FM Live and FM will "never" converge

By Robert Purchese Published 26 March, 2010

MMO not meant to be FM Online, says SI.

MMO Football Manager Live and boxed series Football Manager are "never" going to converge, according to developer Sports Interactive.

"As it stands today, never," FM Live product manager Marc Duffy told Eurogamer. "There are no plans for us to have the two games working in conjunction like that. A lot of our problems with Football Manager Live was the perception that FML was going to be FM Online. And it's not.

"We were worried a bit about cannibalisation when we first launched Football Manager Live," he added. "It was an obvious concern.

"Over the last 15 months we've come to understand that the two games can co-exist. Generally the types of people that are playing aren't the same."

Duffy went on to say that Football Manager, the boxed series, still represents the studio's bread-winner.

"No, definitely not," he answered, when asked if FML cost more to develop. "FML has a very, very close-knit development team of around about six or seven people. We don't have 20, 30, 40 people working on the game. FM has a lot more.

"The head-count at Sports Interactive at the moment is sitting at around 60 people. That includes development, production, management, QA."

Yesterday, Football Manager Live underwent a huge reboot that lowered the subscription price, changed game mechanics and altered the entire MMO operation.

Head over to our full interview with Sports Interactive's Marc Duffy for a detailed examination on what's changed, why and who it will affect.

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About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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