As in the real World Cup, the tournament is divided into 5 steps:
- Round One will have 8 groups of 4 teams and the best 2 teams will qualify for the next round
- Round Two will have the last 16 teams
- Round Three will be the Quarter Finals
- Round Four the Semi Finals
- Round Five the Finals
This will enable each player to take part in at least 3 matches, even if the player is out after the first round and up to 7 matches provided that the “manager” qualifies for the finals.
The next step will be to choose among the best 50 national football players to select the 23 players who will play during the World Cup. The player can also ask the computer to auto-select players (those who are the most famous in a particular country).
The manager will have to prepare the team for each match:
- the selection of the line-up (16 players, including substitutes)
- the strategy and tactics (play style, substitution rules, etc…)
The football players will need special attention by the virtual manager . This means taking care of them and taking notes on all the details. For example, injured players can be healed thanks to physiotherapists, if a player’s stamina has been reduced following a hard match, they can stay on the bench, etc.
Thanks to a user-friendly navigation through 3D screens, the World Cup gamer can access any information to target a victory: the football player’s abilities (10 different criteria), all their statistics (goals, average ranking, form, moral, etc…), as well as all the tournament results (match reports, top 20 scorers, disciplinary points, etc…).
World Cup Manager offers great interactivity thanks to an internal message system through which the managers can communicate and even receive messages on their personal e-mail.
To be sure to manage their favourite team or to practice before playing, players can also create their own single player game. They can play up to 7 matches in one hour, since they control the pace of the game, whereas they will play 1 or 2 matches per day at fixed hours in the multiplayer games.
The game is available in English, French, Swedish and Danish, and will be soon translated in German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese languages.
The paying model
Like Formula Y and Y-SoccerSim, the other multi-player games developed by Reality-Game, World Cup Manager is accessible via paying access codes. Players can buy them either through a premium phone call or with their credit card. The tariff starts from €1 to €1,6 per game, whether one or several codes are bought.
For Internet sites that wish to offer payment services, Reality-Game offers an original solution: affiliation, which will allow the affiliate to earn money on every visitor who buys World Cup Manager codes. This is already in place on the web sites of Reality Game’s current partners: TF1, Vizzavi, Club-Internet, Wanadoo, Goa, Football365 (France), Eurosport, Zonejeux (Europe), Ananzi (South Africa), Ixquick (Netherlands), Terravista (Portugal), F1Welt (Germany)…
About Reality-Game
Online since February 2001, Reality-Game is the Internet specialist in multi-player sports management games. It develops and produces playful content for the Internet that allows players to virtually manage a sports team... to challenge players worldwide without the need for a CD-Rom or timely downloading.
Reality-Game offers its games as key marketing tools for Internet sites looking for paying services, attractive site content and seeking regular and faithful web visitors. Formula Y and Y-SoccerSim are already available on leading web sites throughout Europe (ISP, media, games and sports portals).
Most recently, Reality-Game received the label “most innovative company” from ANVAR (French National Agency for Innovation).