Over the past 50 (FIFTY!) years, gaming has evolved from a niche hobby to a universal cultural phenomenon that engages over 3.5 billion people worldwide. This seismic shift owes much to the revolution of mobile technology placing powerful gaming hardware into the pockets of many. Gamers worldwide now spend over $200 billion each year on their favourite pastime, dwarfing the combined spending on music and movies. From the simple puzzles and pixels of yesteryear, to the immense complexity of immersive adventures, gaming has evolved outwards in all directions, offering a universe of possibilities. Across all the platforms, we can find games catering to almost every conceivable taste and interest.
With one exception. Football.
Football games evolved in several ways, but mostly in the direction of realism. We’ve moved from the crude approximations of Pele’s Soccer to the awesome hyper-realism of the latest FIFA or FC instalment. The original Football Manager (1982) on the Spectrum, a few thousand lines of information, birthed a genre which has since become so deep that professional clubs and scouts use the databases for real-world research. The depth of such games has lead to people adding their gaming prowess on their CV, and in some cases even led them into real world management.
Taking nothing away from these games, we play and love them, but we must address the open goal in the room. Games that require bespoke gaming consoles and hardware are only serving a niche of football fans. On mobile, by far the most accessible platform on the planet, we’ve seen several attempts to create pocket sized versions of the existing realistic football games, along with football themed arcade style and hyper-casual games. But where are the games that are for football fans, not just gamers who also like football?
At the heart of Matchday, our ethos revolves around the universal love for football, a sport that captivates over 5 billion hearts worldwide. This stunning fact resonated with us: the vast majority of football fans have never played a football video game. Traditional football console games have reached tens of millions of enthusiasts, (predominantly older players in Western countries), meaning an audience of staggering proportions has been left wanting. Our answer to this disparity is designed to engage every fan in the exhilarating world of football gaming. Our ambition is for everyone everywhere to be able to transport themselves into the world of football, with its rollercoaster of emotions. Let’s make football gaming as accessible and inclusive as the sport itself.
Matchday sits at a nexus of innovation. We are leveraging brand new technologies, cutting-edge generative AI, LLMs for storytelling, blockchain tech, and more. As we combine those powerful technologies with the authenticity of tens of thousands of officially licensed players through our partnerships with FIFA, FIFPRO and so many more, magic happens. We are crafting an experience that transcends the conventional, a game where emotions enrich play and traditional gaming barriers are torn down. Our founding team brings a wealth of experience from the dawn of mobile gaming and a profound expertise in utilising and guiding new tech to create memorable gaming experiences. We are not interested in reinventing the wheel and trying to replicate what existing football games are already doing, instead we are building something new to cater for a much larger audience of football fans.
With mobile as our launch platform, we ensure that the joy of football gaming is available to as many as possible. With officially licensed footballer cards, real-life data integration and our unique Prorata model serving detailed stats for players from all over the world, Matchday is primed for authenticity. We don’t even see it as launching a game, but introducing a genre that extends football gaming's reach beyond traditional gamers to anyone with a mobile phone and a love for football.
In embarking on this journey, Matchday is not merely reaching out to existing fans of football games; we're extending a hand to every football enthusiast across the globe, inviting them to discover the joy and excitement of football gaming. This is the revolution we're championing—a movement to democratise football gaming, making it a part of every fan's life. Join us as we kick off this new era of football gaming, one goal at a time.
Did you know, we’re about to start Alpha testing our game? Sign up for our Locker Room to get access to our early access program.
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