Miles Jacobson

Early bird season tickets are on sale until April at most clubs. With any chasing promotion & relegation, they don't know what division they in. They end well before the transfer market opens, let alone closes. We are announcing features before the discount period ends. Which is more than any club early bird discount does. So I don't understand your issue. At all.

With FM17 we attempted to do something that we’d wanted to do for years – and that was to put in place an “early bird loyalty scheme”, just like you have with season tickets at football clubs, so that if you owned our last 4 titles, you got a 20% discount from your pre-order from our friends at Steam. It was very experimental – not something that others devs had managed in the past in the way we did it, and we’re very grateful to Steam for putting the technology in place not just for you, but also for other studios and publishers who wanted to use it in the future. It was hugely successful and appreciated by a very large group of people – our pre-orders had never been higher. But we also saw quite a bit of negativity on social media for varying reasons, but mainly because people didn’t understand it, or thought we were doing it only in advance of announcing any features, the latter of which wasn’t true. So we spent some time with Steam and SEGA working out how we could simplify the offering to make it easier to understand, whilst utilising the technology that Steam have available to them. And, of course, get them to agree to give a discount to their customers, as they are the retailer, not us. Therefore, those who pre-order Football Manager 2018 via Steam (or the SEGA store), and who own Football Manager 2017, will get 25% off up until October 9th. Because it’s only for people who own FM17, we’re not calling it a loyalty scheme anymore, as it’s one game not 4. So it’s now a signing on bonus for those extending their contracts. Gotta love using football terminology for these things J By the time the promotion ends, the key new features will already have been trailed (those are due to be announced late September as Brocky mentions above) and we may have even released 1 or 2 full feature videos by then – can’t confirm the latter yet, as we don’t yet know what dates those will be released, or even how many feature videos we’re doing in total as yet. But you’ll have the headline feature news already, so all good! For those that don't already have it, our friends at Steam are offering a whopping 80% discount on FM2017 for 48 hours from the time of this posting too... http://store.steampowered.com/app/482730/Football_Manager_2017/

@ykw - as I stated above, the @footballmanager account is the place to get news on the game, not my account. I can't do anything about other people deciding that my account should be the one used, in the same way as I can't do anything to stop other misconceptions made about us or me (such as the info you write about SEGA and our relationship, or one of the comments from Westy which made me laugh), or things taken out of context, such as the tweet you post which was an ending point of a very long conversation, or reading reviews from Glassdoor from ex-employees (or, in that case, someone who wasn't an employee at all but a contractor and suggested some features that were legally, commercially & morally irresponsible, so were rejected) isn't the best way to get info either. Although I should point out that as the games director, of course a feature isn't going to make it into the game if I don't think it's a good idea, otherwise I wouldn't be doing my job as a director! If you want to get excited about our future games, then wait for official info to come out and see if that makes you excited. Don't read all the other nonsense out there because, until things are officially announced, it's most likely that the things you hear or read are not true. I know that's not easy - I've had many TV shows & games that I've been incredibly passionate about and read everything that I can, including lots of false info, but learnt quickly to not get wound up about it. Or not until it was official (like the awful ending of Lost after 7 years worth of fanboyism from me). As for in-game sons, if you want my stance to change on in-game son's, then instructions have already been given on how to do that I, and many who replied, thought that tweet was amusing. It was certainly tongue in cheek - but is also an accurate way to make it happen. Good luck with the 99% bit though - it's something that's been discussed in the studio in the past, as we do with all suggestions that come from the forums, and rejected because we think it would be the wrong thing to do. It's meant to be very rare, as it's meant to be special. There are lots of things in our games like this and it's very deliberate given the very long average play-time of our titles. Posting suggestions is not a guarantee to get something into the game - it's a process for suggestions to get to us and be considered in our feature meetings where our own ideas are also considered. Some make it through, some don't. It's just as likely for one of my suggestions to be rejected as one from the forums. Such is life. I'm not going to be untrue to myself or to others on social media - I will answer them in the same way as I would if someone asked me to my face. In both life, and on social media, I am honest and clear in my beliefs, and that rubs some people up the wrong way because they aren't used to either. It's also the same way of being that has helped me achieve the things that you mention - I've never cared what people think about me personally, as long as (in the case of people who play FM) they enjoy the work that we do as a team and get good value for money from it. Right - back to lurking now or else I'll get told off by the mods and Brocky for treading on their toes. Play nicely everyone.

Whereas I think it's horrible when someones personal account on social media is run by a third party. If you want info about FM on Twitter, @footballmanager is the place to get it. That is run by a team of experienced professional social media marketeers. And we are advertising for someone to come in to that team at the moment as one of the current team is taking on a new role. If someone wants to follow me, or ask me questions on Twitter, that's great. But then they have to deal with me, my personality and my rules (where are clearly posted in the header of my Twitter account). It is not meant to be a PR or marketing source for the game, but I'll gladly answer questions if I know the answer to them about any of the work that I do at SI, or elsewhere. But it is, very clearly, a personal account.

It's not going to be perfect alignment wise - but certainly better than the option now of just playing in English We're going to be monitoring the success of this system both with quality, downloads and extra sales in the region, and will react accordingly. We might not have time to change things to make it work better with FM17, but hopefully 17 will do well enough to allow us to make FM18 and make improvements to the community translation system based on feedback and use.

Every year we get requests from around the world from people who want us to add a translated version of Football Manager in their language. As much as we’d love to translate the game into every language, it’s often not possible for us to do so. So, in the same way as we let people add extra leagues to the game and make them available via Steam Workshop, with FM17 we’re doing the same with languages. Once the game is released on November 4th, you’ll notice a new tab on the Steam Workshop called “Community Translations”. This is where the community-made translations will live, and you’ll be able to download them here and change the language in game. If you want to make a community translation you’ll need to wait until the game is released on November 4th when full instructions will be provided as will the relevant files – but here are a few questions answered now so you can get yourself ready. What languages can I add? We ship the game with 16 languages and, in theory, you can add any language you want to, but there are some font restrictions. The game will ship with fonts that can cover Latin/Cyrillic character sets plus Arabic, Chinese (simplified & traditional), Hebrew and Japanese Can we collaborate as a team for the translation? Yes, you can, and this will be part of the guide that we release to making translations once the game is released Who owns the translation? The people who make the translation will own it – as with any Steam Workshop content, it’s owned by you. You will NOT be able to charge for it though, or sell it to any third party. What can be translated? The translation files are for any text in the game not including data (player names/club names/injury names etc). Although, in theory, you can already translate those in the data editor. How many words are there to translate? There are over 100,000 “strings”, which are made up of more than 1.5m words. When can I start working on it? We’re still working on the files for the game now, and they won’t be ready before its release on November 4th. How do I import them into the game? You import via Steam Workshop, then change your language in game. What if I want to add in a language that isn’t covered by the fonts already there? Ask us on our forums at community.sigames.com and we’ll see what we can do – we can’t promise anything, as each new font we add adds more memory to the game for everyone, but will look into it.

All the "old" camera angles will still be there.

Brocky may well not thank me for posting on this thread, but there are some posts here which I find quite incredible, and depressing, in equal measure. For at least the last couple of years the pre-order for the game has started before we've announced features. Retailers like to start pre-orders as early as possible. We like to announce features and show screenshots when we can guarantee that they will be in the game (unlike some devs) which means announcing things later than most games. But certainly way before other forms of entertainment announce things - you can't hear any tracks of a new album until a few weeks before release when the first single comes out. You can't find out a plot line in a TV show until it comes out. The loyalty scheme is exactly that - it's a loyalty scheme. For our most loyal customers. Those that, pretty much every year, pre-order the game without knowing anything about it because the pre-order opens before we announce game features. We are, literally, giving away money because the vast majority of those that pre-order at that stage would do anyway. Are pre-orders higher because of the loyalty scheme? Yes - they are. Which is awesome. It shows it was a good idea and lots of people want to take advantage of it. And it's awesome even though it's costing us money because those same people who are pre-ordering would likely buy the game anyway because to get the maximum discount, which is by far and away the one being used most, they would have to own the last 4 of our games. And I thank them very much for being loyal. And have wanted to do a loyalty scheme for years. And have spoken to Steam about it for years. And SEGA for years. And this year Steam have provided us the capability, and I thank them nearly as much as I thank those that are pre-ordering. What we are announcing, and when, is a moot point because the loyalty scheme is for loyal customers. Those that were going to buy the game anyway. For the same reason that we don't announce things until we know they are definitely going to be in the game, we don't announce dates of things until we know they are 100% going to be achieved. The official internal beta release date is "when Miles says it's ready" (not talking in the first person, honest - it's just what the date is). Sure, we have target dates, which this year we've announced as "at least 2 weeks before release". Normally that is "around 2 weeks before release" which could mean 2 and a half, could mean 1 and a half. This year it's "at least 2" which means "a minimum of 2 weeks". You want to wait until announcements about the game are made before pre-ordering? That's cool. Absolutely your choice. You want to wait until reviews come out? That's cool too. You want to try the demo first? That's why we still make a demo, when so few other studios do. It's all cool. Or sick. Or whatever the cool word for cool is nowadays. We have target dates for announcements too. But not only will those depend on me being happy with the features we're going to announce, it also depends on legal clearance, licensing clearance, getting the right screenshots, how busy we all are, unexpected opportunities etc etc. Most of those things are unknown known's. We know we need to do them, but they could be affected by lots of things - what if one of our licensing partners are on holiday the day we find the right screenshot? What if someone offers us an amazing opportunity to do something that's never been done before and we decide to change our plans to take advantage of it? We've been doing this for more than 20 years now. We've been through this process lots of times. We've seen how others do it in games, and other industries. We adapt - in the way we develop, the way we announce and the games we make. We're not perfect. No one is, company or person. But we always try our best. And to have people complaining about a loyalty scheme where we're giving money away as thank you to our loyal players who we love to bits is one of those times where I really don't know whether to laugh or cry. Right - I'm back to my monk-like forum existence now. Play nicely. And sorry Neil if you'd rather I hadn't posted this. You can tell me off in the morning

The official Early Access price is £9.99/$14.99/E12.99. But there's a 20% discount if you happen to own any version of Football Manager that is registered on Steam. The price is a special price as a thank you for helping us out with the Early Access and hopefully providing feedback that makes the game better. When the game is fully released, it will be more expensive - although no final price has been set.

- Why Early Access? We originally published Eastside Hockey Manager as a traditional ‘boxed’ game between 2004 and 2007. However, we decided to shelve it at that point because it simply didn’t make financial sense to continue publishing it in the old-fashioned way. At that time we were not only badly affected by piracy, we were also hit by the way retail used to work, particularly in the US. Boxed copies of the game would fly off the shelves in places where hockey was popular, but would languish in places where it wasn’t – and there was no system in place for those boxes to be shifted from one State to another. Steam wasn’t anywhere near as popular back then as it is now, so we didn’t have a digital solution to this problem like we do now. We have never wavered in our belief that there’s an enthusiastic and active fan base for this game which we’ve seen at the Blueline community (http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/) and now, using Early Access, we want to prove that to everyone else. Getting the game into its current state has been very much a ‘hobby project’ for a few of us at the studio. Up until now we’ve worked on EHM in what little spare time we have (Football Manager keeps us all very busy) but now, using Early Access will give us some budget to be able to put more resources into EHM, whilst not losing any from FM. We’re doing it now because we’ve hired some of the people we need to cover the extra work. Early Access will also give us an opportunity to get the feedback we need from the community to ensure that this is the game they want to play. Finally, we need to prove that there is enough demand to justify resurrecting the series fully. Whilst this version has ‘fake’ data, we want to show that there is a demand for a fully licensed version of the game. That won’t come with this release but, if it’s successful, it means we can go to the leagues around the world and get licenses for future, annualised, versions (in much the same way that we do with FM). And, bluntly, nothing beats a testing resource of hundreds or thousands of people. Your help in this regard is greatly appreciated. - Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access? We’re not completely sure on that just yet. But we’re talking months, not years. - How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version? Polish, polish, polish. But we’re also planning some extra features – a play-off tree view will be rolled out in the first update, with some major improvements to player progression following in the second. At some point in the Early Access cycle we also plan to include a network game mode and some further playable leagues. And we’ll be looking at features that you, the community, suggest – if we like them (and they’re technically achievable) then we’ll do what we can to get them into the final game. - What is the current state of the Early Access version? It’s fully playable and includes 11 leagues from around the world and 13 international tournaments. At the moment the game is English-language only. We haven’t seen any crashes for a while, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a few when people start to play the game for the long-term on a variety of different hardware configurations. If and when we do find any crashes we’ll roll out updates as soon as they are fixed. We also plan to put out a regular update every two weeks (on Thursday evenings, UK time). - Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access? Yes. It will be cheaper during the Early Access period to thank people for helping to steer the game in the right direction. - How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process? We want as much feedback and as many bug reports as possible, please. We were one of the first ‘community driven’ studios – our fans have been directly involved in shaping our games for 20 years – and we want to keep this going both through our own forums (at http://community.sigames.com/) and here on Steam for EHM. We will always make the final decision on what does and doesn’t go into our games, but we treat every idea from the community in exactly the same way as we treat ideas that come from people within the studio.

- Why Early Access? We originally published Eastside Hockey Manager as a traditional ‘boxed’ game between 2004 and 2007. However, we decided to shelve it at that point because it simply didn’t make financial sense to continue publishing it in the old-fashioned way. At that time we were not only badly affected by piracy, we were also hit by the way retail used to work, particularly in the US. Boxed copies of the game would fly off the shelves in places where hockey was popular, but would languish in places where it wasn’t – and there was no system in place for those boxes to be shifted from one State to another. Steam wasn’t anywhere near as popular back then as it is now, so we didn’t have a digital solution to this problem like we do now. We have never wavered in our belief that there’s an enthusiastic and active fan base for this game which we’ve seen at the Blueline community (http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/) and now, using Early Access, we want to prove that to everyone else. Getting the game into its current state has been very much a ‘hobby project’ for a few of us at the studio. Up until now we’ve worked on EHM in what little spare time we have (Football Manager keeps us all very busy) but now, using Early Access will give us some budget to be able to put more resources into EHM, whilst not losing any from FM. We’re doing it now because we’ve hired some of the people we need to cover the extra work. Early Access will also give us an opportunity to get the feedback we need from the community to ensure that this is the game they want to play. Finally, we need to prove that there is enough demand to justify resurrecting the series fully. Whilst this version has ‘fake’ data, we want to show that there is a demand for a fully licensed version of the game. That won’t come with this release but, if it’s successful, it means we can go to the leagues around the world and get licenses for future, annualised, versions (in much the same way that we do with FM). And, bluntly, nothing beats a testing resource of hundreds or thousands of people. Your help in this regard is greatly appreciated. - Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access? We’re not completely sure on that just yet. But we’re talking months, not years. - How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version? Polish, polish, polish. But we’re also planning some extra features – a play-off tree view will be rolled out in the first update, with some major improvements to player progression following in the second. At some point in the Early Access cycle we also plan to include a network game mode and some further playable leagues. And we’ll be looking at features that you, the community, suggest – if we like them (and they’re technically achievable) then we’ll do what we can to get them into the final game. - What is the current state of the Early Access version? It’s fully playable and includes 11 leagues from around the world and 13 international tournaments. At the moment the game is English-language only. We haven’t seen any crashes for a while, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a few when people start to play the game for the long-term on a variety of different hardware configurations. If and when we do find any crashes we’ll roll out updates as soon as they are fixed. We also plan to put out a regular update every two weeks (on Thursday evenings, UK time). - Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access? Yes. It will be cheaper during the Early Access period to thank people for helping to steer the game in the right direction. - How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process? We want as much feedback and as many bug reports as possible, please. We were one of the first ‘community driven’ studios – our fans have been directly involved in shaping our games for 20 years – and we want to keep this going both through our own forums (at http://community.sigames.com/) and here on Steam for EHM. We will always make the final decision on what does and doesn’t go into our games, but we treat every idea from the community in exactly the same way as we treat ideas that come from people within the studio.

For a brief golden age between 2004 and 2007, ice hockey fans across the globe could test their management credentials from the comfort of their own homes with the Eastside Hockey Manager series. The game, developed by management simulation specialist Sports Interactive and published by SEGA, appeared in three incarnations over the course of that period and developed a small, but enthusiastic global following. The trouble was, in those days before mass digital distribution, reaching that small, but dedicated audience proved increasingly difficult and uneconomic so, reluctantly, SEGA and SI shelved the game in January 2007. However, throughout the intervening years EHM has been kept alive by a dedicated section of the SI crew and now, thanks to the emergence of Steam’s Early Access programme, the game that was loved by so many hockey fans is making a dramatic return. Eastside Hockey Manager: Early Access offers fans the most realistic, in-depth and immersive simulation of hockey management available, giving them the chance to manage club or country in any one of the world’s top hockey-playing nations. EHM: EA allows you to take full control of your roster – you decide who to sign, who to trade and who to draft. You assemble the perfect coaching team and then, with everything in place, you can choose to either employ a head coach to guide your team from behind the bench, or take control of the coaching duties yourself. Whichever you choose, you’ll follow the action ‘live’ through the ultra-realistic ‘top down’ 2D match engine. You’ve always known that you have what it takes to lead your franchise to hockey glory, haven’t you? Now, thanks to the re-emergence of Eastside Hockey Manager you have the chance to prove it all over again. Eastside Hockey Manager: Early Access will be available from 6:00pm (GMT) today (26th March 2015) through Steam Early Access: http://store.steampowered.com/app/301120/ Eastside Hockey Manager: Early Access – Key Features - Contemporary League Structures EHM: EA includes 11 playable leagues (with more planned to be added during early access), each one featuring the up-to-date structure and rules from the current season. - Dynamic 2D Game Engine Follow the action through the top-down game engine, which incorporates state-of-the-art physics modelling (including realistic deflections and shot-blocking) and convincing player AI. There’s even a zoom mode for those who want to get closer to the action. - Lifelike Trade Negotiations Managers can gauge interest to trade proposals from their opposite numbers as well as getting feedback from their own assistant. Each team has their own needs and some are ready to offload prospects for that key veteran that makes them a true contender whilst others can be looking to move high-wage veterans in order to rebuild through the draft. - Intuitive User Interface The centralized navigation bar makes management easier and more intuitive with all key management controls incorporated into the main menu bar. - Improved Player Progression Players develop and age naturally, while the role-based attribute modelling makes players more realistic and more varied. - International Management EHM EA: includes 13 international tournaments for senior and U20 national teams, with tournaments hosted in a variety of nations and cities. - Database Import The database format allows the importing of user-generated up-to-date rosters and even historical starting databases (created for earlier versions of EHM). - And Much, Much More… The intuitive tutorial system takes users through the early stages, there’s an option to hide all visible attributes in the game for added challenge, a nation overview screen to view all the top leagues, clubs and players for each country, player/non-player profiles, option to start the game with a fantasy draft, up-to-date ‘all-star’ game formats with skills competitions and many, many other features.

For a brief golden age between 2004 and 2007, ice hockey fans across the globe could test their management credentials from the comfort of their own homes with the Eastside Hockey Manager series. The game, developed by management simulation specialist Sports Interactive and published by SEGA, appeared in three incarnations over the course of that period and developed a small, but enthusiastic global following. The trouble was, in those days before mass digital distribution, reaching that small, but dedicated audience proved increasingly difficult and uneconomic so, reluctantly, SEGA and SI shelved the game in January 2007. However, throughout the intervening years EHM has been kept alive by a dedicated section of the SI crew and now, thanks to the emergence of Steam’s Early Access programme, the game that was loved by so many hockey fans is making a dramatic return. Eastside Hockey Manager: Early Access offers fans the most realistic, in-depth and immersive simulation of hockey management available, giving them the chance to manage club or country in any one of the world’s top hockey-playing nations. EHM: EA allows you to take full control of your roster – you decide who to sign, who to trade and who to draft. You assemble the perfect coaching team and then, with everything in place, you can choose to either employ a head coach to guide your team from behind the bench, or take control of the coaching duties yourself. Whichever you choose, you’ll follow the action ‘live’ through the ultra-realistic ‘top down’ 2D match engine. You’ve always known that you have what it takes to lead your franchise to hockey glory, haven’t you? Now, thanks to the re-emergence of Eastside Hockey Manager you have the chance to prove it all over again. Eastside Hockey Manager: Early Access will be available from 6:00pm (GMT) today (26th March 2015) through Steam Early Access. Eastside Hockey Manager: Early Access – Key Features - Contemporary League Structures EHM: EA includes 11 playable leagues (with more planned to be added during early access), each one featuring the up-to-date structure and rules from the current season. - Dynamic 2D Game Engine Follow the action through the top-down game engine, which incorporates state-of-the-art physics modelling (including realistic deflections and shot-blocking) and convincing player AI. There’s even a zoom mode for those who want to get closer to the action. - Lifelike Trade Negotiations Managers can gauge interest to trade proposals from their opposite numbers as well as getting feedback from their own assistant. Each team has their own needs and some are ready to offload prospects for that key veteran that makes them a true contender whilst others can be looking to move high-wage veterans in order to rebuild through the draft. - Intuitive User Interface The centralized navigation bar makes management easier and more intuitive with all key management controls incorporated into the main menu bar. - Improved Player Progression Players develop and age naturally, while the role-based attribute modelling makes players more realistic and more varied. - International Management EHM EA: includes 13 international tournaments for senior and U20 national teams, with tournaments hosted in a variety of nations and cities. - Database Import The database format allows the importing of user-generated up-to-date rosters and even historical starting databases (created for earlier versions of EHM). - And Much, Much More… The intuitive tutorial system takes users through the early stages, there’s an option to hide all visible attributes in the game for added challenge, a nation overview screen to view all the top leagues, clubs and players for each country, player/non-player profiles, option to start the game with a fantasy draft, up-to-date ‘all-star’ game formats with skills competitions and many, many other features.

Can be found at http://www.footballmanager.com/news/game-and-data-editor-blog

sicalegs - if we find that, on Tuesday, they haven't gone through, we will do that. We're told that the way we're doing things should be OK for them, so it's a waiting game. A large % of those signing/signed up are on hotmail, so we'd rather we played by their rules than having to inconvenience those signing up for info.