We should probably start with asking you how you started playing CM/FM?

I started playing CM in 1997 with the release of CM 97/98. I had a good friend called Sindre who loved football and therefore CM. I personally did not understand why football could be so popular, but wanted to give it a chance. Therefore he introduced me to the game and actually wrote down a whole paper explaining which attributes were important for attackers, midfielders and so on.
He also had to explain what a corner or a freekick were :)
So - in 1997 i started from quite basics and now I'm probably one of the most known FM-player in Norway.

Do you know other FM-maniacs from Norway?

Yes, most of my friends play FM. Actually, I even managed to get my girlfriend to play it for a while. I have also arranged some FM-lanparties when I was a bit younger. For one of them I invited my whole class and actually 11 of a total of 12 boys did show up as FM-players.
I also have a good contact with my moderators at FM Norge. I have met several of them and I visit (and get visited) them every year.

So overall the Norwegian FM community is quite large and people are close with each other?

Yes, the Norwegian FM-comunity is quite large, but I don't know if it is going to grow so fast in the coming years, because with FM getting more and more complex it's getting harder and harder for new people to understand and therefore have successes in the game.
I don't know if we are so close, but I know that several people from the Norwegian community have met in the past and are surely planning to in the future.

On the Polish scene people meet every year going to different places in Poland for a few days. It is something wonderful that people sharing one passion, come from all over Poland (or even outside of Poland) and meet each other. Does anything like this happen in Norway as well?

We have been talking about meetings like that several times, but nothing on such scale has happened so far here in Norway. I hope it will be arranged in the future, because it would be nice to meet people from the community.
A problem regarding meetings in Norway is the long travel distances we have here in the north. Most people in the community are also not old enough to travel by car on their own which makes it even more complicated.

Could you tell us how FM Norge was created?

FM Norge was created late 2001 by a boy called Vegard. He started the site on his own, but got some help just a month after the site was started. I began working at the site as a moderator just two months after official start. From then it grew up to around a few hundred users in several months, but kept on increasing in size as the time went. In 2005 Vegard left the site, leaving me in charge of it. I wanted to make FMNorge better than ever and did some changes in the first year. But in August 2006 our webhost lost all our data (inc. backup), so I had to start it all from a scratch again. I saw it as a chance to make the site better than it has ever been. Before the crash we had 7500 users, now (1,5 years after the crash) we have 24.000 users, and I have many more plans for FM Norge. In january we are supposed to release a whole new site, but this time the user-accounts and all the data will be transferred on.

Sounds like really good and big plans. Are there any other sites about Football Manager in Norway?

No, FM Norge has grown so fast that if you play FM in Norway the chance of you knowing about FM Norge is quite high. There have been some other Norwegian sites, but as we have most of the community on our side, it has been a bit hard to start up anything new.
For about one year ago there was a Norwegian site called "Play-FM", but as it was hard for the webmaster to get the site growing, he came over to our site to help us making FM Norge even better.
Sounds like we are a bit like Microsoft ;)

Indeed it seems you have the monopoly for Football Manager in Norway :) One of very big problems in Poland is people downloading Football Manager instead of buying it. Do you have to deal with such issues in Norway as well?

Yes, alot of people download the game, but on FM Norge we are quite strict about downloading and cracking. If anyone talks about those they are banned from the site. Thanks to that we have very little talking about it on our site, but I know that there are many who download it instead of buying.

What do people say in Norway about SI Games releasing patches to FM year after year? Are they also getting a bit frustrated with that?

Lots of people gets confused, but we try to explain to our users that it's quite difficult to make a perfect game every year. Therefore thay need to release some patches to fix issues found by people buying the game. But sure, I think SI should use one year to fix most issues instead of thinking of changing and improving the game. Bugfixing is a form of improvement as well.

That is true. What are your thoughts about Football Manager 2008 so far?

I love the game. I think it's the best release made by SI. The navigation is made quite easy,which is important when you play a game as large as FM 08. Most information is available to you after just 2-3 clicks. I think that they have been thinking like webdesigners. Information should never be more than 3 clicks away.

Yes, SI Games said that they worked a lot on making the navigation in the game easier. What do you think about all the complaints from SI Games Forum about the match engine? Do you also see so many bugs in it?

I have noticed that a lot of people complain about the match engine. I myself think it's wonderful, because when you think of how many factors play a role in a single match, it's quite impressive to see everything the players are doing on the field. The match-engine will allways be tweaked and improved and I think people will always complain. It's only live match that has a perfect engine, and tell me, who could ever program a live match?

What about the game's level of difficulty? Do you also find FM 2008 much harder than the previous ones?

Yes, FM 2008 is quite hard, but as the game gets harder it also gets more realistic. I think that it's ok, but at the same time I'm afraid that SI will lose some fans because of that. Too many players have to win in order to continue playing the game. I think SI will have some difficulties in the next years, because as they make a better and more realistic game they have to find new ways to get people to continue playing it.

Have you by any chance played any of the rival manager games (FIFA Manager 08, Championship Manager 2008)? Do you think they will ever become a real competition for Football Manager?

No, acutally never have. I held a CM 08 box in my hand, but I normally put FM in front of any CM cover I find in a store. I have seen screenshots from CM 08 and don't find them very impressive. I have only heard of FIFA Manager 08, so I don't know very much about it. I don't think EA could make a manager as well as SI does, because I do not believe that managing should have much to do with the 3D view. This type of a game should be focused around everything that affects the much, not how the players look like (pictures are ok!) and moves.

So I see you are rather against the 3D view in Football Manager. Do you think it should never be implemented in FM at all, or maybe the time is not right at the moment?

As there are so many factors that affect a match, SI would have to spend hundred years programming to make the match enging perfect. So, as long as the realism and data in the game can be improved, they should not even think of implementing 3D.

Thank you very much for the nice interview and I would like to wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of CM Revolution!

Thank you, and same back to you from FM Norge!