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Mutant Football League hits crowdfunding target and will move on to stretch goals
It took only three days for the Mutant Football League Kickstarter campaign to reach the goal of raising $60,000 to be put towards completion of online multiplayer. The spiritual successor to the 1993 game Mutant League Football is being developed by the same creator and lead designer and has gone through some substantial changes since an original run at raising funds in 2013 came up short. This time the project was ready to be scrutinized and tap into a neglected segment of sports gaming where backers have jumped at the opportunity to support it.
While $25 will get you a digital copy of the game when it releases and access to the beta this summer there are a number of tiers with varying rewards that may include alpha access, t-shirts and collectibles. Now that the goal has been reached consideration is going to be given to adding stretch goals. The developers are seeking suggestions on what those could be in the Kickstarter comments section that backers have access to post within and this new survey.
Already more backers for the current campaign (near 1300) have pledged than was collected over a month long stretch in 2013 (1100). There is far more confidence in the project because the game itself is not reliant upon the funding, and a mobile-first push back then has been supplanted by focus instead on it being a console/PC game which is far more appealing.
Mutant Football League is targeting a release of October for PC and early 2018 on PS4 and Xbox One. The game is described as an “NFL Blitz arcade-style football game, with nasty mutants, ferocious monsters, deadly chainsaws, and lots of gory player deaths, along with some edgy, satirical humor that parodies America’s favorite sport.”
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The Line Drive for February 5
The Line Drive is a weekly collection of news, links, deal alerts, and updates that didn’t necessarily warrant their own postings.
♦EA Sports is still thriving in 2017 despite a few high profile failures thanks to FIFA.
♦Monday is the last full day to get the Super Bowl Edition of Madden NFL 17 for $20.
♦Press Row Podcast latest episode focused on EA’s booms and busts is now on Youtube.
♦Pre-orders of MLB The Show 17 are 20% off for Amazon Prime members.
♦Madden NFL 17 gives the Atlanta Falcons a 52% chance of winning Super Bowl LI.
♦EA Sports reached an agreement with ESPN to broadcast FIFA eSports competitions.
♦Details on the ratings changes made in the latest roster update for NBA 2K17.
♦NBA 2K17 PS4 owners were forced to download 22GB+ of data over two days last week.
♦A hop-step exploit was addressed in one of those patches released for NBA 2K17.
♦The Stance socks for the NBA All-Star Game have been added to NBA 2K17.
♦Behind-the-scenes info from SCEA on MLB The Show 17 out-of-position improvements.
♦New developer blog goes over updates made to the course designer for The Golf Club 2.
♦The Mutant Football League Kickstarter is already over 75% of its way to reaching the goal.
♦Ubisoft released a teaser trailer for the free Alaska update coming to Steep on Feb 10.
♦New physical toy mini pull-back racers for Rocket League will release this spring.
♦Out of the Park Developments announced the winners of their first promo for OOTP 18.
♦Sony released details on the big new features coming in the next PS4 system update. -
Madden Bowl winner represents latest black eye for EA Sports and eSports
EA Sports is hoping to build Madden into a popular eSport. In terms of viewership they’ve been gradually climbing despite some inherent challenges. However they’ve had their share of growing pains with Madden NFL 17 as the entertaining games haven’t proven to be the story.
The Madden Classic held in early December had its championship game determined in part by a QB freeze bug that resulted in a fumble that was returned for a touchdown. That specific bug was fixed 10 days later with a patch.
Now the Madden Bowl has just wrapped up and the big winner has an extensive history of making racially offensive comments on social media. A small sampling can be viewed here.
Regardless of capacity, participants in official events do represent the EA Sports brand. They’re promoted before, during, and after the events and become tied to the products in the eyes of many. The players, particularly those who gain notoriety through success, become public figures and that makes their backgrounds something that will be scrutinized. The findings ultimately reflect both on the company and the individual.
The question becomes how to avoid such a situation and to what extent if any it should play a role in qualification. It’s a necessary conversation to have given that there really are no easy answers. However statements and other actions on public forums like social media are now monitored and used for vetting in many aspects of life, so it wouldn’t be surprising if more attention is paid to it in the future for sponsored events such as eSports competitions.
[Update] EA Sports has responded, but only as it relates to conduct “during and immediately after” the Madden Bowl.
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Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 to receive another update next week
The next patch for Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 is scheduled to arrive on Thursday, February 9 and will most prominently add a number of updated likenesses along with the introduction of MyClub to the free-to-play edition of the game. Previous updates to PES 2017 delivered PS4 Pro support, more updated likenesses, and enhanced the presence of partners Liverpool and Dortmund with their stadiums, anthems, and classic kits.
Over 100 players will be visually enhanced through the update “spanning current squads and also bolstering the detail of a number of legend players.” Also being added are eight classic Borussia Dortmund strips (spanning 1975-2012), new pitch side hoardings, new boots and footwear from Nike, adidas and Puma, and the adidas ball that will be used in the 2016/2017 UEFA Champions League final that takes place in Cardiff in June.
The F2PÂ edition of PES 2017 that launched in late November included the PES League competitive mode, skills trainer, and nine teams for use exhibition games. The team-building MyClub mode will join them when the update arrives. Those who start their first MyClub from 2/9-2/23 will receive a UEFA Team of the Year and PES Player agent for their squad.
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Mutant Football League taking another run at a Kickstarter campaign
Back in 2013 a crowdfunding campaign for Mutant Football League achieved only 19% of its ambitious $750,000 goal. Development on the game never ceased however and now its back for another shot at getting support through Kickstarter.
Mutant Football League is seeking $60,000 and is already almost a third of the way there in its first day. Generally Kickstarter projects need to make about a third of their goal within the first two days to be on pace for a successful campaign so this is a very promising start. $25 is the standard backing that will get you a digital copy of the game for PC, Xbox One, or PlayStation 4 along with beta access this summer. The game is not reliant on this funding to release but instead it will be going towards finishing up the online multiplayer.
Creator and lead designer of the original Mutant League Football (released 1993 on Sega Genesis) Michael Mendheim has been driving the development of the new spiritual successor. The game is aiming for release on PC in October and consoles in early 2018. Read more
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Press Row Podcast: EA – Booms and Busts
Electronic Arts’ stock is trading at all-time high levels and in looking forward to fiscal year 2018 (April 2017-March 2018) the company revealed a number of interesting facts and plans related to their various sports franchises.
There’s the good: FIFA 17 was the world’s biggest selling sports game in 2016 and the company continues to see its digital revenue driven largely by Ultimate Team and free-to-play mobile show no signs of slowing down.
There’s the bad: NBA Live has now been delayed/cancelled yet again and the original plan of releasing a golf game every other year appears to have been abandoned.
Host Bryan Wiedey and Rich Grisham discuss this news and more, including the confirmation of both Madden NFL 18 transitioning to the Frostbite Engine and FIFA 18 getting a second season of “The Journey” in this episode of the Press Row Podcast!
Check out the podcast through iTunes for iOS, on Android with the Stitcher app, or with Pocket Casts on iOS, Android, and Windows. The show can also now be found on the recently launched Google Play Music for podcasts. Subscribe and review to help support the show! You can also listen with the streaming player below.
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FIFA 17 was the world’s best-selling game
Besides another NBA Live cancellation and other news on the upcoming fiscal year, Electronic Arts yesterday revealed that FIFA 17 outsold every other video game in 2016 worldwide. That’s not necessarily a surprise but that the franchise continues to grow year-over-year may be one.
The latest game in the series is up 8% compared to FIFA 16 over the same stretch of time. The biggest reason for that may be the new story mode “The Journey” that was introduced in FIFA 17. Over 10 million people have at least tried the mode out. That level of engagement is remarkable considering new features and modes don’t necessarily appeal to everyone and can be overlooked by other consumers no matter how much they are marketed or pushed in-game. FIFA 18 will feature a second season of The Journey with a new story with new characters.
Additionally Ultimate Team revenue is still on the rise. The mode in FIFA 17 delivered 22% growth over FIFA 16. In 2016 EA generated about $800 million in digital revenue across their family of sports titles which include the primary drivers in FIFA and Madden NFL along with NHL and UFC. That number is up from the estimated $650 million in 2015.
While the enthusiasm for FIFA 17Â has seemed somewhat muted from fans, and the series continues to receive good but not exceptional review scores yet practically no representation in SGOTY voting, its popularity across the world stage can’t be denied. Pro Evolution Soccer has surpassed FIFA at least in the gameplay department in the minds of many but the FIFA brand and command over many regions is near impenetrable at this point.
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Early 2017 NBA Live console game cancelled, but EA planning release for next fall
The NBA Live franchise has now been delayed or cancelled four times over a seven year span. In releasing last quarter’s fiscal report earlier today, EA Sports revealed the remaining release schedule for their calendar year that runs through the end of March. After being listed in Q4 (Jan-Mar) since NBA Live 17 was announced as being “delayed” last May the game has now been dropped from the calendar. It’s not unusual to discover a game has been delayed or cancelled in this manner. In the investor call the company confirmed it had been cancelled with the next game supposedly to release in the fall.
NBA Live 16, while a better effort following the dreadful Live 14 and 15 editions, sold just 8K copies in its first week of release compared to NBA 2K16 which moved well over a million in the same amount of time. EA Sports saw the writing on the wall and pushed NBA Live 17 out of last fall, a period in which competition would have eaten it alive. Instead focus shifted to NBA Live Mobile which has proven successful while work was probably being done to make a console version more unique in the form of an untraditional model.
EA’s oft-repeated claims that a new console NBA Live game would release early in 2017 were immediately met by skepticism due to both the track-record of the series and the time of year where it would be a difficult sell to consumers especially given the deterioration of the brand.
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