THE MAKING OF MICRO PROSE SOCCER

As football videogames go, there is no doubt Sensible Soccer is up there with the best. It made its stunning debut in 1992, paved the way for Sensible World Of Soccer two years later and often tops polls as the finest rendition of the Beautiful Game to ever grace our screens.

But before Sensible Soccer kicked its way into the premier league of videogames, its developers Jon Hare and Chris Yates worked on another football title: Sensible Soccer. And no, that’s not a mistake. For what became known as MicroProse Soccer in 1988 was also once set to bear the name of its maker Sensible Software – until an offer rolled in that simply couldn’t be refused!

“We were in the process of creating our first football game and we were touting it around a number of publishers,” explains Sensible Software cofounder Jon Hare. “We’d approached companies we were working with at the time like Palace and BT – swerving Ocean because we hadn’t got a lot of money from them for and – and MicroProse ended up bidding for it.” As part of the deal, the publisher wanted to change the name. “They were giving us an advance of £30,000 so, yes, we went with MicroProse for the money. It was quite a jump for us.”