Motorsport Manager is a racing management-simulation strategy video game developed by British video game developer, Playsport Games. The game was released on iOS in August 2014 and Android in 2015. A desktop version of the game was published by Sega on macOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems in November 2016.
The player can begin (and later have the option to continue) a career that places them in control of a motorsport racing team. When starting a new career, the user can customise the team name and colour, before selecting a racing series to enter. There are four tiers of racing series, where each successive tier can be unlocked by winning each respective racing series per tier once. The game features a hints & tips tutorial system, represented by a sprite textbox, written in the character of a moustached man named Nigel (as a homage to former British racing car driver, Nigel Mansell), who provides first-time advice throughout the game. The user also has the ability to invest into a young driver development programme, appointing head engineers and drivers, improving their team headquarters as well as developing their car to get an edge over the competition, all of which can vary in quality depending on investment level. Cash required for investment into such things can be acquired by signing sponsorship deals and completing challenges appointed by sponsors to earn bonus payments, which may vary in quality, difficulty, quantity and contract duration depending on the success and popularity of the user's racing team, with a secondary method being through earning money at the end of the racing season based on the Team Championship scores.[3][4]
The game also includes a random events system, which may provide choices to the player that can compromise the player's popularity as a manager with one group for the sake of another, or it may provide optional upgrade choices to the three research segments in the game at the cost of cash: Manufacturing - which determines car reliability and tyre wear - Design - which generally affects all aspects of the car - and Aerodynamics - which affects car downforce and acceleration - all of which can trigger at any time during or at the end of a racing season. The user's choices behind-the-scenes ultimately affect their team's racing performances, which is pivotal to success in the game, and serves as the main gameplay element of Motorsport Manager.
There are over a dozen race tracks featured in-game that share the likeness of their real-life counterparts, all of which are split into the respective racing series in the game. Each track used in a racing series roster is split into two parts - a one-time qualifying session and the final race, the team's qualifying performance determines their starting positions in the final race. Challenges set by sponsors may offer the player a considerable sum of cash if they achieve a set position in the leaderboards, which can prove useful to apply any changes to their team in order to give a better chance of success on race day.
Exclusive to the mobile version, micro-transactions that supply customers with set amounts of cash can also accelerate the rate at which their team can improve, reducing the time and challenge required to develop a fully-fledged racing team in the game.
About the PC version, Eurogamer wrote that "It's all been retooled thoughtfully for its debut on PC, Mac and Linux [compared to the original mobile version] - this isn't the mobile game with a few bits of extra bodywork thrown on, and instead is a totally new beast, built from the ground up."[7] Largely similar to the mobile version of the game, the player has the option to either create their own racing team or has the additional option to join a fictional motorsport racing team..mw-parser-output .amboxborder:1px solid #a2a9b1;border-left:10px solid #36c;background-color:#fbfbfb;box-sizing:border-box.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+link+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+style+.ambox,.mw-parser-output .ambox+.mw-empty-elt+link+link+.amboxmargin-top:-1pxhtml body.mediawiki .mw-parser-output .ambox.mbox-small-leftmargin:4px 1em 4px 0;overflow:hidden;width:238px;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:88%;line-height:1.25em.mw-parser-output .ambox-speedyborder-left:10px solid #b32424;background-color:#fee7e6.mw-parser-output .ambox-deleteborder-left:10px solid #b32424.mw-parser-output .ambox-contentborder-left:10px solid #f28500.mw-parser-output .ambox-styleborder-left:10px solid #fc3.mw-parser-output .ambox-moveborder-left:10px solid #9932cc.mw-parser-output .ambox-protectionborder-left:10px solid #a2a9b1.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-textborder:none;padding:0.25em 0.5em;width:100%.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-imageborder:none;padding:2px 0 2px 0.5em;text-align:center.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-imagerightborder:none;padding:2px 0.5em 2px 0;text-align:center.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-empty-cellborder:none;padding:0;width:1px.mw-parser-output .ambox .mbox-image-divwidth:52pxhtml.client-js body.skin-minerva .mw-parser-output .mbox-text-spanmargin-left:23px!important@media(min-width:720px).mw-parser-output .amboxmargin:0 10%
On 31 January 2017 the game received modding support via Steam Workshop allowing players to download custom made mods made by the community and change the database of the game to better reflect the real motorsport world (eg) World Motorsport Championship - Formula One Asia Pacific Super Cup - Formula Two and European Racing Series - Formula Three. It also allows players to import custom car models and more via the game's engine Unity.
The version for Nintendo Switch was released on March 14, 2019. In the Switch version, which is the console debut for the series, you can build a team with three car classes and compete in nine tiers of racing.[13]
Pocket Gamer gave Motorsport Manager Mobile 3, released in July 2018, a 4.5/5 score and a positive review, saying the changes between 2 and 3 were significant.[21] In February 2020, Tech Radar named Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 one of the best Android games of the year. The publication called it "a big leap on from the relatively simplistic original Motorsport Manager Mobile."[22] Motorsport Manager 3 was also given a positive review by Kotaku, saying the presentation was interesting and easy to navigate.[23] While Vice praised gameplay, it did say the game made it too easy to succeed, saying "without that risk frustration, that little taste of sacrifice and the threat of encroaching despair, it's never feels quite like racing."[24] Top Gear called MMM3 "streamlined and intuitive." The review also called it "far less involved game than the PC version of Motorsport Manager, better suited to bus rides, train journeys and studiously ignoring your family by the pool on holiday."[25]
The game received positive reviews after release. Eurogamer.net's Martin Robinson reports the lack of the ability to save or copy racing set-ups, and writes: "Such an approachable veneer disguises an otherwise complex, sometimes cruel and a little too often abstruse experience. Managing the strategies of two cars - and micromanaging each driver to boot - can prove to be a taxing task, and while it's satisfying to execute the perfect strategy there aren't quite enough tools at your disposal to balance out the frustration that often accompanies raceday. The feedback you're given by drivers is a little too obscure, the ability to read lap times and deltas a little too sparse to make chasing the perfect set-up anything other than a dark art. (...) Motorsport Manager's a couple of tweaks away from greatness, then, but it's far from a disappointment."[28]
If, like me, you only have a passing knowledge of the way a real life motorsport team functions, you'll be thankful for the in-depth tutorial. It leads you through the first couple of races with a great deal of assistance, and teaches the basics of scouting new drivers, handling the egos of the ones you already have on your books, and upgrading both your cars and your headquarters. Essential though it may be for newcomers, the tutorial fluffs its first lines, forcing you to play through an entire race before introducing the planning and preparation that make up most of the game. Denying the player the ability even to balance their car on that first outing dooms them to a somewhat tedious opening ten minutes or so, that has ended in disappointment every time I've tried it.
Because I grew up reading 2000AD, I fear the law, so my cars are always built strictly within the rules. One of Motorsport Manager's best features is the changing nature of those rules though, and the way that you can influence them to make as uneven a playing field as possible. There are loads of different regulations for each of the three racing divisions and at the end of a season, you can exert influence to try and have them changed to suit your style, your drivers, and your designs, Whether that means locking down parts so they can't be custom-built, or changing rules around refueling or qualification.
I was terrible to begin with, even though I started as manager of a team that had low expectations in the lowest tier so as to make the learning curve slightly less tricky to navigate than Paddock Hill Bend. My mistakes usually came on race day, indecisiveness causing me to make pit stops too late or too early as I reacted to the behaviour of the other teams and tried to copy it rather than forming a strategy of my own.
I'm unlikely to be hooked on Motorsport Manager for the rest of the year, as will be the case with Football Manager, but that's mostly because I don't particularly care for real life racing. It's far from impenetrable if you don't understand the sport itself though and the pit stops are a more immediately responsive tactical instruction than anything in Football Manager, which gives a good sense of direct control. Success is hard-won, a process of long hours developing headquarters and parts, as well as finding the right staff, but failure can be the result of a momentary loss of control or courage.
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