PC Gaming Week: How the Football Manager video game became a real-life … football manager

By Chris Smith

Football Manager

While another English football season draws to a close, the bi-annual carnage of the transfer window – when clubs are allowed to buy and sell players – will soon resume.

As the who-goes-where drama plays out over the summer, there’ll be social media hysteria with fans arguing about players they’ve never seen, hastily-made YouTube montages pitching unknowns as reincarnations of Johan Cruyff and, unfortunately, an abundance of Sky Sports presenter Jim White on UK television screens.

However, above the cacophony of noise, one simple utterance could settle debates: “He’s great on Football Manager, him.”

In August 2014, the official word came on what fans, gamers and player recruitment teams had always known: the database of players from the Football Manager (FM) video game was so deep, so accurate and so reliable, it could be used in the real world.

When the game is better than the real thing

Sports Interactive (SI), the makers of the dangerously addictive team management simulator, licensed its database to ProZone Recruiter, the professional analytics platform used by clubs to identify potential signings.

In the ensuing two seasons, the 250 individual attributes for 651,184 players (up from 4,000 when the game …read more

Source:: techradar.com – Gaming