Football Manager 2013 beta 'not happening', pre-order access teased

Football Manger 2013 isn't getting an open beta, developer Sports Interactive has told VG247, but it is getting a mysterious new form of pre-order early access. The studio hopes that the method will prove so successful that other studios swill adopt it.

Sports Interactive's Miles Jacobson told VG247, "We've got a beta that goes on anyway - both with some hardcore and some less-hardcore people - who've been playing the game for a few weeks. I'm absolutely amazed that nothing has leaked, so if any of them are reading this: thank you, I love you all."

"We've had a wide variety of people looking at it, and testers in the studio as well. So we're getting good feedback, but the problem with open betas is that we get too overwhelmed with the same people saying the same thing."

"I would say though is 'watch this space', because there's something that we're tying to pull off at the moment preorder-wise which we havent got nailed yet - hence we haven't announced it yet."

"But we are doing our best to make something that will let a few more people see the game earlier than they would normally be able to. We'll start talking about that -hopefully in a few weeks - then we can reveal all."

"It's something that - if we do pull it off - we hope that every games company will do the same thing. There's no reason why they can't."

Football Manager 2013 was officially announced yesterday by way of a debut trailer that you can watch here. The game will also include 900 new features over last year's edition.

Our full Football Manager 2013 interview will go live today.