Gamer lines up $4m goal

Footymax Game architect Kevin Toms, left, and CEO Callum McNair, with a suitable prop for their success. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Gaming guru Kevin Toms is ready to set the benchmark for football management games for the second time with the launch of FootyMax.com early next year.

Tapping the exploding online gaming industry, his budding company, Online Strategic Games, will give football fans the chance to live out their fantasy of managing a soccer team in a multiplayer football game played over the internet.

Toms was the architect of the Football Manager CD game series for home computers that had sales of close to 2 million copies in the 1990s.

His fans have been left eager for more since he left Britain six years ago to settle in New Zealand, where he has been working in website development.

The keen gamer, who has been inventing board games since the age of 10, developed FootyMax as a hobby over several years while working as a solutions architect for software company Infinity Solutions in Auckland.

He has retained the best-loved features of the Football Manager games, but says the internet allows for greater customisation by the players, who can choose to play in their own league or compete against other subscribers.

Being internet-based will also see the game evolve from month to month, as Toms can refresh and add to it so it does not remain static.

FootyMax takes players into the realm of team manager with the goal of taking their club to the top of the championship by selecting a team and being responsible for tactics and motivation while managing players' form, injuries and suspensions.

"You are the equivalent of Alex Ferguson, manager of Manchester United," said Toms.

FootyMax is subscription-based, players making monthly payments for unlimited monthly use.

A conversation with his accountant, John Mercer, about the money required to market the game led to a meeting with former Warriors marketing manager Callum McNair.

Several meetings later, McNair and Mercer saw the potential in a transactional and global game, where small, monthly subscriptions could yield a sizeable net result, and decided to invest their own money to get it to market.

PricewaterhouseCoopers projected the global entertainment and media industry would grow from US$21.2 billion to US$35.8 billion in two years, driven by the expansion in online distribution channels.

The trio formalised the company 18 months ago, with McNair and Mercer taking care of the strategic business side while Toms has finished developing the game.

The company was picked as a winner in the Auckland University of Technology's annual Up-Start competition in September, which gave them a three-year residency at the AUT Technology Park.

As well as the office space, they are also receiving help with product development, investment and business coaching.

Toms works full-time alongside one other employee responsible for the subscriptions.

Marketing costs to attract people to the website and getting them to subscribe are the company's biggest costs at the moment.

A $100,000 injection from private investors last month will help to cover these. The company has also employed web-marketing company First Rate to help get the name out.

A sample version of the game sold under licence to New Zealand Soccer one year ago has provided crucial testing and feedback in the final stages of development.

In February, FootyMax will be launched in Britain, the US and Europe where male soccer fans aged 20-49 are the target market.

Although it will not be sold locally at first because soccer is not a huge game here, Toms expects similar rugby and hockey games he is planning will be more popular with Kiwis.

The monthly subscription fee is 3.99 or about $7.80. The company is expecting a subscriber base of 90,000 within five years which would yield a net profit of $4.7 million by 2010 from the one game.

Forward play

* FootyMax will be launched in Britain, the US and Europe in February.
* Male soccer fans aged 20-49 are the target market.
* The monthly subscription fee is set at 3.99, or about $7.80.
* The company is expecting a subscriber base of 90,000 within five years.
* It is projected the game will deliver a net profit of $4.7 million by 2010.