Sports Interactive is celebrating Pancake Day, its self-admitted favorite day of the year, by acknowledging the record-breaking performance of Football Manager 2014 and offering the game on sale.
The soccer management simulator, which just received a huge patch and transfer window roster update, has been sitting on top of the United Kingdom charts for an amazing 18 straight weeks. Sports Interactive and SEGA are offering Football Manager 2014 on sale today for only $17 on Steam to celebrate. That's a pretty great deal at 66% off its usual $49.99 price tag.
The mobile version of the game for smartphones is on sale as well for $4.99 through iTunes, Google Play, and the Amazon App Store.
The game is hugely popular all over the globe- not too surprising given that it simulates the world's most popular sport. The franchise perhaps doesn't have the most mainstream name recognition in the United States (where football of the pigskin variety rules and if people think soccer, they think FIFA), but among fans and in the rest of the world it's one of the most highly anticipated annual titles.
Football Manager 2013 was pirated a whopping ten million times. Sports Interactive was reasonable regarding this number, acknowledging that it does not equate that number to lost sales.
It might not have lost them much potential profit (though certainly some), but it does show the global appeal of the game: China, Turkey, and Portugal were the top three pirating nations. The game certainly sells in the United States, even if it's not quite as popular here, and if you have any interest I recommend looking into it- I have hundreds of hours invested in the games myself.