 |
Miles Jacobson | |
|---|---|
 Miles Jacobson presenting the Sports & Fitness category at BAFTA Games Awards 2012 | |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Studio director |
| Employer | Sports Interactive |
| Known for | Football Manager games |
Miles Jacobson OBE is studio director of Sports Interactive, the team behind the Football Manager series of video games, and creators of the original Championship Manager. [1]
Jacobson was born in 1971 to a Jewish family. [2] His father was an inventor and his mother was a teacher. [3] Jacobson was raised in Watford. A talented musician, his childhood ambition was to become a singer, and he spent more time on music than education when at school, singing or playing at the Royal Opera House, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican and St Martin-in-the-Fields during this time, and appeared in Carmen alongside José Carreras. [3] However his singing ability was affected by the voice change during puberty. He attended Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School on a scholarship – fellow pupils at the time included Matt Lucas and Sacha Baron Cohen. He also became a fan of Watford F.C. in his childhood, attending his first game at Vicarage Road on his seventh birthday. [3] His interest in and love for music sowed the seeds for his early career; while working in a record shop he produced a fanzine which caught the eye of the then NME editor Steve Lamacq. Lamacq helped Jacobson to secure his first position in the music business, introducing him to Andy Ross of Food Records, who hired him as an A&R manager. [3] During his time in the music business (with Food and Polygram Island Music), Jacobson worked with a number of household names, including Jesus Jones, Dubstar, Shampoo, Blur, Feeder, Fatboy Slim and The Bluetones.
Sports Interactive was founded in 1994 by Paul and Oliver Collyer on the back of the success they had achieved with a game they had originally created in their Shropshire bedrooms in the late 1980s. That game was first published commercially in 1992 as Championship Manager.
Jacobson first became involved in Sports Interactive as a fan of the game, after obtaining an advance copy of Championship Manager 2 in exchange for two Blur concert tickets, [3] offering his services as one of the early testers. The Collyer brothers realised that Jacobson's abilities and experience would be put to better use in other areas and he became the fledgling company's unofficial business advisor. Jacobson quickly became an integral part of the team, assuming the role of part-time Managing Director in 1999 before finally taking the helm on a full-time basis in 2001.
Under Jacobson's management, Sports Interactive has grown from a fledgling start-up employing five people to one of the best-known names in UK game development with a staff of more than 280 and a network of roughly 1,400 researchers across the globe. [4] The studio has won two GamesIndustry.biz Best Places to Work Awards in recent years, one in 2021 and another in 2023. [5]
To date, the studio has sold more than 15 million games, has been responsible for six of the top 10 fastest-selling PC games of all time in the UK (five of which are from the Football Manager series) and has enjoyed more than 200 weeks at No. 1 in the PC charts. Sports Interactive also has been responsible for five of the top 20 best-selling PC games of all time in the UK.
The Football Manager catalogue has continued to grow, including versions for both iOS and Android devices, along with console versions for both Nintendo Switch and Xbox [6] [7] being launched in recent years. The company also previously developed Football Manager Online and Football Manager Live, a large online multiplayer version, in association with Korean company, KTH. [8] In 2022 the studio released their first title on Apple Arcade before making their PS5 debut in early 2023. [9] In November 2023, the studio's Football Manager Mobile series became a Netflix exclusive. [10]
Football Manager players have accelerated rapidly in recent years, helped in part by the pandemic and by the studio working with subscription platforms like Game Pass, Apple Arcade, and Netflix. Football Manager 2023 became the first of the studio's titles to break five million players, while FM24 hit more than seven million players in less than 100 days. [11]
Outside Sports Interactive, Jacobson is heavily involved with the War Child charity, working as part of its entertainment committee. [12] This committee is responsible for music-based fundraising initiatives which include record releases (including the Heroes album, the Young Soul Rebels single) and live events which have, to date, included gigs featuring Kasabian, La Roux, Al Murray, Jason Manford, Madness, Plan B, The Killers and Coldplay (the latter pair's gig also involved an encore featuring Gary Barlow and Bono). War Child also receive a donation for each copy of Football Manager sold, raising more than £700,000 to date, and in 2011, Jacobson went on a trip with the charity to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In 2008, Jacobson was one of the co-founders of GamesAid, [13] a broker for charitable activity on behalf of the games industry (and sponsor of the Paddington Academy). He is also currently working on a charitable project in Mozambique, giving local villages business opportunities whilst also helping the environment by planting fruit trees which thrive in the area.
Jacobson has been involved with the Nordoff-Robbins music therapy charity for a number of years, forming part of a committee that organises the annual Legends of Football dinner. The dinners have raised more than £9m over the years, with the most recent honouring Ian Wright and Emma Hayes. [14]
He also recently became a vice-president for the charity Special Effect, which makes gaming accessible for people with severe disabilities. [15]
Jacobson was appointed to the role of Industry Ambassador for War Child in July 2022, having supported the charity for almost three decades. [16]
A former Entrepreneur of the Year (London) finalist, Jacobson serves as a Creative Business Mentor for NESTA, is a Develop conference steering committee member, and has previously been on the steering committee for the Edinburgh Interactive Festival and was on the BAFTA steering committee for video games for 6 years until June 2012.[ citation needed ] In addition to making regular appearances on national TV and radio, Jacobson has also appeared as a panellist and interviewee at festivals and conferences, not just for the games industry, but also at the Edinburgh TV festival and conferences organised by the music business strategy consultancy MusicAlly.[ citation needed ]
In 2011, Jacobson was awarded the OBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours List for services to the gaming industry.[ citation needed ]
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by former Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the designers and programmers responsible for its games as "software artists". EA published numerous games and some productivity software for personal computers, all of which were developed by external individuals or groups until 1987's Skate or Die! The company shifted toward internal game studios, often through acquisitions, such as Distinctive Software becoming EA Canada in 1991.
Rockstar Games, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in New York City. The company was established in December 1998 as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive, using the assets Take-Two had previously acquired from BMG Interactive. Founding members of the company were Terry Donovan, Gary Foreman, Dan and Sam Houser, and Jamie King, who worked for Take-Two at the time, and of which the Houser brothers were previously executives at BMG Interactive. Sam Houser heads the studio as president.
Championship Manager is a series of football-management simulation video games, the first of which was released in 1992.
Sports Interactive Limited is a British video game developer based in London, best known for the Football Manager series. Founded by brothers Oliver and Paul Collyer in July 1994, the studio was acquired by Japanese video game publisher Sega in 2006 and became part of Sega Europe. In addition to its work on Football Manager, the studio has also created a number of other sports-management simulations, including NHL Eastside Hockey Manager and Championship Manager Quiz, and is the former developer of Championship Manager.
Football Manager is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game began its life in 1992 as Championship Manager. However, following the break-up of their partnership with original publishers Eidos Interactive, triggered by the "fiasco" release of CM4 in 2003, Sports Interactive lost the naming rights to Eidos Interactive, but retained the game engine and data and re-branded the game Football Manager with their new publisher Sega.
Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. is a Japanese global holding company and conglomerate formed from the merger of Sega and Sammy Corporation in 2004. Both companies are involved in the amusement industry.
Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE) is an American multinational video game and digital entertainment company of Sony. Jointly established by two subsidiaries in 2016, it primarily operates the PlayStation brand of video game consoles and products. It is also the world's largest company in the video game industry based on its equity investments.
Gremlin Graphics Software Limited, later Gremlin Interactive Limited and ultimately Infogrames Studios Limited was a British software house based in Sheffield, working mostly in the home computer market. Like many software houses established in the 1980s, their primary market was the 8-bit range of computers such as the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Commodore 16 and Commodore 64. The company was acquired by French video game publisher Infogrames in 1999 and was renamed Infogrames Studios in 2000. Infogrames Studios closed down in 2003.
The Sony Corporation of America is the American arm of the Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. Headquartered in New York City, the company manages Sony's business in the United States.
Robert Jeffrey Stelling is an English television presenter. He presented Gillette Soccer Saturday for Sky Sports from 1994 until 2023 and hosted coverage of the Champions League between 2011 and 2015.
Paul Edward Collyer and Oliver Charles Collyer, collectively known as the Collyer brothers, are two British video game designers and programmers. In July 1994, they founded London-based video game developer Sports Interactive, under which they created popular video game franchises of football-based sports games, such as Championship Manager and Football Manager. The Collyer brothers often inserted themselves into their games as below-average players, not good enough to play for even the worst teams.
Football Manager 2005, known as Worldwide Soccer Manager 2005 in North America, is a football management simulation video game for PC Windows and Mac developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. It is the inaugural entry in the new Football Manager series, and was succeeded by Football Manager 2006.
Casey Wasserman is an entertainment executive and sports agent executive who owned the now defunct Arena Football League team the Los Angeles Avengers. He headed the successful Los Angeles bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics and became president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.
Championship Manager is the first game in the Championship Manager series as well as the Football Manager series of association football management simulation games. The game was released on the Amiga and Atari ST in September, 1992 and ported to MS-DOS soon after. The game was written by Paul and Oliver Collyer, the co-founders of Sports Interactive.
Behaviour Interactive Inc. is a Canadian video game developer based in Montreal. The studio is best known for the multiplayer horror game Dead by Daylight.
Football Manager 2009 is a football manager simulation video game. It was released on PC, Mac and PlayStation Portable on 14 November 2008 in Europe and on 18 November 2008 in North America. As in the case of other recent releases in the Football Manager series, the game is sold as Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 in the United States and Canada.
Football Manager 2011 is a football manager simulation video game. It was released for Windows and Mac OS X on 5 November 2010. It was also released for PlayStation Portable on 26 November 2010. A version for iOS was released on 16 December 2010.
Video gaming in the United States is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the country. The American video game industry is the largest video game industry in the world. According to a 2020 study released by the Entertainment Software Association, the yearly economic output of the American video game industry in 2019 was $90.3 billion, supporting over 429,000 American jobs. With an average yearly salary of about $121,000, the latter figure includes over 143,000 individuals who are directly employed by the video game business. Additionally, activities connected to the video game business generate $12.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025 the American gaming industry will reach $42.3 billion while worldwide gaming industry will possibly reach US$270 billion. The United States is one of the nations with the largest influence in the video game industry, with video games representing a significant part of its economy.
The video games sector in South Africa is one of the largest video games markets and Esports scenes in Africa. The video games sector has overtaken the South African market in movies and music in market value and is still rapidly increasing. In 2016 the South African games industry advocacy group, Interactive Entertainment South Africa, stated that the video game market in the country was worth R2.2 billion whilst the domestic games industry was worth R58 million in 2014. A 2021 study by Newzoo and Carry1st estimates that 40% of sub-Saharan Africa's video game playing population were located in South Africa.
Football Manager 2024 is a football management simulation video game developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. It is part of its Football Manager series. It was released on November 6, 2023.