GI.Biz writes: "In the first part of the GamesIndustry.biz interview with Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson, he talked about the challenges of building an MMO and what the team learned from the beta test.
Here, in part two, he reveals how the company was able to work with other internal teams at Sega to leverage key technology for Football Manager 09, and why social networking and media sites are important for marketing videogames today."
The closing of multiplayer services can happen for a number of reasons. Sometimes there just aren’t enough people using a product to justify keeping it running while in others it could be down to complicated legal wrangling, like expiring licensing agreements, or even a desire to bring out a new installment.
One thing is clear though – many of these discontinued games simply don’t deserve to die, to be cut down in their prime leaving players without a viable alternative and waste all that time the audience invested in them. With that in mind, this article will count down the 12 games least deserving of being shut down, the ones that players the world over wished had kept going.
Eurogamer: "It's a shame when relationships end but it's often for the best. Football Manager and me had it all – long intimate evenings, weekends away, the occasional holiday. I'd thought we never split up. But eventually cracks began to appear, the physical side deteriorated, and we became strangers.
As an early adopter of pretending to manage a football team on a computer (i.e. a semi-autistic weirdo), a chronic addiction to Football Manager seemed my inevitable destiny. My first taste was the original Football Manager on the ZX Spectrum, whose bearded creator, Kevin Toms, appeared beaming on the cassette case cover."
IncGamers' James Chalmers chats to Football Manager Live's game producer Marc Duffy about the MMO's relaunch and whether it was a success, the upcoming 3D match engine patch and what other plans the team have for Football Manager Live. Oh and he also tries to find out whether Football Manager 2011 is in production.
