Serious Parody

Football Manager = $9.99 Wrestling Manager = $9.99 It's a cool game dude. It's the kind of game you can play for months (believe me, I have been) and we plan to release a new patch every month which we will always try to make free. Football Manager is a well-known brand. Wrestling Manager is not. Your game may be good (I don't know, I lack an iDevice), but you are pricing yourself out of the market. $10 for an unknown iPhone game is too much of a risk. This. Football Manager/Championship Manager has been around for more or less twenty years. People know when they get a Football Manager game they're getting something that will be fun. I hardly play any other game than Football Manager these days, because it's about all my laptop can handle and I don't own a working console. All we know about Wrestling Manager is it's got some wrestlers with silly names that sound kinda like the names of real wrestlers - and if I had something I could play this on, I still wouldn't try it out because it just doesn't look worth my time for that price, And sure, Adam Ryland has made his name and can charge $40 for his wrestling management game - but I'm not trying to charge $40, I'm charging a quarter of that for my wrestling management game. I think if this was the exact same game but on a PC, most of you wouldn't have even mentioned price but because it's on an iPhone - well $9.99 is suddenly a lot of money. ---- The one guy in here that's bought the game has done nothing but post good things about it so far. So don't take my word for it, ask him if it's any good.

You gotta admit, he has a point. He really doesn't. If $10 is too much to spend, we go enjoy the other wrestling games like EWR or TEW, or the other, lower-quality ones. I am supremely not bothered about not being able to get it on the iPhone/Android and I doubt a lot of people are. How much is TEW?

This. I would have never bought Football Manager 2011 last year if I didn't have a demo and had a chance to actually see what the game is like and whether I found it fun enough to invest however much it was I bought it on Steam for (it was during a sale). EDIT: Showing videos of gameplay is a good start. I can appreciate that. I'll get some vids out asap but in the mean time here's an article that has some images which explain certain features. http://www.wwedvdnews.com/wrestling-manager-game-released/18795/

You gotta admit, he has a point. I have purchased the game. Dunno how much I'll be able to play this weekend, but I look forward to it! (Y) He really doesn't have a point. TEW is more expensive, yes. However, it has demo's, years of experience and even a fucking freeware version. I'm not suggesting that this should be freeware but putting a game out for $10 when all we've seen is pictures of gimmick rip-offs, don't bank on many people rushing online to buy it. Also- WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ANGRY BIRDS?????? I love Angry Birds, I even have the sequel but as a wrestling fan, I wanted an actual wrestling related game from the WWE not a bad version of angry birds but with wrestlers.

Yeah. WWE has 2 Angry Bird clones where you fire a wrestler out of a slingshot into some wood/metal to try and knock over the other wrestler. They also have a Legends of Wrestlemania game out which has 3 moves per wrestler and sucks big time. The graphics are appalling. Dwayne Miavia in Wrestling Manager, looks more like the Rock than The Rock does in that game and Dwayne Miavia isn't even supposed to look anything like him. TNA's latest game is actually the sequel to Legends of Wrestlemania in the same way that WWF Wrestlemania 2000 was the sequel to WCW/NWO: Revenge. It's made by the same developers but with the TNA license instead. It's got good graphics and a decent roster but still only 3 moves per wrestler and the only difference between Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam is the cloths they are wearing because neither have their signature moves, neither does Angle, etc. So what's the point of playing a touch screen wrestling game with no actual moves? The controls are buggy at best and there's nothing to keep you entertained for more than an hour. The difference between those games and Wrestling Manager is, we've built a game that's suited to the touch screen devices. The reason Game Dev Story is one of the best titles on the iPhone is because it's not trying to make you use a an imaginary joy stick, it's a management sim and that's the kind of game we wanted to make but for wrestling fans.

My conclusion: if anyone actually did spend $250,000 developing any kind of app then their business model is atrocious. It depends what the app is for mate. I could knock up a sound board in 10 minutes. This isn't your average app, it's a hardcore game with a huge database filled with huge amounts of hand drawn content. There's features upon features in the game and they all take time. Then when you factor in marketing costs as well as actually setting up the office. How much does 6 macs cost do you think?

If you need us to be a proven company in order to so that you can spend $10 then maybe you need to check back in a few years to see if we are still around. It's not like I'm trying to charge $60 for the game. It's $9.99. I'm sorry guys, I really do hear what you're all saying and I appreciate the concerns that some of you are showing but there's nothing I can do about the price. What I can do though is put some video's out in the next couple of days so that you can see it in action. I thought it was going to be out this coming Thursday but for some reason it got brought forward a few days so I'm not as prepared as I should be.

Assuming I had the skills needed to draw the cards and to write every line of code, etc the game would have taken me 5-6 years to make on my own and that's assuming I was at it full time which I couldn't be because I'd need to work to pay my bills..

When did $10 for a game that you can play for months become such a bad investment? I had a pizza last night that cost more than that and it lasted 10 minutes. But hey, if you guys think $10's is too much for a good wrestling management game, then I guess you'll have to go enjoy the other wrestling games on the iPhone - like Angry Birds. How much is TEW again?

Like I said, we wanted to make it a great game. The platform holder takes roughly 30% of all income. So if we sold 250,000 at $0.99 we'd get $175,000 back which still wouldn't be enough to break even but at least it would keep us going for quite a while. Wow serious stuff The reason so many people in here are skeptical about wrestling games popping up is because people say "I'm going to make one" but they don't realise just how complicated it is to do. That's why some people get part way through then stop and it's why I have a lot of respect for Adam Ryland for sticking it out all these years.

Like I said, we wanted to make it a great game. The platform holder takes roughly 30% of all income. So if we sold 250,000 at $0.99 we'd get $175,000 back.

I hear what you're all saying and believe me if we could afford to give it away we would and if we could afford to make it cheap, we would but we've sank an awful lot of money into this game and we need to make it back so that we can keep paying our developers. This next part is from a conversation I had earlier, it's a bit ranty but I hope you guys can read it and understand where I'm coming from. "The problem is, we've built a game for a very niche part of the market. If you're not a wrestling fan, chances are you won't look twice at it and even if you are a wrestling fan, you might not be a management games fan and then even if you are both of those, you might not like games that aren't licensed. There's over 100,000 games on the app store and we are the only wrestling management sim but THERE ARE 2 'ANGRY BIRDS--WITH-WWE-WRESTLERS' GAMES FOR GOD SAKE! So we've done the crazy thing and instead of making a mass market piece of crap, we've tried to make a good game for actual wrestling game fans. The consequence of that is, we can't charge $0.99 because to do so would require us to sell 250,000 copies just to break even and I doubt there's even 25,000 wrestling management game fans in the world never mind 250,000. The killer is, Wrestling Manager has all kinds of things going for it. It's got 5 different stages of the game where you're trying to get TV and PPV deals, then it becomes about Ratings and improving the roster so that you can take part in the online 'Ratings War' league. There's over 400+ characters each with their own art work, a full blown real time auction system, there's some really deep gameplay in there too like how you improve your wrestlers, you can turn kayfabe mode off and pick who wins the matches, etc. There's automate systems to help you make events quicker and there's even a feature that lets you swap out our art work for what ever files you want (so that you can put in the real wrestlers if you wanted to). You know it's funny, people complain that we get nothing but Angry Birds rip offs and shameless casual games but then when someone goes out of their way to make a hardcore niche game, they get criticised for trying to earn enough money back to pay their employees. Maybe we should have released an Angry Birds rip off too. "

I'm not after an apology. People are naturally skeptical but hopefully in future when I say I'm working on something, people will trust that.

Hey if Rob Van Dam is original then so is Rodney Van Damn right? lol. Anyway, let's move past that. Now the games out. We'd love to hear feedback when you've had a chance to play it.

We created 100% original characters like Able and Rod Van Damn. They are in no way affiliated with any wrestling promotion that we know about. ...

I'm not sure the company will be releasing a demo any time soon. We're a really small company (6 developers) and we have to balance between new features and porting the game to other platforms because there are lots of people that want to play it but don't have a device. I'll make a video of some of the game later if that helps but but hopefully someone in this community will give it a try and spread the word. It's a decent game. It takes some figuring out and it's deep if you want it to be or it's simple if you want it to be. All I can say is, the game as it stands is easily worth its money, then on top of that we have lots of patches planned for it and they will be free.

Is your iPad connected over wifi or 3G? It's a big game and I'm not sure Apple let people download over 3G if it's a certain point.

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wrestling-manager/id465946596?mt=8&ls=1

Football Manager = $9.99 Wrestling Manager = $9.99 It's a cool game dude. It's the kind of game you can play for months (believe me, I have been) and we plan to release a new patch every month which we will always try to make free.

Wrestling Manager is finally on the App Store! I sincerely hope you all like it and feedback is very important to us so if you see ways to improve it, let us know and we'll get a patch out as soon as possible. We're aiming to put new features in the game roughly once each month. We will do our best keep them free but in order for that to happen we need as many people to buy the game so that we can pay the developers to keep working on it.

Anyone with actual questions about the game feel free to ask. Anyone with ridiculous questions like the guy above, feel free to keep wasting your time typing but know that you'll be ignored and that I appreciate the bump to the thread. Your friendly neighbourhood developer.

EWR didn't because it wasn't sold - broadly speaking, it's not really relevant if it's not a commercial product. It's a grey area, but as Ryland wasn't actively profiting from it, the law would generally be in his favour, I assume. TEW didn't use any copyrighted likenesses etc. for that reason - it's a commercial product. I'm not a football fan, so I don't know a whole lot about this, but at some point during the series didn't the unlicensed names change to become less obvious? "Aragon" and things like that, instead of the more obvious "Manchester Red"? I'd assumed that was after some kind of legal pressure but, as I say, I don't know enough about the specifics. As I said, we'll let the legal team focus on that. If anyone has actual questions about the game I'd be happy to answer them.

Not all parodies are funny, Wrestling Manager is more of a Serious Parody but we did try to be humours along the way. I guess it just depends on your sense of humour.

There's a difference between parody and copyright infringement, and that difference isn't "because I say it's this." It's not a polemic; it's a ripoff. I'm not saying, oh, you're going to get sued omg or anything like that because I outright do not care, but there is a lot of precedent surrounding parody as protected speech and "exactly like Kane except blue and also named after the brother of the Biblical Cain" is going to fall pretty squarely outside that purview. But never mind, JukeboxHero is right, we only have it in for you because you can't join the Stonecutters because it's too exclusive. OH, RADIO, KEEP ME APPRAISED OF YOUR SUNDRY TRIVIA. Wrestling on a whole lends itself to parody and when you consider that Rob Van Dam is a parody of Jean Claud Van Dam and that characters like Sting were based largely on The Crow (and more recently The Joker) you can see that wrestling has always had outside influences on characters. Anyone remember Gillberg? or more recently The Black Machismo? The fact that wrestling companies have always had those parody characters is something we parody within the game. We also looked at the way other games have handled similar situations. For example Pro Evolution Soccer had names like Bryan Griggs instead of Ryan Giggs, they have Manchester Red instead of Manchester United, etc. Tekken have parodies of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Mark Coleman, etc. More recently, Game Dev Story (which was a big influence of Wrestling Manager) parodied the games industry and instead of having the Game Boy from Nintendo or the Genesis from Sega, they had the Game Kid from Intendro and the Exodus from Senga, Walt Sidney instead of Walt Disney and Steve Jobson instead of Steve Jobs, etc. We have similar things through-out our game and we've tried to use in-jokes that hopefully the wrestling community would enjoy. I appreciate people expressing concern but I assure you, we have done a lot of research and consulted lawyers to make sure things are all legal. We aren't trying to pass any of our characters off as being real wrestlers. We are quite clear that this is intended as a parody of the wrestling industry and not associated with any wrestling promotion or wrestler. We don't think anyone is going to buy this game specifically to use Able, we think they are going to buy the game because they want a good wrestling management sim for their phone and that's what we have made. --- Anywho, lets let the legal team worry about the legalities of the game. How do you guys think Story Lines should work within the game?

In many... many ways. Well, I'm convinced. Glad to have helped! <------------ clearly sarcasm. Since they apparently don't have sarcasm on your planet, "Well, I'm convinced" is Earthspeak for "Wow, what a dumbass." Please note that this is a sleight on your perceived intellect as a whole, not that of your rear end in particular. Irony. If you can't see how Rod Van Damn is a parody then there's no point in me explaining the many other ways we parody the wrestling industry in general.