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MCV 06/08/10 61
TAG-TEAM INTERVIEW Kristan Reed, Games Journalism Overlord
Industry icons interview their peers. To begin: Kristan Reed speaks to Miles Jacobson about cuddly toys, spare rooms and ruining marriages...
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The festival of football that is the Championship kicks off this week, and who better than our beloved teams Watford and Norwich City to get matters underway? Am I deluded, or is life outside the Premiership more exciting than in it? You’re not deluded at all, although it’s even more fun lower down the leagues. I’ve been going to a lot of the Watford pre-season friendlies, just so that I can stand up and move around the ground. But I still don’t like Friday night kick-offs, as I can rarely make them, which means I’ll be missing Delia’s ‘pie of the week’ this season. The cauliflower cheese one I had on my last trip to Norwich was delicious.
What are the chances of a Kinect/Move-enhanced version of Football Manager? I can’t be alone in wanting to wave my arms around like a madman and point to my watch like an agitated Alex Ferguson. I’d say the chances are very slim – I haven’t used either device as yet, but whilst they will sort out the mouse issues we have with our GUI and consoles, they don’t help with keyboard input.
As a man with more cuddly toys than I’ve had hot dinners, which ones accompany you to beddie- byes? Do you read them stories? Most of my toys live in the office. I still don’t know how I amassed the
collection – I had a period of collecting comic art, and it made sense at the time.
What’s the main thing you want to achieve before you hit the ‘magic’ 40? To not have had a heart attack.
Despite having had so much success, you’re not slowing down, are you? What keeps you motivated? I don’t think we’ve had that much success, but the main aim, as always, is to entertain as many people with our games as possible. We increase our userbase each year, and still have millions more football fans around the world to try and reach.
What’s the most underrated game of the last five years? Any of the LEGOseries, which whilst acknowledged as the best kids games out there, aren’t given enough credit for their simplistic
brilliance for adults too. Valkyria Chroniclesis still for me the best PS3 release to date.
As someone who has peddled gaming crack to the masses
for more than a decade, how is FM still legal? Do you ever get people shouting at you for ruining their lives, marriages, careers and so on? I do, yes. We even
have a ‘Football Widow’
T-shirt available now in the style of the Football Managerlogo. We just try and make a game
that is an escape for people, like all games. At least no one can complain about it lacking value for money.
As a life-long kleptomaniac, I’ve now officially run out of shelf space and am starting to fully embrace a digital-only life. What about you? I’m still a ‘product’ person, with the exception of PC games. That’ll have to change if I settle down and have kids, as the spare bedroom is packed from floor to ceiling with stuff, but I’m not very good at throwing things out. At some point in the future, I’m bound to want to dig out and play with my Gizmondo, right?
So Miles, who will be your Tag Team victim next week? Andy Payne.
CONTINUED NEXT WEEK...
FROM THE ARCHIVE October 20th 2006
NEWS Woolworths begins trialling pre-owned software in its stores, whilst Virgin Megastores also admits to MCVthat it is considering a move into the second-hand market. Unsurprisingly this infuriates publisher bosses… Nintendo turns marketing on its head by targeting non-gaming households, notably housewives, in its latest campaign for Wii… Details of the new downsized E3 are unveiled, with ESA announcing that the expo will be an invite-only event… Currys, Dixons and PC World choose to not stock Rockstar’s controversial Bully, despite the game having been rebranded as Canis Canem Edit…
CHARTS: ALL FORMATS TOP FIVE 1. FIFA ‘07..............................................................EA 2. Scarface: The World Is Yours..............Vivendi 3. LEGO Star Wars II..............................LucasArts 4. Just Cause...................................................Eidos 5. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07............................EA
AND FINALLY
Desperate Housewives: The Gameis launched by BVG with the promise that it ‘definitely won’t be left on the shelves at Christmas’… Guitar Herovirtually takes over MCV, even turning the cover date to ‘Rocktober’. Awesome times… Newly-launched free newspaper thelondonpaper enrages gamers (and, in the process, no doubt says goodbye to any games advertising) by labelling them as ‘zit-encrusted, Olay-avoiding, hairy-palmed wank-monkeys’.
MCV takes soundings from its Retail Advisory Board on the biggest issues of the day. The current members are...
Miles Jacobson, Managing Director, Sports Interactive
Neil Ashurst, GAME & Gamestation
Andrew Thompson, Asda
Marc Spence, Best Buy
Don McCabe, CHIPS
Tim Ellis, HMV
Keith Sharpe,
play.com
Sarah Jasper, The Hut
Nick Sultanti, Morrisons
Azeem Sadiq, Comet
Graham Chambers, Amazon
Danielle Fleming, DSGi
Igor Cipolletta, ShopTo
Anthony Stocker, Argos
Stephen Staley, Gameseek
Joanna Hunt, Tesco
Gurdeep Hunjan, Sainsbury’s
Phil Moore, Grainger Games
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