“We originally published Eastside Hockey Manager as a traditional ‘boxed’ game between 2004 and 2007. However, we decided to shelve it at that point because it simply didn’t make financial sense to continue publishing it in the old-fashioned way.

At that time we were not only badly affected by piracy, we were also hit by the way retail used to work, particularly in the US. Boxed copies of the game would fly off the shelves in places where hockey was popular, but would languish in places where it wasn’t – and there was no system in place for those boxes to be shifted from one State to another. Steam wasn’t anywhere near as popular back then as it is now, so we didn’t have a digital solution to this problem like we do now.

We have never wavered in our belief that there’s an enthusiastic and active fan base for this game which we’ve seen at the Blueline community (http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and now, using Early Access, we want to prove that to everyone else."