Case study: SEGA & Sports Interactive FM2010

SEGA & Sports Interactive asked us to research and evaluate the pre-launch version of Football Manager 2010.

Our clients wanted to create a gaming experience that worked for both new and existing fans. FM2010 reached the top of the UK all-formats chart in its debut week and the reviews show that it has met that ambition.
 

The brief

To research and interpret consumer reactions to the updated interaction and navigational system proposed for FM2010 and assist SEGA & Sports Interactive in creating the ultimate gaming experience for its customers.

Sports Interactive is the market leader in football management simulation games. They develop the Football Manager games which are published by SEGA. Football Manager 2009 has been the most successful in the Football Manager series to date and, in May 2009, it was voted the second greatest game ever by Radio 1 listeners.

Following this success, SEGA & Sports Interactive decided to create a major visual overhaul and offer new ways for players to move around and access information for the 2010 edition. The FM series is the most in depth football management game on the market, offering a wealth of tools that create rich simulation of the real game. Their aim was to create a game that was easier for new players to understand without alienating their loyal, existing fan base who were used to the old interface.
 

What we did

Using lab-based research and collaborative team workshops, we offered insight into how the navigational system, screen layouts, game flows and visual design of the user interface were understood and used by both new and existing Football Manager players.

Flow's purpose-built research labs were used to observe the behaviour of a range of users playing unfinished versions of the FM2010 game. These players ranged from experienced FM gamers to football fans that had never played any game in the series. Members of the SEGA & Sports Interactive design and development team whole-heartedly engaged with this usability study and attended the research sessions to give them first-hand experience of seeing gamers' reactions. This proved invaluable in the success of our subsequent collaborative workshops.

Our research was conducted in two stages, the first of which focused on players' ability to understand and navigate around the game - this highlighted which parts they found easy to use and areas where they struggled. We also considered whether new users were able to pick up the game more quickly than in previous versions and how new features impacted players' enjoyment of FM2010.

Using results from this first research phase coupled with detailed discussions with SEGA and Sports Interactive staff at our workshops, we put forward recommendations and solutions for improvements in the navigation, layout, flow and visual design of the game. We worked through ideas together, to ensure that they could be built, and that the users would benefit from these changes. We facilitated the creation of a prioritised list of actions for the design and development team, which also contained feature ideas for future releases of the game.

Sports Interactive used our findings to make changes to the game and our second round of research focused on validating the improved designs and uncovering any new issues.
 

The results

Our usability findings and recommendations have helped to make FM2010 an improved and more accessible game. It has won consistently favourable reviews from the games industry including a metascore® of 88 and a user score of 9.3.
 

SEGA say:

“You have helped us validate new ways of making the genre-leading Football Manager game accessible to a wider audience, without detracting from its depth and realism.”

Max de Vries, Executive Producer for Sports, SEGA

“One of the features we're most proud of is the intuitive tab system, based on extensive consumer feedback and usability studies, which allows you to access all areas of FM2010 quickly and easily.”

Miles Jacobson, Studio Director, Sports Interactive.