New college football video game being developed by a startup company

Submitted by MichiganStephen on

A small company in Alabama founded by two brothers is going to try to bring to market a college football game to be released in 2019. They'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign on September 2nd. Although I'm skeptical with regards to video games on Kickstarter (Mighty No. 9, OUYA, etc.) it would be neat to see a refreshed college football game.

Here is the link.

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Gameboy

August 11th, 2016 at 4:36 PM ^

Licensing is the least of their worries. I have created sports sims in the past (long past), and the amount of effort that is required is far more than a couple of random guys from Alabama can manage. There is a reason why all other sports sim companies have gone out of business over the past decade. Creating realistic 3D motions and graphics is extremely complicated and cost ridiculous amounts of money. The amount they are raising will barely cover the costs of developing the bare minimum 3D models. I highly doubt this ever gets off the ground.

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MichiganStephen

August 11th, 2016 at 3:04 PM ^

In the article they state that perhaps they can get some smaller schools on board first and then try to go big. From the article: IMV Gaming can’t afford to obtain individual licenses from major schools, Alex said — he claims such an agreement with Alabama, for instance, would cost $200,000 — and eventually will need to strike an agreement with the NCAA or major conferences to bring an authentic playing experience to life. That’s where the aforementioned crowdfunding goal of $850,000 comes in. It will help the Lewis cousins hire a competent development team while moving them closer to a spot at the negotiating table. “Without money,” Alex said, “you don’t have a voice.” IMV might start small with licensing. Potential agreements with junior colleges or Division II conferences could be an option to “have something in the game people can relate to,” Alex said, while the company works on the bigger fish. To appease fans, IMV’s plan is to use crowdsourcing to determine specific gameplay features.

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LJ

August 11th, 2016 at 3:30 PM ^

Even if the manage all that, it doesn't solve the problem. Use of the student athletes' likenesses without approval is illegal, and under NCAA rules, the student athlete can't accept compensation for use of his likeness, so there's no way for the company to get approval. This is why EA no longer makes the game. There's no way around that for these guys, unless there's a rule change (in which case EA will surely jump back in and squeeze these guys out).



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stephenrjking

August 11th, 2016 at 3:51 PM ^

They can license the teams for their use. The players are now out, so you can't have #5 on Michigan's defense wrecking the perimeter. But you can have generic players with no resemblance to human counterparts. There's just some red tape giving people cold feet. You are right, though--if there's money to be made, EA will be back in. And then there's no point to this.

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1201 S. Main St.

August 11th, 2016 at 4:43 PM ^

I still play the NCAA 14 on my 360 and play in Dynasty mode.  After the first 2-3 years essentially every team has just generic players who aren't modeled after a specific college player.  If they can create the game with updated uniforms and better graphics, I really wouldn't care if they weren't able to use a player's likeness.  I'm not sure how many people care about playing with specific players.  The game would come out prior to each college season and a lot of the time, the more popular/well known players weren't in the game because they had gone pro the year before.  

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Trebor

August 11th, 2016 at 3:13 PM ^

I hope they just have "random" schools like "Michigan 1" who plays in "Conference 1" with starting quarterback "MICH1 QB1". Their big rival is "Ohio 1".

On that note, since I'm just a lowly engineer and not a lawyer, could they feasibly design a game that's completely customizable, and let users create schools/players? Basically, take NCAA 14, remove all of the schools' names/trademarks and player 'likenesses', release that game, and then users create all the schools/players/stadiums/whatever?

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Hannibal.

August 11th, 2016 at 3:08 PM ^

I don't see any chance of this happening, unless they go with 1987 production values.  The economies of scale required for a modern sports game are staggering. 

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Hannibal.

August 11th, 2016 at 3:28 PM ^

I have had great luck with Kickstarter games, but they are usually pretty limited in their ambition, or they are by developers who have a lot of experience and a good track record.  These guys want $850 K for a game that will cost what -- $100 Million to make realistically?  Maybe more? 

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JClay

August 11th, 2016 at 3:14 PM ^

It's staggering to me the number of people who throw in for Kickstarters despite the fact the money is considered a de facto donation and you have no legal remedy if they never put out a product.

There was that big case where people raised like a million to design a $99 3D printer about a year ago and one of the founders literally used half the money to buy a house and no one had any recourse whatsoever. 

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ShruteBeetFarms

August 11th, 2016 at 3:15 PM ^

1. Have OSU fans pooping in coolers in their stadium

2. Have large bills fall out of the pants of the players for SEC teams while being tackled

3. Show Les Miles eating grass

4. Show Bobby Petrino groping a female trainer

5. Show PSU fans in the stadium with their heads up their ass.

This is just a start for increasing the realism of the game.

 

 

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unWavering

August 11th, 2016 at 3:16 PM ^

For this who are unaware, there are people working on updated rosters for the NCAA 14 game on Xbox360 and PS3. The rosters are pretty much done, as far as I'm aware - the gamer tag for the roster download is Cajunomics. I think NCAA 14 is probably better than anything a startup will put out. Starting a game like that from scrap is a vastly huge undertaking

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Pepto Bismol

August 11th, 2016 at 4:00 PM ^

That's great.  And you're right.  NCAA '14 is lightyears better than anything these yahoos are going to produce.  But '14 is dying a little bit more every day.

-  They need to figure out how to throw a playoff in there.  Ending the season with the BCS is such a let down. 

-  While I know a lot of people don't care, Michigan is an Adidas school in the game and I wish like hell I could change that.  Plus, this was made in a year when Michigan's maize was very pale and pastel.  You almost have to remake the team in Teambuilder to give them a respectable uniform.

- Every other school is getting less accurate every day.  Missing 3 years of uniformz madness makes more and more schools look obsolete.  For example, MSU still has those giant thick stripes on their shoulders that they wore in 2013.  Looks old.  Looks bad.

 

Anyway, I digress.  Not optimistic about the startup.

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boomer720p

August 11th, 2016 at 7:23 PM ^

Gamertag penji24 (360 version, not sure about PS3) is working on a Jordan brand jersey in Teambuilder. I haven't been able to download it yet, but that's the shot he posted on OS.

 

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stephenrjking

August 11th, 2016 at 4:01 PM ^

Use generic names like "Michigan," "State College of Ohio," "Catholic University of Indiana," and so on with basic color schemes. Then, as you said, make them modifiable. Make your own conferences, postseason, etc. That would at least be fun. But the fundamentals of the game just cannot possibly be good enough. EA has refined their system for decades; it's pretty good. Hard to build that from scratch.

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LJ

August 11th, 2016 at 4:08 PM ^

There's probably a lawsuit to be had there too, if it's marketed as a college football game and clearly invites individuals to create the rosters. The risk of that would be so huge (liability would kill the entire product) as to make investment extremely difficult, I would think.



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Zarniwoop

August 11th, 2016 at 3:43 PM ^

Sounds like a money grab to me.

Well, we failed to get a seat at the table. Thanks for the 850,000 dollars.

Hopefully, I'm wrong. A great college football game would be really nice. Right now, there isn't one (that's just like, my opinion man).

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stephenrjking

August 11th, 2016 at 3:57 PM ^

EA doesn't always produce the best available sports product, but I still have no complaints about my copy of NCAA 14. There is no way this will match it. I don't see the point at all, and I doubt this ever goes anywhere. There's a void in college sports games, but it's not that big--the pro versions of those games exist, and college versions are out there that aren't that old. 10 years from now the market might be hungry for something like this, anything to feed the college football mania of fans for whom the old '14 game is merely a rumor. But right now anyone desperate enough for it is no further away than purchasing a used 360 (maybe $100 if that?) and another $10 for NCAA '14. Who would produce enough money to hit $850k?

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boomer720p

August 11th, 2016 at 6:37 PM ^

But right now anyone desperate enough for it is no further away than purchasing a used 360 (maybe $100 if that?) and another $10 for NCAA '14. Who would produce enough money to hit $850k?

That's exactly what I did a few months ago. Picked up a 360 for $80 and downloaded the game from X-Box Live for $20. The actual game is still selling for $40+ used, online and at Game Stop. As long as you have a hard drive in your system, it's better to just download it because you don't have to bother with the disc noise.

I've downloaded the latest rosters and there's even ways to mod a four team playoff. Still haven't tried the playoff thing, but I'm hopping there's a way to mod new uniforms because I hate our old Adidas away jersey (with the stupid maize piping).

Here's how to make a playoff system in the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifTkb3L0nJs

 

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