With the new version of Championship Manager just around the corner, I hightailed it up to Sports Interactive's offices, which happen to be just a small bunnyhop from Spank! Towers, to hang five with the people behind the legend - or at least two of them, namely Paul Collyer and SI business manager Miles* - and a most agreeable afternoon of football chit-chat ensued. Here's what happened...

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Do you think the sheer scale of the game will be daunting for new users?


PAUL: We try not to force people to do the scouting and the training and all the little things that have been added. The idea is that people load up the game and they can just carry on and play their team and do their tactics and play the match. We don't force people to do these things but we want them to be in there. Part of the solution, as you add more features, is delegating tasks to assistant managers and stuff like that.

MILES: Also, the point's got to be made that it's a football management simulation that we're trying to do. It's a hell of a lot of fun because everyone wants to be a football manager if they're a football fan. You do think you know better than the person who manages your team - unless you're a Watford fan, because Graham Taylor is God, let's be honest. But as I said it's a management simulation. People who buy flight simulation games don't go "oh, it's too complicated because you've got to do everything you have to do when you're flying a plane." We are trying to replicate that but keeping it fun as well. Champ Man is an addictive game. Our new marketing tag line is 'It's the most important game of your life' and I think that's true because people do upgrade their PCs every year to play the game.
PAUL: We think that a lot of people who play our game aren't necessarily gamers. They're just people who've got a PC and are huge football fans. There's a big interest in Championship Manager on message boards and mailing lists that are just about football. Discussions and stuff where you don't see people talking about other games, so we're dealing with a slightly different market.
MILES: With the amount of people that do talk about it we reckon there are about five pirated copies for every copy of the game we sell. Hopefully we'll be able to reach an even wider audience as we mnove onto console formats which we're planning to do over the next few years.
PAUL: Without compromising the game.

MILES: We're not going to do a cut down version of the game.