Sports Interactive are looking out for experienced FM gamers to become the assigned researcher for the following teams for future Football Manager games.Vacancies currently exist for the following English clubs:
Accrington Stanley, Braintree Town, Crawley Town, Gillingham, Hartlepool United, Ipswich Town, Lincoln City, Liverpool, Sheffield Wednesday, Stockport County, Torquay United, Wigan Athletic.
REQUIREMENTS
Applicants will have both a huge passion for and extensive knowledge of their club. In fact, you ought to be obsessive about the level of detail that FM can hold for your club in our database, both for the playing and non-playing staff and for the club information such as kits, finances and records. We would expect you to be a season ticket holder (or regular matchgoer) for your club.
We do need that person to follow (or watch, if possible) the reserves and the youth team so that we can accurately simulate those squads' abilities in our game too. We would prefer the researcher to be a local to the town, to be best positioned to attend as many games as possible.
It is also a basic requirement that we would demand that the researcher be an avid FM gamer who understands how the game and the data work.
We would also expect you to understand the inadequacies of your playing and non-playing staff and be sensible about their level of skill. We are NOT looking for someone who will want to use this opportunity to blindly increase the abilities of his club's players.
Appointed researchers must have a basic level of computer skills. They must be capable of downloading zipped files from an ftp internet site and of using those zipped files once saved locally. Also, the appointed researcher must be prepared to contribute to the official SI Data Issues forum as well as be an active member of the SI Researcher Network researcher-only forum (SIREN). With the growth of these forum communities, this is an essential factor.
We would prefer a researcher to be the type who will keep the flow of information coming rather than disappear off our radar for weeks or months.
The role is also about keeping us up to date of all transfers at the club, as well as being sensible about the financial position. In fact, if it is in the database for your club, we want your help to keep it updated! We would expect you to consider yourself THE authority on your club, rather than being a passive observer of them.
TASKS
The task involves giving fair and as-accurate-as-possible ratings to every aspect of each player’s game, including reserves and youth players, as well as identifying the qualities of the non-playing staff such as managers and coaches.
The work involves a thrice-yearly thorough working through of the staff and club data files, using a provided editing package that is simple to use. For the usual winter Data Update, at the end of the season and at the start of the next season, we would expect the researcher to assess the data for his club in this manner.
During the rest of the year, we need to be kept up to date with transfers and contract news, as well as info on the club debts/finances, so that every bit of information that FM uses about your club is as accurate as it can be at all times. It is the task of the researcher to provide the info, and to be up to date with the news from the club.
So, it will be the appointed researcher's call as to how your manager's designated formations, or your first-team goalkeeper's decisions attribute would read in the future Football Manager releases.
We do not pay, unfortunately, though we do provide a free advanced copy of Football Manager, as well as integrate all researchers to our research team. Your reward is knowing that you have helped contribute to the FM series and that your team's data is as accurate as you would like it to be yourself.
Please email dean (at) sigames (dot) com if you are in a position to lend a hand. Your help would be much appreciated.
There are also vacancies for several non-league clubs and level nine divisions as detailed in our Research Vacancies thread on our forums.
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