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''PC Fútbol'' was a series of
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
management simulation games developed by Spanish developers
Dinamic Multimedia Dinamic Multimedia was a Spanish software house and publisher created in 1993 which was created after the bankruptcy of Dinamic Software in 1992 by some of its former members. After having released several titles, they filed for bankruptcy in ...
. It was one of the big successes in the Spanish PC market, spawning several titles from 1992 until the studio's closure in 2001. The series was later revived in 2004 by developers Gaelco and there were two more releases before the series final demise.


History

''PC Fútbol'' was a significant hit in Spain; '' Marca''s Marcos Anton wrote that it "became an absolute legend of the genre". Its first installment sold 7,000 copies in Spain, while ''PC Fútbol 7'' reached domestic sales of 360,000 copies. The games were always sold at a budget price, usually in kiosks, and were always fiercely championed by the local press. Unlike most other
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
sims at the time, the game (since 2.0) allowed to take both player (dubbed ''arcade'') and managerial approach to the game, a formula that was not used in mainstream games until ''
Total Club Manager 2004 ''FIFA Manager'' is an association football series of sports management games published by Electronic Arts. The games were developed by the German studio Bright Future and EA Sports. The game was called ''Total Club Manager'' until the name change ...
'' allowed
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owners to actually play the game (which in its turn was modeled after
Ascaron Ascaron Entertainment was a video game developer based in Germany. Founded as Ascon by Holger Flöttmann in 1991 and later renamed in October 1996 due to the possible confusion with the Swiss company Ascom (company), Ascom AG, the company produce ...
's Anstoss series). Former
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player and Spanish television
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, Michael Robinson was the face and voice of the game, and most of the season analysis inside the updates was signed by him. The game was one of the first licensed games - by the ''
Liga de Fútbol Profesional Liga (Spanish and Portuguese: ''League'') or LIGA may refer to: Sports Basketball * Liga ACB, men's professional basketball league in Spain * Liga Femenina de Baloncesto, women's professional basketball league in Spain Football Latin Amer ...
'' - which meant that the developers were able to use real player and team names. One of the most distinguishable features of the series were the updates; the game had a built-in calendar and league tracking utility and so owners of the game could connect to Dinamic's servers and update their data monthly. Some of the data (like photos) could not be fit inside a
floppy A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...
, and data packs were made available in gaming magazines or via direct request. As the
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replaced the floppy versions (around 1996), there was no need for additional data packs, but there was still a final update (released in the end of the season) that would complete all league tracking data and Robinsons' comments. The later games (2000 and 2001) were plagued by bugs, and although the updates assured a less problematic gaming experience, it had worn some of the userbase, who could finally have fully licensed alternatives from
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and
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(FIFA/Stars and Championship Manager, respectively). By mid-2001 ''PC Fútbol 2001'' support ceased, and Dinamic closed shortly after. A complete modification ("
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") of the game was released shortly after, showing a still dedicated fan-base. A total of nine titles in the main series were released, the first simply numbered, and the final two ''2000'' and ''2001'', and sold around 1 million copies altogether. In 2004,
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acquired the rights to the name and released ''PC Fútbol 2005'', developed by Gaelco. It continued the "tradition" of bug-ridden games of the early games, and although it sold very well in December 2004 (second only to ''
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''), most fans were disappointed with it. After numerous attempts to revive the successful series, in 2023 the launch of the game on PC was announced, but in 2024 the pre-sale was suspended amidst much controversy. In 2024, the release of PC Fútbol 8, expected on April 30 on Steam was confirmed, but on 25 April, it was postponed to 17th May. On May 15, the release was postponed again to June 7, but on May 20, another email from "Una partida más" moved the release date forward to May 27. By July 24, 2024, the game had not been released, leading to considerable controversy.


Other titles

There were a number of titles released outside the main series: ''PC Calcio'' and ''PC Premier'' focused on the
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and English football championships, and ''PC Clausura'', aimed at Argentine market. Before the Euro'96, ''PC Selección'96'', gave players the control of the Spanish team for the same tournament.


PC Fútbol abroad

Since the first versions of the game were only available in
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...
, the series market was limited, but the success was wide. In 1994 Dinamic Multimedia decided to reach the Italian and Argentine markets and published PC Calcio and PC Fútbol Clausura. Both were successful and followed by other versions each year. In 1996,
Gremlin A gremlin is a mischievous fictional creature invented at the beginning of the 20th century to originally explain malfunctions in aircraft, and later in other machinery, processes, and their operators. Depictions of these creatures vary widely. ...
approached the Spanish company to develop new titles on their highly regarded ''
Premier Manager ''Premier Manager'' is a series of a football management simulation video games started in 1992. Published by Gremlin Interactive, it was first developed by Realms of Fantasy, later passed to Spanish company Dinamic Multimedia. The later games ...
'' series. Three games were released using the PC Fútbol engine, from 1997 to 1999. In 2000, '' EuroLeague Football'', an English oriented version of PC Fútbol 2000 was released, published by Sold-Out Software.


Games

* ''Simulador Profesional de Fútbol'' * ''PC Fútbol 2.0'' * ''PC Fútbol 3.0'' * ''PC Fútbol 4.0'' * '' PC Fútbol 5.0'' * ''PC Fútbol 6.0'' * ''PC Fútbol 7'' * ''PC Fútbol 2000'' * ''PC Fútbol 2001'' * ''PC Fútbol 2005'' * ''PC Fútbol 2006'' * ''PC Fútbol 2007'' * ''pc fútbol 8''


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:PC Futbol Gaelco games Video game franchises Video games developed in Spain Association football video games Europe-exclusive video games