Football Manager 2009 Is Causing Fatal Errors and Raising Nerds' Blood Pressure

Want to hear a joke? Okay, here goes...

Q: How do you invoke the wrath of thousands of footy nerds?

A: By creating a faulty installation process to Football Manager 2009!

Okay, maybe that's a bit obtuse, but trust me it's quite amusing. You see, football nerds (yes, yours truly included) are quite a dedicated bunch, and the Football Manager franchise is responsible for hours and days and weeks and years of time spent staring at a computer screen. For instance, check out the Guardian's list of the game's great players. See? I told you there was great dedication.

As a matter of fact, the U.S version -- titled Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009, I guess so as to not confuse the dumb Americans -- is released today! (Feel free to send us free copies, SI Games.) The new version of the game features a new 3D match engine, the usual highly detailed play and, most importantly, a brand spanking new installation process meant to protect against piracy. And the unintended consequence of that new installation process? After the jump check out some of the calmer comments from amazon.co.uk...

Here are just a few examples of the spleen being spilled on the Internets...

what a shambles!,
I just feel the need to echo some other posts. The installation is hell, it goes through a program called STEAM which in my experience is absolutely useless. Got the game this morning and still trying to get the damn thing to play! the servers are crashing or just generally useless. As a football manager addict I am bitterly disappointed and I will NEVER buy another SI game. they have apparently done this to prevent hackers and people getting earlier versions onto the web, but all they seem to have done is penalized loyal fans.
Apologies for the rant but I feel compelled to share my disgust. Maybe by the time they have prepared fm2010 and whatever ridiculous installation system they can think up, I might have got the game to work.
Regards.

i want a refund,
Having read other reviews,I think Amazon should offer a refund and free return of FOOTBALL MANAGER 2009!I have wasted 3hours of my life trying to activate this eagerly awaited game,but have had no success.So,what now? Anyone have any ideas other than a refund en masse!!

When will they realise?!?!?!?!?!?,
In this day and age the vast majority of people have two options when deciding to install and play a PC based game; to buy a fully licensed retail version or to obtain an illegal cracked version.
I have noticed that 6 hours after the official release time there is already a fully working cracked version available for illegal download. Why on earth do developers decide to put such restrictive and cumbersome security measures on their games when they MUST know that someone WILL circumvent them? All they serve to do is punish and frustrate the people who are willing to buy a licensed copy. When will they realise that it is more important to provide a game that is easy to install and use for the people who buy it than it is to frustrate the piraters and crackers!
With this security system they have managed to frustrate the piraters for about 4 hours at the expense of ruining the initial gaming experience for thousands upon thousands of legitimate buyers. . . BRAVO!!

Just confirming what everyone has already said....,
I spent six hours trying to install and activate it, once installed it failed to run and crashed everytime, when I requested help I was told that it was because my machine was faulty/wasn't good enough and that I didn't know enough to get it working....
If someone who has a degree in IT and 8+ Yrs experience as a Sys Admin and programmer can't get it working on a machine that they built themselves...then I don't know who will...
Don't buy it, if you have and it doesn't work - demand a refund, this product is faulty!

Yup, pretty much goes on from there. But, really, despite all the aggravation, I'd still be happy to waste my life trying to sign Kaka to Arsenal, or get Exeter City into the Champion's League, or sign Per Skjelbred to Norwich, or... wait, shit, it crashed again!