Grey Dog Software/Adam Ryland to create MMA Sim

[SirFozzie]

http://www.greydogsoftware.com/news.php?id=258

Phoenix, AZ March 23, 2007 - Grey Dog Software, a Phoenix based developer of sports management simulation software for personal computers, today announces "World of Mixed Martial Arts" (WMMA). WMMA will be the company's first entry in the growing world of mixed martial arts fighting. Developer Adam Ryland, author of the extremely popular TEW2007 and Wrestling Spirit lines, will be heading up the project.

For more information regarding WMMA please stop by our forums.

They're describing it as a TEW meets Mixed Martial Arts, that you hire fighters, create cards, set up matches, etcetera (Thankfully, there's no option to "force a winner", like you would book a wrestling match..)

From the FAQ (http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22235) they are aiming the game for a release in Late Summer/Fall 2007, and will come with a fictional world (just like TEW, a lack of licenses, etcetera), but will also have a full fledged editor, just like TEW.

Sounds good, the fights will be more PbP then the quick recap you see in the TEW series.

As a MMA fan, I just hope that Adam scores me a spot on the betatest team ;)

[DaddyTorgo]

that sounds hot. I'd love to beta this too GDS guys.

foz, have you played around at all with the NHB MMA "simulator" (i use the term loosely).

[SirFozzie]

Yeah... it's not my cup of tea, seemed to be too repetitive. but this sounds interesting.

Right now, they have a poll option on the board for which style Match Engine we would prefer..

http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22252

Play By Play - The fight unfolds with messages appearing on screen as the fight unfolds, giving information on key moments. So it may run something like:

"Garner shoots in on Hughes, and takes him down, but only into the guard"
"Garner tries to move through to the mount, but Hughes blocks it"
"After an extended period of inactivity, the referee stands them back up"

The user would be able to go through them by pressing the space bar, so it would unfold at your pace. Advantages: More dramatic, especially for big fights.

Magazine Summary - The fight is presented in one go, in the format of a magazine article. So it would look something like (dramatically shortened to save me typing out a lot):

"Buddy Garner and Raul Hughes met at TFC 61 last night, but the highly anticipated match proved to be a disappointingly one-sided affair. Hughes rushed Garner right from the start, looking to land some big strikes, but Garner weathered the early storm easily, using his footwork to always stay out of range. Garner eventually used a clinch to control Raul, before tripping him down to the mat. From there, Raul's poor ground defence was brutally exposed, and the submission expert Buddy Garner had no problem applying a textbook kimura for the submission victory at 3:22 of the first round, taking his pro record to 14-2 overall and ending Raul's four match unbeaten streak."

Advantages: Allows space for opinions, facts and analysis to be added in; easier to cut and paste for diaries; more professional looking.

Especially as this will be an ongoing world :)

[Franklinnoble]

Is there even a decent stand-alone boxing sim on the market? Why not just do that?

[SirFozzie]

Title Bout etcetera.. and I would bet because that Boxing amongst fans is the Old and Busted, and MMA is the New Hotness.

(that and it builds off TEW's MMA fighters who transitioned over to japanese wrestling from MMA)

[Fouts]

Wow. Since I don't know, I wonder how big the target audience is. Martial Arts fans who are also fans of text sims.

[SirFozzie]

Fouts: When I talked with Arlie, he said that TEW is pretty much their top seller, so they have a built in, near rabid market. I think they're in pretty good shape, at least for the first game.

[TLK]

I hope they don't over compliate this like he has with the TEW game. My ideal MMA sim would be something along the line of the Extreme Warfare series.

[Icy]

Sounds good, the only thing that i don't like from wrestling is that it's not a real fight while MMA is, I'll follow this game.

Btw, is it then going to be the same? played as the booker etc? It would be more fun for me if it was about training/managing and running the careers of a stable of fighters.

[Calis]

Hmm, I love hearing this, but I don't know how well it'll translate.

I think the No Holds Barred Fighting sim is right on the verge of being great, if they could take that and soup it up a little and add a career mode it'd be fantastic. It's got a relatively solid fight engine in it, just needs some tweakage.

I'd much prefer a Title Bout style MMA sim than a TEW, but I'm pretty excited nonetheless. The more MMA games out there, the better. :)

[spleen1015]

I would buy a career boxing sim light years before I would buy something like this.

Oh well. Good luck Adam and Arlie.

[heybrad]

I would by this before I bought a boxing sim.

[General Mike]

Sounds like a decent concept in theory. There's a good ammount of things you'd have to manage in regards to your fighters. Gotta find the right balance of name recognition, exciting fights and competitiveness.

[DeToxRox]

As far as people buying it if it were a boxing sim, the market just isn't there. MMA has far since replaced boxing and has a bigger audience from the wrestling fans he makes TEW for.

[JeffNights]

All I know is they better do thier freaking homework, or hardcore MMA fans such as myself that would buy this in a heartbeat will be very dissapointed.

Heres a tip, the best place for MMA on the web is a site called Sherdog.com

[sabotai]

MMA has far since replaced boxing

MMA is bigger than boxing right now, but it's not that big of a difference. In 2006, MMA PPV revenue was just over $200 million* (EDIT: Fixed below) while boxing's PPV revenue was $177 million, which was its second best year ever. If anything, the popularity of MMA is spilling over into boxing. I know, "correlation does not imply causation". It's just my opinion.

UFC 66 was the biggest PPV event for MMA in 2006, with a buyrate of just over 1 million. De La Hoya vs. Mayorga brough in 925,000 buys. And De La Hoya vs. Mayweather Jr. is expected to draw in 1.4 million and maybe even approach 2 million (which is boxing's record)

"It's not boxing that the UFC's explosion in PPV business appears to have severely hurt; it's pro wrestling and specifically World Wrestling Entertainment that the UFC is hurting.

.....

With its total of 1,050,000 domestic PPV buys, UFC 66 actually drew more domestic buys than WWE's last six pay-per-events of 2006 combined. The last six WWE PPVs of 2006 combined to draw approximately 880,000 domestic PPV buys, which is still 170,000 buys short of UFC 66.

In addition, annual mega-events that used to be huge for WWE are now drawing domestic PPV buyrates that are far below the average UFC PPV buyrate. Two prominent examples are Royal Rumble and SummerSlam from January 2006 and August 2006, respectively. Royal Rumble and SummerSlam are traditionally WWE's second and third biggest events of the year, but the 2006 editions of these events only managed to draw 340,000 domestic buys and 330,000 domestic buys, respectively.

Even WWE's biggest event of the year, WrestleMania, was actually out-drawn at the domestic box office by the UFC's second-biggest PPV of the year, and not by a close margin (775,000 to 640,000).

The total revenue generated by domestic buys of WWE PPVs in 2006 was $131,793,000, according to the Wrestling Observer, and that's with WWE having held 16 pay-per-view events in 2006, as compared with ten events for the UFC in 2006 and eleven for boxing."

http://www.ivansblog.com/2007/03/mixed-martial-arts-ufc-ppv-revenue-tops.html


EDIT: Found this: Wrestling Observer reporting the specific figure of $222,766,000 (MMA's PPV revenue). I thought is was just over $200 mil, but apparently it cleared that by a good distance. That's what I get for initially skimming through it. :)

And to make an on-topic post, I've enjoyed TEW and will check out the MMA sim.

[Eaglesfan27]

I would buy a career boxing sim light years before I would buy something like this.

Oh well. Good luck Adam and Arlie.


Ditto on both accounts.

[Neuqua]

If done right, this could very well be a must buy for me. Looking forward to its progress!

[wade moore]

As sabatoi mentioned, MMA is bigger (even if slightly) than boxing. But more importantly it's growing rapidly. I have seen many news stories about how MMA is the fastest growing professional sport in the US right now.

To me it makes total sense to make MMA over boxing.

Of course, neither interest me because of my interests, but from a business standpoint I think it makes total sense.