On yesterday's episode of The HotSpot, we got into a discussion about comments made by EA Sports president Peter Moore regarding the future of microtransactions in the publisher's games. Even before Moore's comments, the writing had been on the wall for a while now: from Madden and NCAA Football 10 to the upcoming Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online for PC, the model of pay for play is quickly changing for sports fans.

Now Eidos is experimenting as well. Perhaps borrowing a page from Radiohead, the publisher has announced that its latest soccer management game, Championship Manager 10 will be available for a price determined by each individual player. According to the GameSpot UK blog, the game can be pre-ordered ahead of its September 11 release date for as little as 1p, though a £2.50 will be added to the transcation, making the minimum total for the game £2.51. After that, players will have to pay £5 for optional in-season updates. This pay-what-you-like deal is available only for pre-orders--once the game is released, the game will be available for its full retail price of £29.99.

Championship Manager 10 will be just the latest sports gaming pricing experiment. In addition to EA's ubiquitous microtransactions, we've also seen a subscription-based service for Eidos' direct competitor in the soccer management genre, the profoundly addictive Football Manager Live. And while I have little doubt that this price scheme will entice some new fans into coming back to the ChampMan fold--the real test of the challenge won't be its experimental pricing, but rather if developer Beautiful Games Studios can bring the series back to its former glory.