#63: Championship Manager (Domark, DOS, 1992)

It’s a little paradoxical that one of the most complicated game series that will pop up on AAA should also be one of the most casual. Casual, at least, in the sense of being the least tied down to those immersed in the medium of video games. The most arcane JRPGs or most layered RTSs have nothing on the impenetrability of Championship Manager. They definitely bear less resemblance to a business analysis spreadsheet. I try to picture coming into Championship Manager from a starting point of no relevant knowledge and can only imagine it being incomprehensible. There’s the rub, though – its complexity comes through piggybacking on football’s cultural dominance, and the resultant assumption that no one will come to it from a zero starting point.

That assumption was a slightly different prospect in 1992. British football was popular, but not quite the cultural behemoth it would later become. Despite commercial successes, it was somewhat held back by an image problem, seen as marginal and unsavoury. Perceptions were dominated by attention on a small set of hardcore, generally male, fans who cared more about football as a way to act out violent tribal conflicts than, you know, the actual games. Draw your own parallels. Still, there were a lot of people into football and the plan for Championship Manager was clearly to be a game for football fans, without concessions otherwise. It proved a good idea.