And SEGA (and Sports Interactive) have officially beaten Electronic Arts. At least that’s what we make out of an open letter in which the big publisher confirmed that it is cancelling its FIFA Manager series. As EA’s open letter claimed, ‘the football manager genre at this level of sophistication is highly specialised and primarily played in two countries (England and Germany), in which – on top of everything – one game has practically dominated the market in recent years.’ And that title is no other than Football Manager.
Gerald Kohler continues:
“The niche market and general trend toward online and mobile games were also contributing factors. Moreover, FM had reached a crossroads at which a new engine and/or corresponding online technology would be the only way to give the series a boost. When all these factors were evaluated, it led us to the decision to blow the final whistle. “
And that is that. EA has admitted defeat. Oh, and Football Manager is successful in other countries too, but that’s irrelevant at this point I guess.
Expect to see a Facebook or an Android version of FIFA Manager that will be as dumbed down as it can possibly can because – as EA noted – mobile is becoming a trend.
After all, it’s easier releasing an old game on mobiles than upgrading a game’s engine in order to improve it.
Well played EA. Well played.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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