PowerPlay Magazine

Ladies and gentlemen, 2011 has only just begun and I have been thinking long and hard who to interview as the first person of the year. Finally, I have decided to do an interview with one of the founders of the PPM project, namely  tuttle.

I also wanted this interview not to be done in an "ordinary" fashion and so I asked some managers from Czech Republic and Slovakia to ask one question each.

First, I would like to thank you for your time and I would like to ask you for a short evaluation of 2010 which has ended just recently. Please tell us what you think was a success and what was a failure.

I think it was a success that we have managed to launch soccer because its development was quite demanding and there is still a lot of work to do. It is very difficult to break through in the competition of soccer managers, but we have managed that quite well so far. The second major success is the fact that the game has stabilized and gained some reputation. It's not a new project any more, but one that has its own group of followers and in some countries we are one of the most visited websites. In Slovakia we are in about 170th place. The first is Google, then YouTube and Gmail. So I think that is quite a nice achievement. The problem is, that the oldest veterans in the game have been here for over 2 years and that is about the maximum lifetime of a manager in an ideal scenarion. I don't count into that some fanatics who are our big fans. They are starting to complain becaus they don't like some things. The game keeps changing and evolving, the teams are getting more even. The top leagues have very strong teams and here luck begins to player a bigger role and this irritates some people. We are working on satisfying the managers to make the game more enjoyable and to reduce the influence of the luck factor, but luck plays a role even in reality and we also cannot get rid of it completely. Luck will play its role.

And now please tell us what we can look forward to in 2011.

We have decided to finish works on hockey and soccer to a point as advanced as possible. We have to finish things that are missing such as national teams, improving the live broadcast in soccer. In hockey it will be possible to collect and create pucks (just like pennants in soccer). We will add automatic practice for PRO pack owners. It will be possible to train based on your settings of the attributes and we will make a general tuneup.

 Filip9507: When do you think all 9 sports will be operational on PPM?

 tuttle: I don't dare predict that. It's going to take quite a few years.

 Mazakis: Which event on PPM gave you similar joy to the one you experienced when your daughter Kristinka was born (of course I know it's hard to compare)?

 rbo: Congrats on that by the way.

 tuttle: Thanks (laughs). Great joy (thoughtful)? I think nothing that happened on PPM can compare to the joy of the birth of my daughter, but I am glad that even though there are people who always have such skeptical moods and opinions, there are also such who we can rely on as friends and not just as clients or players. I am really happy that those kind of people are still here.

 mathus: When can we expect the World U20 Championships?

 tuttle: Hmmm. Well, definitely this year (laughs). It is difficult to say something about this because those 20 year olds are currently the best players in the senior national teams. So it wouldn't make much sense. I think the next two or three seasons it wouldn't make much sense but after that we could launch it.

 Robin Archer: Ivan, what is your most important principle that you would never break?

 tuttle: That is a hard one. I am not really a man of principles because life has taught me that there are some things that seem white, bute then turn out to be black and one has to somehow react to that. I don't know, I guess I would never kill anyone (laughs), I suppose, but as I have said, those are extreme situations. It's hard to say, but in any case I try to always do the right thing to the best of my knowledge.

 nanuk: What has surprised you the most in the positive and negative way during those years you have been working on PPM?

 tuttle: I am positively surprised that even in such amateur conditions in which we have begun (in our flats, in the evenings, at tea) we have managed to lauch such a big project and we are no professional corporation such as some well known brands mainly from the German market. And I am negatively surprised that some people who I have considered my friends take the game so seriously that they have turned their backs on our friendship. I think that this shouldn't happen for a game even if it was the best game in the world.

 Pubmaster: Hello Ivan, let's talk about the current game engine. What do you think is its greatest strength and what is the greatest weakness? What was the main reason for the engine to change and will there be changes to tactics?

 tuttle: Ahmm, strength (thoughtful)? I don't know if the engine has a strength, but at the time when it was created it was very complicated and it was the best solution we could come up with at that time. The strength was that when we did it, we were able to launch the game. And the weakness is that time showed that some things must be done in a more modern way and some things are not good for development and therefore we are upgrading it so that the influence of the manager on the team is bigger than something calculated by the engine. Although it's clear that this can never be fully achieved.

 gord007: Which Christmas caroll or song do you like the most?

 tuttle: From Christmas songs it's Driving Home for Christmas. I really like that one.

 BlackRoses: Hi Ivan, if you had the option to choose which country you want to live in with your family, which one would it be and why?

 tuttle: I was actually thinking about that, I even had job offers from some countries, but I think I would choose Sweden. I have some friends there too and it's a very nice country and very good for living.

 mictian: Why haven't you implemented from the start that the number of faceoffs won would realistically reflect the attributes of players and influence the play? Have you never seen hockey before? I just want to say that faceoffs are one of the most important parts of the game...

 tuttle: What a nice question (laughs). Hello  mictian. It wasn't like that from the start because, as I have mentioned, the engine was done under time pressure and there were some technical restrictions and so the faceoffs have been rather simplified. But it is up to debate whether the faceoffs are one of the most important things in real life hockey. In any case, we are going to change it as has been said.

 kvasnice: If you had to do it all over again and you had the knowledge and experience that you have now, would you do some things differently? If yes, what would they be?

 tuttle: First of all, I don't think I would start a project like this because it has been at least a hundred times more difficult than I had anticipated. I thought it would be difficult, but it is really a hundred times worse and I wouldn't want to go through it all again. Now we have no choice but to follow through.

 Behemond: Hi, I have been thinking about a question and there is only one that comes to my mind. Why do you consider tennis as the third sport even though formula has many more people signed up.

 tuttle: This also depends on which sport we understand the most. We understand tennis well enough to dare program the engine and all around it, but we don't have such a close relationship with formula, but that doesn't mean that formula won't be the third sport. We haven't decided yet. As I have said, tennis has the advantage because we understand it, but its disadvantage is the fact that it is less wanted than formula.

 

 fofino: If there was no PowerPlay Manager project, which project (website) would you like to participate on and why?

 tuttle: Outside PPM I have a small job as a director of a rehab facility so I would probably work there more than I currently do. I go there for only a few hours a week now.

 hiprob: Hi Ivan, I would like to ask if you can officially confirm which sport will be launched as the third and if you have started with development. Thank you.

 tuttle: At the moment I cannot confirm which sport it will be, but I can say for certain that the development of the next sport won't begin this year, and if it will, then it will be right at the end.

 lubosko: Ivan, would you rather have 1000 new managers on PPM or sex with three women (at the same time of course)?

 tuttle: (laughs). I don't know if it can be compared. Both options are tempting, but 1000 managers would be more beneficial.

 benon: First of all I would like to wish you all the best in the new year. Wouldn't you consider doing something about the revocation of team due to manager's inactivity? I think the team is taken away rather hastily. It is not true that everybody can log in from anywhere. A manager may run into all sorts of problems. The e-mail warning is totally illogical. I know a manager who got the warning around about midnight and in the morning he didn't have a team any more. It is sad when someone plays PPM from the start and then...

 tuttle: It is not as you say with the e-mail, but that's not the point. The point is that if someone can't log in for 21 days and he or she is not playing, it means he or she is not interested. If one goes on a vacation and is such a fanatic, then he or she can buy the PRO pack and prolong the inactivity period to 50 days and I think that is enough. I find it hard to understand people who say they love the game and that it is their life and have never bought a PRO pack. I understand that they don't buy it always, but if they want this feature, they can activate PRO for 3 months for a small price and therefore keep their team.

 Standa83: Let's forget about PPM for a moment. Which sport do you like more, hockey or soccer? Do you have time to go and see Slovak league sometimes?

 tuttle: I don't attend league matches a lot, I admit. I like both sports the probably the same.

 

 ViktorSlovan: It won't take long before the FA market is implemented. That means that the older players will have much higher value and credit than they do now. When can we expect the launch of the U20 World Championships?

 tuttle: I have answered that already.

 Hlozanka: Do you plan to have a worldwide Champions League in the future in soccer?

 tuttle: It's possible that we will make some changes. It's not certain yet though.

 

 opox: You take part regularly on all kinds of PPM meetings. How do you rate these meetings and what do you think they are good for? Which meetings do you think are the best or which one has been the best from your point of view?

 tuttle: All meetings in the Czech Republic are very good. I would mention the Brno meetings because we have a very strong fanbase there and we like to go there very much. It is a great thing that these people meet. I meet people who have become my friends. I don't view them just as players or clients any more. That's why they are so good.

 Shaav: How much money has PPM made?

 tuttle: (laughs). If I had to rate it from the point of view how much I or we have invested in it and how much it made, then we are, and will be for a long time, in the loss. Right now we make just about enough to pay all the people and servers.

 lovec1: I don't know if it's a suitable question, but I would like to ask about prize money in National Cup. I think the fact that both National Cup and league running concurrently is demanding for players and managers alike. Managers have to decide what to focus on. I know from my own experience that success in the National Cup has cost me a better ranking (and also more prize money) in the league.

 tuttle: This is a complicated question for such a brief interview. It is up to the manager's decision. We don't plan any changes in the finances.