Originally named Championship Manager, Sports Interactive’s popular game series has been around since the 1990’s. However, in recent years, by taking full advantage of ongoing advancements in gaming technology to vastly improve and streamline their formula, Football Manager’s popularity has begun to skyrocket.
An End To The Reign Of EA Sports?
Over the decades, for the most part, EA Sports has managed to gain a monopoly in sports games. However, while games like FIFA certainly continue to deliver in terms of visuals, when it comes to gameplay, though still entertaining, over time one instalment can be much the same as the next. Up until recently, this has nevertheless been enough to give FIFA a major lead, as well as longevity, in the sports game industry.
Football Manager, on the other hand, has steadily been catching up, with each new game featuring better graphics, gameplay, and features. However, what makes it particularly unique and increasingly popular over the FIFA-style games, is the sheer level of detail. Not just visually, but in terms of information.
A Preference For Detail
Until management games like Football Manager began growing in popularity, gamers were generally unaware how much detailed information, and its management, can affect the immersion and entertainment value of a sports game.
Over the years, certain in-depth sports documentaries, and series, like Amazon’s All or Nothing, have also fuelled a rising interest in regard to how sports function and operate on a basic level.
FIFA allows you to directly control a team and, depending on your skill and finger dexterity, win a game, or a tournament, or even a season, etc. Over time, FIFA games have added various other customisable aspects to keep fans interested, though generally this is the extent.
Football Manager, on the other hand, allows you to control virtually every aspect of the sport, from finances, sponsorship, branding, and PR, to scouting talent, trading players, assigning coaches, training regimes, and so on, plus much more. The resulting simulation that plays out is highly immersive and realistic, mimicking the sport of football more closely than most other games have so far been able to achieve.
Cross Platform Online Gaming
Over recent years, as the world heads into a fully digital age, online gaming has soared, becoming available across a wide variety of devices, with mobile games and tech a major part of it.
While online casino games are by far the most popular type of game played on mobile and the ability to do everything from wager on roulette to place US Masters bets is possible, more non-gambling games are becoming available too. This includes famous titles like PUBG, Fortnite, and Minecraft, as well as many big sports game titles.
Football Manager’s mobile and Touch versions are particularly well-made, giving mobile players a streamlined and highly entertaining single-player or online multiplayer experience.
Just A Trend?
With the gaming world rapidly changing, Football Manager has undeniably shown what all future sports games can be capable of if they wish to. In the end, such an in-depth strategy is perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea. Otherwise though, sports gamers can’t seem to get enough of it.