MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Football Manager clothing can help Sports Interactive make money in markets where it does not sell any games.
The firm attended Brand Licensing Europe last month in a bid to sign licensors to create products around the Football Manager IP.
And studio director Miles Jacobson says this will allow the firm to generate income in markets where Football Manager is popular, but heavily pirated.
The brand over the last few years has become a lot more than just a computer game. We’re now a football brand,” he said. We’ve been working very hard over the last few years to be accepted by the world of football, to the point where we now are.
Football Manager 2013 is 20 per cent up on FM 2012, which was already our best-selling game. As a game it is still getting stronger. The other thing we’ll have in our armour when we’re talking to potential licensors is that we have proper stats on piracy. We don’t just know how many we’re selling in each country; we know how many people are playing the game in each country.
"This is going to help us in some of the territories where it looks like the game isn’t that big there, but then you look at the amount of people actually playing it. The merchandising is an opportunity to monetise in territories where the game is incredibly popular, but where we’re not necessarily selling games."
