Gerald Koehler
Gerald Köhler (born March 30, 1969 in Lauda-Königshofen ) is a German game designer and is considered to be one of the most influential figures in the genre of football management simulations in German-speaking countries.
Career
His career in this area began in 1992 at Ascon (from October 1996 to April 2009 Ascaron GmbH), where he developed the first part of the Anstoss series and the first two sequels as the creative head . Kick-off is the longest-running series in the football management genre to date and celebrated enormous sales successes in Germany in the 1990s.
In April 2000 he and Anstoss chief programmer Rolf Langenberg switched to the US publisher Electronic Arts and set up an internal studio in its German branch in Aachen . The studio developed a new football management series, which made its debut with the Football Manager 2002 in autumn 2001 and quickly reached the mark of 100,000 copies sold in Germany.
By autumn 2005, several upgrades to the Football Manager series appeared, which over the years has developed into one of the most successful computer game series developed in Germany.
At the beginning of 2006, Köhler founded the independent development studio Bright Future together with Petr Vlcek and Thomas Schwan . This emerged 100% from the internal Electronic Arts studio, in which Köhler had been employed since 2000, and continues work on the Football Manager series. Thanks to the close partnership, the team can continue to use EA's licenses and FIFA game engine.
In autumn 2006 the first title appeared under the new flag with the name Football Manager 07 . This title continued the success of the series and within a few weeks 150,000 copies were sold in German-speaking countries. A few months later, the developer added the extension Football Manager 07: Extension. A similarly big success came a year later with the Football Manager 08 . EA publishes the sales figures of the respective version regularly on the website of the game.
Version 14 of the Football Manager series was discontinued in 2013 . Gerald Köhler announced the end on the official website. This setting was accompanied by strong criticism of version 14.
He left Bright Future in April 2018.
In June 2018 Gerald Köhler founded the development studio Winning Streak Games together with Rolf Langenberg and Dirk Winter.
Ludography
- Kick-off (concept and game design, programming, 1993 , Amiga , DOS )
- Kick-off 2 (Concept and Game Design, Programming, 1997 , Windows )
- Kick-off 3 (concept and game design, programming, 2000 , Windows )
- Ballerburg (Original Concept, 2001 , Windows )
- Football Manager 2002 (Game Design, 2001 , Windows )
- Football Manager 2003 (Game Design, 2002 , Windows )
- Football Manager 2004 (Game Design, 2003 , Windows , PlayStation 2 , Xbox )
- Football Manager 2005 (Game Design, 2004 , Windows , PlayStation 2 , Xbox )
- Football Manager 06 (Game Design, 2005 , Windows )
- Football Manager 07 (Game Design, 2006 , Windows )
- Football Manager 07: Extension (Game Design, 2006 , Windows )
- Football Manager 08 (Game Design, 2007 , Windows )
- Football Manager 09 (Game Design, 2008 , Windows )
- Knigge - Playing for good behavior (Game Design, 2009 , Nintendo DS)
- Football Manager 10 (Game Design, 2009 , Windows )
- Football Fan - The Game (Game Design 2010 , Browser)
- Football Manager 11 (Game Design, 2010 , Windows )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Press release (Electronic Arts) about the establishment of Bright Future. Archived from the original on April 19, 2006 ; Retrieved March 31, 2006 .
- ↑ Winning Streak Games: Gerald Köhler founds a new studio. In: gameswirtschaft.de. June 8, 2018, accessed August 30, 2018 .
Web links
- Interview at FIFPlay
- Interview in Galore Magazin ( Memento from May 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Interview on FAZ.net
- Interview at GBase
- Interview at reject
- Gerald Koehler's homepage
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Koehler, Gerald |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German game designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 30, 1969 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lauda-Koenigshofen |