Mistrust Lead to Split Between Eidos and Sports Interactive

When Sports Interactive split off from Eidos in 2003 and went to create their own football management simulation, the world of gaming wanted to know the reasons behind the split and the leaders of the two companies now say that it was a question of mistrusts rather than one of real differences.

Miles Jacobson, who is the studio director working at Sports Interactive, has said during the Game Horizon conference, that, “I’m sure there are two sides to this story. We have never spoken about in the past. At the time we felt there was a lack of respect that we did for our work from Eidos. There seemed to be an attitude at the time in the industry that anyone could make games.”

He added, “Eidos wanted more control. We wanted more control. We were asking for high royalties. Eidos set up Beautiful Game Studios nine months before Championship Manager 4 was due to come out. They told me that BGS were making a platform game. I thought our number was up.”

Ian Livingstone, who is the president of Eidos, says that Beautiful Game Studios had been brought in order for his company to have an insurance policy if Sports Interactive decided to talk to another publisher.

The result was that Sports Interactive received an initial offer from SEGA, which was then doubled in order to satisfy the needs of the company and enabled them to continue to create their own brand of management game.

Sports Interactive will deliver a new edition of its series in the fall, although it has not offered any clear details on the changes it plans to implement.

Meanwhile Championship Manager has gone mobile and was not released in 2011 for the PC.

Football Manager has become influent enough to be used as an actual tool for scouting by a number of clubs, including Everton from the Premier League.