Football Superstars

A Whole Different Ball Game

Football superstars is the first fully immersive world where you get the opportunity to live life as an aspiring professional footballer. The highly realistic football engine gives you all the on the pitch and off the pitch action you could possibly desire allowing you to bask in your celebrity status whilst exploring a rich, utopian world.

Project

Virtual World based Massively Multi-player Online (MMO) Game.

On the Web

www.footballsuperstars.com

Executive Summary

Xoomworks is a UK based Procurement & Financial Services company seeking to enter the Massively Multiplayer Online Game market who looked to Monumental to develop a complete Massively Multiplayer Game project design, development, product and technology strategy for them. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Global commercial opportunities in advertising, sponsorship and branding run to billions of pounds per annum. Today, football is played at a professional level all over the world. Millions of people regularly go to football stadia to follow their favourite teams, while billions more watch the game on television. Over 240 million people from more than 200 countries regularly play football. MMO games and Virtual Worlds present organisations with a dynamic new platform for commercial and entertainment opportunities within the global marketplace. Large scale MMO games now regularly service millions of customers whilst development in Virtual Worlds is gaining significant commercial momentum and interest. Worldwide Online Game revenue is expected to increase from $3.4 billion in 2005 to $13.1 billion in 2011(DFC Intelligence) with over $1 billion invested in virtual world companies in 2007 (Virtual World Management).

Challenge

Xoomworks sought a technology and development partner to realise their ambition to enter the MMO and Virtual world marketplace. Having no prior expertise in game development or publishing, Xoomworks required innovative management, development and design strategies partnered with technology, partnership and production expertise to enter the global MMO game market for the first time. Xoomworks sought a full partner that could plan, design, create, produce and manage their product planning, design, development and partnerships whilst successfully bringing it to market readiness.

Solution

The solution was to form a jointly owned video game publisher called CyberSports, with Monumental acquiring a stake in this new publishing company and taking on all development related tasks. Xoomworks partnered with Monumental due to their technology, partnerships and development expertise within the video game industry. CyberSports was tasked with financing, management, publishing, planning and administration activities relating to the first large-scale consumer MMO game project – ‘Football Superstars’ – and all subsequent MMO projects developed in the future.

• Monumental licensed their online development technology platform, Monumental Technology Suite, to CyberSports allowing development of the Soccer-themed MMO game, Football Superstars.
• Monumental hired, built, trained and maintain the entire game development team (Designers, Programmers, Artists, Animators, Internet, Q&A, Administration and Community) required for the Football Superstars project and all subsequent CyberSports projects.
• Monumental designed, developed, tested and produced the Football Superstars MMO game project throughout pre-development, design, development and Beta stages. Monumental continues to develop and manage the game throughout launch and live operations stages.
• Monumental developed a complete infrastructure strategy, partnership and tactical plan for a Mainland European and UK launch for the Football Superstars product (VoIP, Hosting, Billing, Q&A, Community, Internet, Customer Support, In-game Support and Service Support).
• Monumental provided initial planning and ongoing consultancy in key strategic areas such as Project Management, Publishing, Community, Internet, Business Development, Publisher Relationship Management, PR and Marketing.

Results

Monumental built a game development team, designed the game and produced the Football Superstars MMO video game project in less than 16 months ready for market entry in mainland Europe and the UK. Working as a shared owner/partner of CyberSports, Monumental was instrumental in providing strategic planning, consultancy and support throughout all Business Planning, Infrastructure, Publishing, PR, Financing and Marketing activities. Using Monumental’s core MMO development technology and expertise in game development allowed CyberSports to produce a working MMO game prototype. This prototype engaged investors and traditional video game publishers in equal measure leading to multiple financing and traditional publishing partnerships being established before game testing with the public began. Monumental continue to develop and work in full partnership with CyberSports throughout all operational and strategic aspects of the design, development and deployment of all CyberSports MMO game products.