Football Manager Live Breaks MMORPG Mold

Football Manager Live will allow soccer fans to build and management their dream teams in a persistent online world.

Up until now, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have mostly concerned themselves with creating realms where players can battle it out with enchanted weapons, collect spells, and slay dragons. Sega Europe turned that stereotype on its head on Friday, when it announced the development of Football Manager Live, a soccer (for those of us in the States) management MMORPG.

The game will be an overhaul of the already-popular Football Manager 2007, an online fantasy sports simulation. Football Manager Live will allow fans to create their own soccer clubs and control every aspect of their development, from choosing club colors to player auctions and team finances. In traditional MMORPG style, matches will take place 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The game concept came from Oliver Collyer, co-founder of Sports Interactive, the company that designed the Football Manager series. “With Football Manager Live, we’re ripping up the script that says how online football management games should work," Collyer said in a press release. "We’re creating something that is fun, challenging and sociable.”

Football Manager Live is slated for release in spring 2008, but a beta test will be available in May 2007.