No online Manager Mode in FIFA 11

By Tom Bramwell Published 9 June, 2010

But it's a "long-term" ambition.

FIFA 11 lead producer David Rutter has told Eurogamer that EA Sports does not intend to introduce an online Manager Mode this year but it's possible one day.

"If I'm brutally honest, no," Rutter told us while we were previewing FIFA 11. "Long-term ambition, it would be brilliant."

Rutter said that he was cautious about taking the mode, which he said is most popular among FIFA players, online until he was sure it would be at its best.

"I've seen a number of ways of doing it start and fail," he explained.

"Until I'm utterly convinced there's a way of providing the massive user-base of Manager Mode players with a compelling mechanic that will work, I would be very reluctant to go to market with something I'm not 100 per cent convinced with, because I think this is something you can only do once."

EA's great football rivals Konami have already committed to including an online version of the Master League in this year's Pro Evolution Soccer, which we got to play recently.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (6) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DreadedWalrus #1 2 years ago

    "Until I'm utterly convinced there's a way of providing the massive user-base of Manager Mode players with a compelling mechanic that will work, I would be very reluctant to go to market with something I'm not 100 per cent convinced with, because I think this is something you can only do once."

    How about even a basic mechanic that works? I think many players of FIFA 10 would be satisfied with you sorting that out before going to market in future.

  • ScrewYouHippy #2 2 years ago

    All I want is the manager mode that is currently there (except with a few bug fixes) and then the ability to allow guests to be ON THE SAME TEAM AS YOU... A master slave multiplayer manager mode. It's simple, for godsake when is someone going to do it?

    And when you're in the contract negotiations, just let the slave see what the manager is doing.. And that's it. No interaction at all except voice comms... ffs...

  • Turrican #3 2 years ago

    Yes its a long term goal - so stop releasing half assed yearly patches, charging full price for them and never getting anything substantial achieved in the name of $$$

  • secombe #4 2 years ago

    Considering how utterly broken and buggy the basic offline Manager Mode in FIFA 10 is, this can only be a good thing.

  • monkeywithnoeyes #5 2 years ago

    i think everybody knows "long-term ambition" means they're gonna be charging for it later

  • jambo74 #6 2 years ago

    So how come Konami can manage Master League on line?