactive Out of Touch?
GW1 podcast FML Marketing with Sega

We would like to thank every single person who submitted a question for this episode including: Cynet, Hater, Martin White, Durera, Rich Barnes, Little Badger, Izo, Zac Ryan, Alex Quenby, Fedal, Saracen, ChrisHorn, Pompey Al, Tony McCall, I Am Spartacus, James Harrison, Fat Bob’s Dad, Jason Smith, Giuseppe Levante, Gregory Simkins, rfonline, Petros Papazotos, Charla, Gazza165, ManchesterTigers, Dural, Harold Dyson, Nick Drury, Sergio Salas, mdbussen, Methos, Brucey B, Reedy3K, KillieChris, Dennis Moberg, Ladies love cool James, Gerasimos Arapidis, Paul Kemp, Marty Smith, Myron Shipp, MooSys, eekers, MGoldman, Cat Vegas, Dimitris Georgiou, gnomon, Ren

If you would like to submit a listener question, have your Football Manager Live blog/site featured or can suggest any topics you’d like to hear discussed on the show – don’t hesitate to e-mail us at podcast@gameworldone.com, or leave a comment below.

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Written By Jordan Cooper GameWorldOne.Com Managing Director
A moderator on GW Fowler and a co-founder of Gameworld One.Com, he has hosted/produced the Get Sacked! podcast for nearly two years providing humor and strategical insight to all about the FM series.

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sgwestrip

One further point to add to my previous post, and that is that the March 2010 date will be too late for my GW (and I suspect many others). In Lineker we had 450 managers before the reset announcement; we have 358 as of today. An alarming rate of decline!!

sgwestrip

I do find Sega/SI communication skills severely lacking. They have shown again and again, with game update announcements and now this, that they do not learn from their previous mistakes. The podcast was an indictment on the lack of cohesion within the organisation and I fear that this does not bode well for the future of FML.

Having said all that I will stick around for the March 2010 reset and see what happens, but I do think that SI need a more coherent vision for FML if it is to have long term success.

sherifflee

God almighty, how many mistakes did they admit to? Sorry there is no excuse for not even telling new customers that this game is going to change, its fraud.. i dont trust these SI/SEGA people, they blag blag and then blag some more.

coolerinTurkeythanSiTowers

The comment from Marc about it being 'listening too much to the hardcore users' which has led them into the situation as it stands now is pretty poor.

Ultimately it is Si's lack of any kind of true vision of the game and not being able to decide who the game should be aimed at and indeed what kind of game it is that has led to its downfall. Saying that it was listening to the users that have led it astray is like admitting that they didn't have any clue at each checkpoint on what to do, using only the ideas of the users because they were running on empty the whole time.

Sega's poor performance in all of this cannot be ignored either. They were so quick to contact lawyers about the possibilities that the reset could endanger their policies in terms of refunds but completely overlook the importance (for the subscribers) of putting in some kind of a plan ready for the day of the announcement to warn people of the impending closure of all the gameworlds. One of those saves them money and the other earns them money, we know clearly which is most important.

Happy Birthday FML gets immediate work on the website, as does Bobby Robson (R.I.P), but any kind of game changes and statistics take months (if at all) to change. How these Sega guys involved in all this are still in a job is beyond me.