Mutant Football League Blames Mobile Focus for Kickstarter Failure

[Cognimancer]

Mutant Football League Blames Mobile Focus for Kickstarter Failure

Mutant Football League is gearing up for a rematch on Kickstarter after its first campaign's failure.

As a modern revival of an oldschool classic, Mutant League Football [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127813-Mutant-League-Football-Gets-Back-in-The-Game-on-Kickstarter] was all set to capitalize on the nostalgia-to-money converter that is Kickstarter. However, it didn't quite go according to plan: the project asked for $750 thousand, and only received about $140 thousand in pledges. But scoring less than twenty percent of the target isn't stopping project lead Michael Mendheim from trying again, with a few big changes in scope and focus. He's pretty sure he knows what caused the first failure: a misguided focus on going mobile.

Last year's Kickstarter campaign [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mendheim/mutant-football-league?ref=recently_launched] for Mutant League Football was ambitious, to say the least. The original design aimed for a multi-platform release from mobile devices to living room consoles, but a few Kickstarter veterans convinced Mendheim to try focusing on mobile platforms. He did so, and the results were less than spectacular.

"So I led my Kickstarter campaign with mobile," Mendheim explains, "and the backlash to that was just unbelievable. We were sunk that first day."

Mendheim is now returning to the field with ambitions tempered and lessons learned. A new crowdfunding campaign for Mutant League Football is coming up, but this time the funding target will be lower. Most critically, mobile development isn't even on the table - the game will be developed for PC first and foremost, with more platforms coming later. Only time will tell if these changes will put Mutant League Football back in the game, or if it's doomed to stay on the sidelines.

Source: Joystiq [http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/16/going-mobile-sunk-mutant-football-leagues-first-go-at-kicksta/]

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[Trucken]

I have for a long time dreamed about a new Mutant League Fotball game. But I want one that's more like the Madden games, where you can take control of a team and play through several seasons. Where your hot new draft pick might get killed in his first game, or your star quarterback misses the playoffs due to his arm being torn off. Where after every game you'll most likely be rummaging through the free agency to look for some replacements to those linemen that got killed.

I think it could be awesome.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I think that this is basically the next phase of crowdfunding, and I don't see anything wrong with it. No longer will just throwing up a known name with a bunch of pie in the sky objectives (and a massively inflated goal to go with them) work out except in the rarest of cases. Kickstarter isn't an endless money pit and backers are getting smarter about whay they support.

Think about the game you want to make, and who will want to play it, carefully before you go out there asking for money. In all honesty, I wouldn't be surprised if this second kick at the can for Mutant League Football barely crossed the new goal they've set for themselves simply because they've given themselves a pretty bad black eye entirely of their own accord.

 

[MrBrightside919]

I liked Mutant League Hockey better than Football on the Genesis. It was broken as hell, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Probably wasn't a good idea to focus on the mobile though. They should have gone for a PC release first before anything else.

 

[omega 616]

I have for a long time dreamed about a new Mutant League Fotball game. But I want one that's more like the Madden games, where you can take control of a team and play through several seasons. Where your hot new draft pick might get killed in his first game, or your star quarterback misses the playoffs due to his arm being torn off. Where after every game you'll most likely be rummaging through the free agency to look for some replacements to those linemen that got killed.

I think it could be awesome.

Right there with you!

I remember looking forward to playing bloodbowl ... until I watched youtube videos on it, turn based sports game just doesn't work for me (which is why I don't watch baseball, *dudum tsch!*).

I think a brutal NFL game would be awesome! Have like an orc defensive line, 8 foot tall, 6 foot wide of pure green muscle ... agile elves sprinting around and if an orc met an elf he do an execution type move, such as grab the elf's head (palm covering his face) like we would palm an apple, lifts him up just buries it into the floor (think chokeslam for wrestling fans) or the orc just shoves him into the 10th row!

Tell me that wouldn't an awesome game!

(I have no idea how NFL works or any terms/jargon but I'd play that!)

 

[BlindChance]

Goddammit. I know I'm not typical, but I totally was behind the game the first time with the mobile focus. (I do a tonne of gaming on my iPad because I have a huge commute.) PC only? I'm a mac user. Useless to me. Just... dang.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

I'm not a market expert or anything, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the best market for this game would be as a downloadable XBLA game or its PSN equivalent.. I'd buy it there, but not PC, not mobile..

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm not a market expert or anything, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the best market for this game would be as a downloadable XBLA game or its PSN equivalent.. I'd buy it there, but not PC, not mobile..

I would think so, too. Granted, if it has controller support I will buy it for PC if it makes it out. But I'd think the console market would have been the ideal starting place, not PC.