Championship Manager 5

Did You Know?

• All three console versions were developed by Gusto Games.
• The console versions contain many of the same bugs and data errors as the PC version.

Early difficulties

The planned Macintosh version was also scrapped before release, further benefiting Football Manager, which shipped on a dual-format CD-ROM for both PC and Mac. When it finally arrived, the game was plagued by an unusually large number of bugs. Even a downloadable patch released on day one did not stop many players from finding it unplayable. Major problems included a broken transfer system and an unrealistic match engine.

Perhaps the most damaging issue was the unreliable player database. Previous Championship Manager titles had built their databases "for the fans by the fans," a key strength of the brand. For CM5, Beautiful Game Studios hired a professional firm to create much of the database, which apparently failed despite the in-house team's efforts. Other missing features soon emerged, such as the confirmed hotseat multiplayer mode and player histories. Two subsequent patches have been released that make significant improvements to the game.