EA Sports ends the FIFA Manager series

EA Sports will end the FIFA Manager series with FIFA Manager 14, citing increasing technological demands and indirectly ceding to the dominance of competitor Football Manager.

Ozzie Mejia

November 25, 2013 12:20 PM

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EA Sports has announced that FIFA Manager 14 will be the final installment in the long-running soccer simulation series. FIFA Manager had been an annual franchise since 2002, but lead designer Gerald Köhler notes that continuing the series would ultimately prove technologically too demanding. He also indirectly ceded to the European dominance of Sega's Football Manager series.

"The football manager genre at this level of sophistication is highly specialized and primarily played in two countries (England and Germany), in which – on top of everything – one game has practically dominated the market in recent years," Köhler said on the FIFA Manager blog (via Joystiq). "The niche market and general trend toward online and mobile games were also contributing factors. Moreover, [FIFA Manager] had reached a crossroads at which a new engine and/or corresponding online technology would be the only way to give the series a boost. When all these factors were evaluated, it led us to the decision to blow the final whistle."

Köhler expresses hope that fan sites will continue to improve the existing FIFA Manager 14 whenever possible, before sending his thanks to the game's fans.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?