UK studio Sporty Games plans to tackle EA Sports FC Mobile with a new arcade football game aimed at younger players that’s soft launching this year.
The outfit is led by veteran Sensible Soccer designer Jon Hare, who most recently launched a spiritual successor to the retro classic, cheekily named Sociable Soccer, on Apple Arcade and other platforms.
Hare’s studio Tower was later acquired by Sporty Group, a media and betting company. Now, as Sporty Games, Hare has set about building a new arcade football game based on that Sensible Soccer lineage that also draws upon what Hare’s team learned from making Sociable Soccer.
“We are planning to roll out the soft launch of our new football game on mobile very soon, starting with some smaller territories and building up to full launch, hopefully by the end of this year,” Hare told us. “PC and console versions will follow on, most probably next year. We also hope to have our other new title out for full launch just after this.”
The new as-yet-untitled football game takes inspiration from not only Hare’s previous football games but First Touch Games’ Dream League Soccer, another competitor to EA Sports FC Mobile. Hare says it’ll also feature a Sensible World of Soccer-like career mode, retooled to work as a free-to-play metagame.
“We have some very interesting ideas as to how to make this happen,” Hare continues. “We need game modes that are sticky enough to have people coming back every day, and allow them to share the game with friends.”
“Sociable Soccer has been a game mostly seen as a Sensible Soccer follow-up, but hopefully the new game will be seen for what it is, a new arcade football game in a highly competitive market.”
Sporty Games currently has around 30 staff in total, including a small publishing team and two development studios. Parent company Sporty Group will help the firm’s new game reach a broad audience, says Hare, as it already owns several sports TV channels and has licenses to work with clubs including Real Madrid.
“The future for us is in appealing to younger players who have not been so exposed to arcade football before,” adds Hare. “We are particularly keen to deliver a compelling local multiplayer experience on mobile for a totally new audience…I believe it will become a big USP.”
