Championship Manager Italia - failed spin-off of classic ChampMan

 

Championship Manager Italia was published soon after Championship Manager 93/94 as sort-of spin-off: the game used the same interface and engine, but instead of English divisions it was simulating Italian league, Serie A and Serie B. Since Italy at that point had the best league in the world it was a smart marketing move to give users chance to play the best football manager game in reality of best league in the world, but... well, it did not work as well as should have.

 

The program is inferior to the original game because the creators simply did not think through the basic concept of the project. Here we have only two divisions fully simulated (Serie A and Serie B), rest of the divisions are treated as non-league, which means only about 40 clubs are simulated. Just like in original Championship Manager there is limit of 26 players per club and taking under consideration that player with expired contract is still part of the team, the squads were filling up really quickly and caused huge problems.

 

 

Once you buy a player it is almost impossible to get rid of him since there are no lower divisions to buy those that can't find place in top clubs. Even when their contracts run out they stick around in the club and there is no way to remove them, so you are looking at the game that after 2-3 seasons is pretty much stuck and almost none transfers take place - you have to wait for players to retire before free slots are available.

Another attraction that backfired was the foreign players list - you can buy the top players in the world, which is great, but at the same time it only increases the pressure on the free slots, since the foreign clubs almost never make transfer offers themselves. Of course you can train players in reserve / youth team, but again - there are no slots so you could promote them anyway, so... 

Championship Manager Italia is another example of how rushing things in game market only leads to giant cock-ups and disappointments. It is hard to believe that established published like Domark did not spent any time actually testing if the game is playable, so after just 2 seasons it usually isn't anymore.

Championship Manager Italia was a project with limited potential, being just copy of very successful game, but still it was all wasted due to simple mistake in game mechanics.