Oliver has left the building
Championship Manager designer quits
In a surprise announcement, Oliver Collyer has revealed that he is leaving Sports Interactive to travel the world after spending more than a decade working on the Championship Manager series with his brother Paul. The first game in the multi-million selling series was released in 1992 when Oliver was just 20 years old, and since then there has been a steady drip of new versions and season update packs almost every year.
"Making Championship Manager has been pretty much an obsession since the mid-eighties, and I have devoted just about all of my adult life to making and improving this game", Oliver told fans in an open letter. "Over the past year or so I've realised that I no longer get the same enjoyment out of writing the game; for me the halcyon days were probably when Paul and I were writing CM2 and the whole thing was a lot more personal. Although it's been fun to work with such talented and enthusiastic people, being a smaller part of a bigger team just doesn't give me the same creative satisfaction."
"So, the time has come for me to move on and find new challenges in life. My immediate plans are to travel, to see (and learn about) some of the world. Beyond that, I have no idea what may happen. I do know, however, that I won't be writing any more computer games."
Although Sports Interactive are obviously sorry to see him go, co-founder Paul Collyer pointed out that "I would rather have a happy brother than a miserable business partner". Paul will be staying on to oversee development of the series, and was quick to make it clear that "while myself and the rest of the team will miss Ov's input, nothing is going to stop CM4 from being the best football management game ever written".