A Pint with Patrick

As you may have read on the forum, I was lucky enough to be able to meet Patrick in person up in Leeds and discuss all thing ManagerZone and through to his vision for the game in the future.

Patrick tucks into his Steak and Ale.

A History of Early MZ

Many of you will already know this story, and will have heard many times before. ManagerZone was founded in 2001 by crew member Marcus. Working in the same building was of course Johan Christensen, who provided the funds grow the expand the game as it did in the early 2000’s.

Roll on a bit further, and a company called Power Soccer approached Johan for investment and the company PowerChallenge was born. Roll on to the end of 2007 and PowerChallenge teamed up with Venture Capitalists Benchmark who invested a reported $8million in PowerChallenge.

Although ManagerZone got the new 3D and some player hairstyles, the main focus for Benchmark was to develop the Power Soccer brand (along with Power Racing and Power (American) Football. That became the focus of the company and ManagerZone sitting there ignored and undeveloped during what was probably it’s biggest user boom since it’s original take off.

So Power Soccer never really met expectations met of it, Power Football and Power Racing were never completed, though the websites lie around somewhere for them and Benchmark chose to pursue other investments. Meanwhile Johan left early 2009, the replacement CEO (Frank) left in 2010 and Patrick (with previous history at Gremlin, BBC and EA) took operational charge of the company.

Since then…

A struggling ManagerZone acquired funds from two venture capitalists and with Patrick (who had worked on the Premier Manager title) the ManagerZone side of the business became the selling point and the development began to resume with a vengeance for the first time in many years.

The first stage was to put in powerful new servers capable of dealing with the volume going on at the time, and allowing for for the future-proofing of the game. It also was the first step in allowing data to be actually stored. Traditionally, everything was deleted fairly rapidly, especially with regards to training reports. Of course, now it stays with the player.  Hopefully throughout his career, possibly to be cleared after retirement. Patrick did mention that he’d rather throw another server in if possible that have to delete potentially useful/interesting data.

There has been a major culture change from the mid life crisis that ManagerZone suffered. The core development team now play the game (not always very well!) and everyone who remains is really dedicated to building a game they are proud of, this can be seen in the improvements that have happened in the last 18 months (see the other 2012 article in the is zone)

Crew are now allowed to win if they can, so watch out Wales!

So that’s a general overview of what has gone on so far, for the more detailed developments of 2012 you can read the 2012 in MZ article. So time to move onto the some of the main talking points.

Mobile Apps

Yes! ManagerZone are actively looking to partner with a company to make a mobile app. It is currently in the due diligence stage with the intention of firstly creating an App for the iPhone, to be then scaled up for the iPad before moving onto Android devices.  It should have all the main functionality of the main site and also the ability to watch matches and sort the training/tactics fields. This is hopefully expected around the end of 2013 for iPhone.

Advertising/SEO

SEO is being worked on, though it’s unlikely to have to major effect due to the age of the game, the relatively restricted content the Google spiders can actually access and the fact it is not throwing money at Google that it won’t be at the top of the list.

With regards to traditional online advertising and elsewhere, exceptionally expensive particularly with FIFA/SEGA buying up most of the space and certainly something that MZ can not compete with.

As an aside note, while the Latin America advertising push despite the huge number of users it generated, it is estimated that once calculated the cost of non-paying users has yet to break even, so future campaigns need to be far more focused on bringing in quality as opposed to quantity.

The future of the game will hopefully lie in the upcoming Mobile Apps and signing up through there and also in user referrals, once some other aspects of the game have improved. A proper referral system, with a single link per user is hopefully on it’s way at some point.

Patrick however feels a previous culture of ‘a cheat until proven innocent’ may be something that is putting off new members joining/current users recommending the game and also that the ‘New User Experience’ isn’t as engaging/entertaining as it should be to encourage members to stay.

National Teams

Patrick has previously hinted about adding additional tournaments to the National Team schedule. On the concept of an U18 National Team it is certainly in the pipeline although probably not this election term.

With regards for scouting to for National Teams, there will be no extra features to assist as they can be too open for abuse, the idea behind it is for a community effort to pull together to try and get the best team in the country. Though of course MZ stats is also useful.

The Sim

Yes I know you were probably expecting to see it first! The new sim is in development, however it isn’t top priority

What was stated however was that the Season 40/41 sim was intended to be the blueprint to be built on, as it was the first sim really to employ a semblance of proper football tactics, with the options of wingers. While hoping people would see it through it’s development and get on board, the backlash from that sim resulted in the amendment of it that we have today.

It was also stated that many of the most vociferous complainants of sim changes were the ones who had barely played any games, not watched any, and in most cases, never actually changed tactics.

It was however acknowledged that Speed is over-weighted and that players with 6 Speed and high other skills should be an equally integral part of the game and that is the end desire. Patrick himself isn’t a coder so does not get involved in the actual hands on development of the sim.

As an aside from the Sim, the 3D is in the plans to be improved, but is really a good way down the list of priorities at the moment.

Training Camps

Training Camps are totally random, and with randomness comes the possibility of getting the same ones, as was recently demonstrated. Though it was noted that this adds to the frustration of MZ which in it’s own way is an interesting concept and something that needs to be managed, but would potentially consider setting it so the same camps couldn’t come out together or twice in a row.

Patrick does not believe that opening up the TC’s for a free-for-all pick what you want is a good idea and thinks it detracts from the game if you just give everyone everything at all times.

Foreign Player Limit & Player Loans

The reason Patrick joined Wales was to get a view of what it is like for users in small countries. He isn’t a fan of the 2 players from the same club in 13 weeks, especially in small countries with a tiny transfer market and believes it is very restrictive for new users trying to build a new team in such circumstances.

Dual Nationality is a preferred option to the foreign player scenario. While not keen on increasing the foreign player limit, Patrick seemed enthusiastic about having a system where if players had been playing for a team for say, 8 seasons then they would no longer count as a foreign player for that team. The player would only ever be eligible to play for their country of birth for National Team purposes. It is also important to state that this is currently just an idea and is not something you will suddenly see introduced.

Player Loans – Not going to happen.

Text Based Match Reports

“Amusing the first time I read it, pretty painful the 10th” – The text match reports at some stage have to be improved or phased out.

Head2Head

“I like the H2H feature. It added a different way to play matches and it helped us develop new tools for testing and releasing Sims. It was not the huge success I thought it could be, but those who like it, really like it and I really enjoyed the H2H league that tosspot organized in the English language forum.”

Graduate Training Speed

Much confusion has been made of this since the official quotes and announcements but after talking to Patrick I think it should be ironed out.

1) A player is a naturally fast trainer and trains at an accelerated (Youth) training rate all the way up to 20 At which point they are likely to continue to train at a high rate (in Seniors terms)

2) A player is a naturally bad trainer and with hit Senior training speed the moment they hit 18 and train at that rate for the rest of their careers.

3) Somewhere in between the 2. Like to hit their Senior training rhythm somewhere between plateau off.

The idea behind this means a lot more management and attention needs to be paid to the Training Report, a highly promising youth may tail off at 18 which a much more average one could keep training at top speed for another 2 seasons. By the time they both are at senior training speed, the tables could be well and truly turned.

Other Ideas

Before the forums go mental with fright, these once again are not official announcements, far more just musings for potential changes.

What is certain is that Patrick is intent on bringing down the average age of top players. Firstly the increased training speed of graduates means they will get better quicker. By the same note, a way to achieve a lower average age is for deterioration to take place much more quickly, so the player has a prime, which could potentially be at any age, and then drop off.

Another, quite realistic but almost certain to cause universal condemnation is that players who suffer serious or repetitive injuries come back worse. For example a 9 Speed player comes back at 6 Speed Maxed after a broken ankle. There are many examples in the real world where this happens and the manager would need to have a squad and backup able to cope with such eventualities.

Online Merch Store

“Extra revenue is always welcome, the more we have, the more things we can develop! This is something I would love to organize and we have had some discussions with potential partners, although nothing has been agreed.”

Patricks current Top 3 MZ Priorities

1. Storing, retaining and sharing more data about players, teams, competitions and results. 
2. Youths and training
3. Continuous improvements to the community tools, message boards, forums, GB etc

So Patrick, tell me about the plans for Youths & Training…

“There is an interesting change coming at the end of this season, and a larger change at the end of season 45. As with all the change changes in the area of youth & training these changes are meant to evolve and be an enhancement to what has gone before, to support active managers and not disrupt long term planning.”

Keep your eyes peeled at the UKI Zone News website over the coming days for potential updates on this latest feature. Make sure you don’t miss out by following us on Twitter @UKIZoneNews or by liking the Facebook Page. http://www.facebook.com/MZUKINews

And finally…

Federations

The core elements for Phase 1 are done, and are now bringing forward features from Phase 2, to help make Phase 1 a better launch. The main addition will be the inclusion of polls. Through polls, Federation members will be able to vote and provide direct feedback ob question posed by their Federation President.

Managers who join the official ManagerZone Football and Hockey Federations will be able to directly vote and affect what we develop.