| Is Søren Really Number Two...? |
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| Written by IFK Norrköping |
| Saturday, 09 January 2010 01:42 |
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Well according to his club ID he is, make of that what you will... Next up is the guy who´s the reason why all of us are staring at a green screen for hours every day....Søren
1. Who´s Søren? Just turned 27 old male living with gf in copenhagen. went to uni a few years studying economics and computer science. work out a few times a week, play online poker, drink and listen (sometimes try to create house music). 2. How much time do you spend on TM every day/week working on the game or your own club? Its roughly two thirds of my awake time. Every day (unless Im on vacation or stuff like that). 3. TM has gone a long way already, when did you start to work on the game, a long time before it was launched? We started just drawing stuff for the match engine early 2005. we started more seriously mid 2005 when stuff suddenly took pace. 4. Are you happy with the progress so far? Somewhat. I actually think we got the best of the huge online managergames (compared to hattrick, managerzone, soccer etc). I am very proud of that. That being said everything thats wrong with this game (including that we havent reached a million active players) annoys me quite much. Like bugs, performance, pro conversion rate, manager amount etc etc. Im never really quite happy and able to lean back and be glad. 5. How big do you think TM can be if you look 4-5 years ahead? I really hope we can reach a million users. This would require that we are able to convert more to pro so we can up the advertising. But in 4-5 years I actually hope we got 2d matches and stuff that will make us able to compete with football manager. Thats the big dream, and I dont think its unrealistic. 6. I always get the feeling you want TM to be a game you want to play yourself. Some will disagree but to me that feels more important for you than making as much money as possible, is that true? Well thats true to some degree. it has been a huge motivation for me to work the first years that I enjoy playing the game. Especially since its first like half a year to a year ago that the money involved in this wasnt neglectable any more. (Except from the huge amount of money we borrowed to start it up). But its more important for me that the game is huge, I really want it to be the one place you show your managerskills. Like if people say they have won something in a football manager game and get the reply "try doing that in trophy manager". That would be grand. 7. Lack of communication is a big issue, is that something you will address better in the future when sudden bugs appears to calm people down? No. I know this sounds arrogant, but I would like to see one other place with just 5% of our communication. i spend like 3 hours pr day on the game and forum also answering pms and bug hunting (not trying to fix them, but finding peoples reports). I would rather use my time fixing issues. We have gotten Casteddu as a master teamster to improve the communication but theres only just so much to communicate before everything turns into a big bureaucracy with people getting information from me to post in announcements etc. 8. The new ME is now up and running, happy with it so far? I´m very happy with the results in general and the fact that we got it launched so easy. I know for you it has seemed quite chaotic, but the amount of new released code this season has been bigger than all the other code together. Its the biggest release in trophy manager history, even bigger than when the game was released. There are still hickups, we struggle a bit with the ban reductions, and need to add a few things like substitutions after cards (also tweak the penalty on cards). But im very happy with the less randomness after the first rounds. Also the new engine structure gives us many posiblities to improve it easy in the future. Like adding conditional orders and other fun stuff. 9. Made any early tweaks yet and how closely do you follow how it performs? Yes injuries and cards was reduced a wee bit. I plan to make the engine 5-10% more random again, and also improve the punishment for recieving a red card. 10. Sometimes I’m fed up with the moaning in the forums, you as owners do you feel like packing it in at times when it’s all over the place? No comments. When I can muster the energy I always try to look at the moaning like people see our game as highly professional and expect us to be that. Thats a good sign of the general game development at least. 11. Any things you have regret over the years that you didn’t do or actually did do to the game but maybe too early? Hmm thats a tough question. I think all the years have been a huge learning process for us, and I cant really see what we could have done differently because we would be without the knowledge. I had to learn stuff like marketing, databases, php, java, webserverconfiguration etc etc. It couldnt really be done much different. When I look back from then to now I am very happy with the what we have learned, and I feel I have an extremely skilled and dedicated team behind me in Thomas, Armann and Woody (and Niklas on trophy hockey too of course). 12. Early on you said your own finances took a hit thanks to TM, a lot better now and any hint on how stable TM is as a bussiness? Its getting a bit better. My own account is in zero, so i estimate I am roughly 40.000-60.000 euro down compared to if I have had a job matching my qualities. I wouldnt own a part of this game with all its potential though. Still have quite a debt for starting TM though (the company so its not my personal luckily). 13. Lots of bugs this season, you thinking of strenghtening the backroom staff in the future to sort things out properly? Yes if people would buy TM Pro. 14. Your own club then, can´t complain about your start so far in the Danish league? I lost my first match so I can. Its more than what many other people complain about. 15. Who´s your biggest threat in Denmark? Well I would have thought it was Uistot and Goldmember, but this season seems to prove otherwise. Uistot is not the best of managers and luckily harms his own team quite often. (I wonder when he will spot the weak part in his team now :P) Ah just kidding Uistot <3. I havent really had much time to look at my opponents. 16. You going all out in the CC, league and Danish Cup or do you have any priorities? Hrm, havent thought that long so far. Ill most likely get punished in all later on cause my squad is very narrow. 17. You been here since day one, is it possible for a new Danish club starting today to go all the way to the top in the future? Yes. Next season for example we will get Daniel (trophyhunters) up to the superliga. He fought all his way up. Its very important for us to find a reasonable balance between advantage over time and implementation of your manager skills. Think we have hit it quite good. 18. What’s your best moment in TM so far? Was it a special game, season or a certain youth pull? (clubwise) Hrm. It must be when I pulled Duelund & Thiesen. I always get nostalgic when looking at those players. 19. Your best moment as one of the creators of the game? 1) When our investors said the would borrow us the money to get started (by far) 2) When we suddenly boomed in the danish market in the beta season where we had anticipated a total amount of managers like 50-200, but suddenly got 5000 in a few days. 3) A year ago when we decided to remove free features and it actually worked beyond expectation in increasing our pro sales. (It was good because it was somewhat of a breaking point in the TM future (remember we only had 3500 pro users then)). 20. Anything else you want to add before we say goodbye? No. Thanks a lot and good luck both with your club and the game in the future. |
| Last Updated ( Saturday, 09 January 2010 01:49 ) |
