Kevin Toms (born 22, April 1957 in

Paignton Paignton ( ) is a seaside town on the coast of Tor Bay in Devon, England. Together with Torquay and Brixham it forms the borough of Torbay which was created in 1998. The Torbay area is a holiday destination known as the English Riviera. Paignt ...

) is a British video game designer who founded

Addictive Games Addictive Games was a UK video game publisher in the 1980s and early 1990s. It is best known for the ''Football Manager'' series of games created by company founder Kevin Toms. The company was originally based in Milton Keynes, England and lat ...

and created the original ''

Football Manager ''Football Manager'' (also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'' in North America from 2004 to 2008) is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game beg ...

'', a simulation game released in the early 1980s. It included a portrait of his bearded face on publicity material and cassette covers.

Life and career

Toms worked as a professional

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

for large companies in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He developed

games A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such ...

in his spare time, taking over a year to create the original versions of his ''Football Manager'' game for the

TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...

and

ZX81 The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost ...

. Toms began selling these versions by mail order in 1982 through advertisements placed in computer magazines using the name Addictive Games.Interview with Kevin for the blog The Ball is Round
/ref> The game became a big success, particularly after being ported to the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

, and began to be stocked by high street stores. When the stores ordered thousands of copies, Toms quit his day job to run Addictive Games. ''Football Manager'' was ported to a wide variety of systems (there were sixteen different versions by 1987). Between 1982 and 1987, Toms ran the company which published a number of games by other programmers as well as new games from Toms, ''

Software Star ''Software Star'' is a 1985 game released by Kevin Toms for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. Gameplay This is essentially a text-based management game. The player's task is to manage a software house, create new games, manage pub ...

'' and ''

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

''. Toms then sold Addictive to

Prism Leisure Corporation Prism Leisure Corporation Plc was a distribution and publishing company that primarily focused on reissues and compilations, often at low prices. The company was located in Enfield, Middlesex, United Kingdom, History The company was founded in ...

, although he still created two more versions of ''Football Manager'' for them; ''

Football Manager 2 ''Football Manager 2'' is the second game in the ''Football Manager'' series. Gameplay Gameplay is very similar to the first game, with mostly text based screens (although they are more colorful than the original and usually contain at least ...

'' and ''

Football Manager World Cup Edition ''Football Manager'' is a video game series published and developed by Addictive Games, the label set up by the game's creator Kevin Toms. The first game was released in 1982.

''. Toms returned to corporate work and moved to

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

to work as a software architect for large companies. By 2018, he had relocated to Canada. Toms currently resides in the Netherlands. Circa 2003, Toms created an online football management game called ''New Zealand Football Championship Manager'' based on New Zealand's national league and was working on a new football manager style game for the iPhone. In August 2015, Toms began rewriting the original 1982 ''Football Manager'' game for mobile devices after pitching the idea to his followers, drawing on his work experience of business app development. The new game, ''Football Star* Manager'' (KTFSM), was released in 2016 to an overwhelmingly positive response from buyers – many of them former players of the original ''Football Manager'' series. KTFSM was first released on iOS and Android; since its release, the game has been ported to macOS, Windows 10 and Amazon Fire. The game is as near to the original ''Football Manager'' as you can get on the new platforms. In January 2022, Kevin launched a Kickstarter to fund a new version of his Football Manager game, ''Football New Manager'', to mark the 40th anniversary of the original game

Releases

* ''

'' (1982) * ''

'' (1985) * ''

'' (1987) * ''

'' (1988) * '' Football Manager: World Cup Edition'' (1990) * ''New Zealand Football Championship Manager'' (2003) * ''Kevin Toms Football Star* Manager'' (2016) * ''Kevin Toms World Football Cup'' (2018) * ''Kevin Toms Football New Manager'' (2022)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Toms, Kevin 1957 births British video game designers British video game programmers Living people