It must have been 1995 when I picked up my first copy of Championship Manager 2, the football management computer game. Much like games like Simcity and Flight Simulator, it proved to be a highly addictive and incredibly challenging simulation game. Being the manager of a club like Barcelona, Manchester United or AC Milan, you had great responsibilities: building up a balanced squad, improving training grounds with the money earned at the gates, and focussing on youth development when finances were tight. As the years passed by, the game went from buying Roberto Baggio and Marco van Basten to employing specialist coaches and scouts to better the club and motivate players to give it all. AI – as avid players lovingly call the game engine – adds incredible things to the game play, making it in my case much more fun to do than watching 90 minutes in a stadium or on the television.

Having recently rediscovered my interest (and addiction) for this immensely popular game (that has been renamed Football Manager), I started thinking about the possibility of translating the game directly to the museum domain. And thus the idea of Museum Manager 2010 was born. Wouldn’t it be great to become the manager of Tate or MoMA (or maybe the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris?) and think about a strategy to move the museum forward, just like you do with all the other simulation games like Football Manager and Simcity? Hiring the right curator for a new exhibition, or buying that masterpiece that will draw a crowd but forces you to invest in safety and maintenance that will drain your budget? Expanding overseas like the Guggenheim and Louvre, or forming a network with other small museums around the planet?

I would definitely play this game (and become addicted). Could this be an interesting approach to open up museums and learn from our current and future audiences? Could a game be a museum? Could a museum be a game? I hope to find out more while writing this article for the next Metropolis M next month.

(Disclaimer: I used the SEGA logo without their permission. Please don’t shoot me.)