There has never been a good boxing management game

Okay, well there have been boxing management games, but the last decent ones were made in the 90s and since then boxing games have all focussed on graphics, playing as fighters, competitive console play e.g. Fight Night series.

There is a HUGE gap in the market for a boxing management game. I have seen Youtube videos asking for one for example, various forums and the target market includes websites like LIVESTRONG.com, virtually every amateur MMA/boxing gym and forum in the world.

In this thread I'm going to talk about some ideas for an indie led top-down boxing management game which would be:

a) affordable, easy to produce in Unity. The concepts I'm laying out could be done in a few weeks by a competent team, released in alpha on Steam and could attract a tonne of attention
b) money making - there is as said a large market but this would attract great Kickstarter attention and there is the opportunity to charge for additional unlocks as per below
c) offers engaging multiplayer with little coding. As its not live fighting you just watch the fight it should be easier to produce multiplayer options
d) fun gameplay with lots of customisation. Do you create a heavy slugger or a light jabber, do you focus on knocking your opponents out early or outlasting them? etc.

By no means are any of these ideas wholly original or incredibly difficult to come up with. PLEASE feel free to steal this idea in its entirety because the world needs a good boxing sim.

Okay so, to lay out the main concept (a couple of terrible images attached below):

-A top down boxing game driven by basic AI (move near the opponent, throw 4-5 basic punches, circle) PLUS some moves which are driven by the player stats, e.g. head movement, stepping forwards/backwards, and variables which are managed (strategies) during the fight
-A "create your boxer" page and a training page, where you increase stats,, level up your boxer, unlock perks and stances, etc.
-A "Campaign mode" where you fight increasingly difficult opponents, and a "Multiplayer" mode where you fight other players either randomly or in graded tournaments.
-Manager decision which influence fights, (a basic choice system between rounds), instructions e.g. to defend more or attack more, to conserve energy or use it all.

For reference, check out the MS DOS game World Championship Boxing Manager which is a fantastic game for its time. There IS a gap for this game! The only other boxing manager games are World Boxing Manager on Steam which suffers because it tries to do a 3D version, and the boxing is really unrealistic, and Boxing Manager which as far as I know has been discontinued.

All of the modern games attempt too badly to replicate 3D models and never actually manage to replicate boxing. To avoid this pitfall a good boxing sim should be top-down and focus upon a 2-layer fighting system (head and body) and the basic punches (jab, cross, hook, uppercut) multiplied by chance algorithms.

I am not good at coding so for me to make this is out of the question, however the time required to produce an alpha along with the graphics/sounds is minimal and the huge MMA/boxing online community is an untapped market for sure. So throwing this out there for discussion.

 

Looks like a couple have come out in the past couple years on steam, one of which has zero reviews, the other with mixed reviews.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/563750/World_Boxing_Manager/#app_reviews_hash
http://store.steampowered.com/app/724480/World_Circuit_Boxing/

I think steam is not a good platform for this type of game. Several boxing manager games are available on ios and android which seem to be more popular with more users and downloads.

These games are fundamentally different than a boxing manager/sim game, totally different genre of game.

Can you explain/expand upon this? I might be wrong - but I don't see a huge gap (under-served) market for a boxing management game. Idk the depth of the research performed to make this claim, but If the two games linked above are any indication PC is not a good target platform for boxing management games.
Maybe a mobile version - because boxing management sims do not require high quality graphics, and managing menus and numbers with buttons is pretty simple on mobile devices.

Hmm - the livestrong 'community' is about healthy living, not management/simulation gaming. I don't see the connection here at all.
And for mma/boxing gyms - imo - the vast majority of people who participate in mma/boxing are not gamers. The minority of Individuals who are gamers and who are also involved in mma/boxing are probably playing cod or other action oriented games on consoles, or maybe mobile games.
Hypothetically if the minority of people who are involved with mma/boxing, are also interested in playing a boxing management/sim game - that small minority of people are most likely going to want to play there game on either mobile or console, not PC.

I don't think this is an accurate statement, especially with crowd funding. More likely - this type of game would need to be developed solo or by a small team in order to have any chance at ROI.

Honestly - I think it would require a very dedicated person/team to design and create the systems needed in order to make a proper management game. How all the systems work and effect each other is not trivial and would take a lot longer than speculated.

Have you considered a visual scripting tool like Playmaker or other? "Not a good coder" is not a deal breaker as it once was. Even better - you might consider developing this in something other than Unity that is mo-better designed for UI/UX development, which happens to be about 75% of this type of management/sim game.

I remember playing Fight Night round 2, and I thought the experience was pretty enjoyable. Most of the time - realism does not equal enjoyment/fun. Developers of games like this quite possibly have made design decisions that increase engagement at the expense of realism, because realism ≠ fun.

I don't know - top down eliminates one of the most important elements of boxing which is body position and foot work. Body position is more than just upper body leaning and dodging and foot work is more than just speed/direction. One of the benefits of a first/third person point of view is the player can more believably 'feel' the motion of his opponent and react/strategize his movements and actions/reactions. But that is more for a boxing game not a management game. As a simulation/management game any view 'could' theoretically work. Essentially the player would not be performing the boxing, just observing and 'managing' the matches.

How about putting the view of the player ring side, as a manager would be sitting in the crowd, or how about cornering the match? That would be interesting - something I've not seen done before.

Although I disagree with the conclusions drawn, the identified target player base do not play these types of games, and the delivery platform (PC) which the target market probably uses the least compared to other platforms, I agree with this statement.
The world does need a good boxing sim. I enjoy boxing games and it has bee a long time since I played a good boxing management/sim game. But I enjoy boxing games more than I enjoy boxing management/sim games. It would be nice to see a fresh design for this type of game that was enjoyable to play.

For a top down boxing game (not management game) consider checking out this game.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/747790/Olsons_Boxing_Challenge/
The game is cheap and was developed in a couple months by one guy. Not 'awesome' but pretty well made for one guy, and this can give you an example of how involved a true boxing management game would likely be. More than just a couple weeks.

 

First of all: what follows is a shameless piece of self-promotion.

With that caveat, I was somewhat pleased to see what @Synapse11 has described, as this summarises about 75% of the tactical boxing management simulation game I've been working on: https://leatherthegame.com

I especially appreciate your MS Paint-style brainstorm, which is quite close to what we ultimately went with for LEATHER; simple top-down stuff, something visually parseable.

However as @theANMATOR2b has said, as I'm pretty much a 1-man team (with a couple of helpers here and there) I haven't pitched this at the PC market. I always wanted something pocketable, something I could play whilst on the bus, so I went down the Android/iOS route.

I'm currently on the drive-train for LEATHER's release (I'm aiming for June 2018 on Android, followed by the iOS release soon after). I'd appreciate any criticism - it's been quite the slog, and you tend to lose perspective when you've been working on something for so long.

 

Victorious Boxers was the best gameplay for a boxing game ever made. I worked at EA when they bought the Japanese teams game engine, and fight night was re invented. But yeah I agree with the lack of management. The fight night series was too simmy in the end and the management feature got dull quick.

On a side note, being a huge boxing fan myself, me and a colleague have been working on a Punch Out like Management game. Not quite the game to satisfy hard core boxing fans but maybe some casuals?

 

I have a boxing management sim in the making too. I will be publishing on Steam (and maybe iOS) as I'm sick and tired of dealing with Google and Android in general .

Game features include:

full 3d fightnight engine (mulitple cameras)
6x skill parameters 0-20
20x customizable fight strategy parameters
Multi-weight World Champions

The game is not yet in a stage I can even call Alpha, but I am consistently working towards that and will then try to hit Steam with it.


I too agree that there is a hole in the market, sadly I think we are a dying breed who think this way and maybe the hole in the market (on Steam purchases at least) isn't quite as large as I'd hoped, but nethertheless there certainly won't be a lot of competition on there for me

Enjoyed your post too, I will probably use a lot of the ideas when I fine tune the AI.

 

World Championship Boxing Manager on Spectrum/Amiga/Dos was amazing. Loved it!!
Also there was an amazing web based boxing manager game 20yrs ago, which I cant remember its name now.

I still play this: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/world-championship-boxing-manager-126

 

Sick game!! I suddenly remember this now I have seen the screenshots. Will play this to death when i get time and add some ideas into my project Thanks

 

@megabrobro:

I agree; the hole in the market for sports management games overall is a bit deceptive, and seems to be for a certain age group. I think you need to mature into sports management games; back in the 90s as a kid of 12 I'd never consider playing one, I'd always want something more directly involving, but a few years later I was all about Championship Manager, which haunts my dreams to this day.

The problem I've found, whilst designing Leather, is that there's two different sorts of boxing management fan: some want to concentrate on the promotional aspects (so essentially they're playing an Eddie Hearn role), all about putting on large events and making money, and the others want the more strategic nitty-gritty of building a stable of fighters and guiding them to the top.

The former of these doesn't interest me, so I've not gone down that road, but there's a definite split in the market.

 

Hi everyone,

I'm a graphic designer and also a big boxing fan. The gap in the market for a boxing management game seems like a big opportunity.

Around a year ago i decided to mock up how I think a game should look as a personal project - I also have a rough idea of how the game would function.

The idea is for the game to play out in 'career mode' style, where the player takes the role of a young up & coming promoter. (Like Eddie Hearn but without daddy's money).
The game requires you to sign fighters on contracts (within your budget/coin balance) ofcourse. Matching them with otehr fighters by working with other promoters. Hiring venues suitable for the size of the event you are throwing.
Successful events will lead to money/coins from ticket sales, advertising/revenue.
Unsuccessful events such as over-matching your fighter will result in a loss, damage your reputation as a promoter, making it harder to sign new fighters, etc.

Here is the mock-up of the project as per my portfolio; feedback welcome ofcourse,

https://redraftstudio.co.uk/Main-Event-Boxing-Promoter










-Ric

 

@redraft So you have gone down the "Eddie Hearn" route. As I mentioned before, whilst that sort of game isn't strictly to my taste I can only applaud the design work you've done here; it's got a nice "gritty" feel to it, very 1950s, not all neon razzle dazzle, which is what most designers go with when doing boxing graphic design.

 

Thanks Drobey.

I think the concept breaks from other boxing management games i've came across in the sense it's more about building a business empire than actually managing a fighter and his physical traits. It does call for building rapport with certain gyms and trainers however so it would come with the option of requesting certain trainers try to implement certain traits with his fighters (more offensive, harder punching, etc) - but could come at the risk of upsetting that coach.

 

@redraft, i made a browser based game like this about 15yrs ago. Was really basic but I thought it was beautiful, you got me dreaming about what could be done today.

Looking at your stuff your artwork is lovely, really do think the style is perfect for this genre. Did you draw GGG and Sonny LIston?

 

Some thoughts:

1. provide a Japanese translation
2. focusing on a particular period of boxing is a great idea - research

Top down sucks, artistically. These things don't sell at all well. Isometric or even side-on would resonate better with people. Also not seeing the body blows - an essential strategic component, or foot work or in-depth training.

Is it a promotional management game or a training management game? This will identify the weaknesses in any games of this kind. I would suggest that if its a mix, you put more emphasis on the fighter-management part including training regime. It's fun to try and manage a difficult personality.

 

I'd have thought a Spanish translation would be more a money-spinner, to bring in the central and south American markets.

I don't know much about Japanese gaming tastes, so I'll need to be schooled on this. Is their demand for boxing big enough to warrant a translation?

 

It's one thing to determine if a market likes a subject and another thing to determine if that market actually has paying gamers also interested in that subject. You should do your own research of course, I'm not making a boxing game and this was only a flying visit.

 

Thanks Messy Coder!

Ha yeah I use a Wacom Cintique GFX tablet so it was perfect for achieving the illustrative & 'old school' character style I was going for. I actually tried to change Golovkin's face a little bit (So team GGG don't sue!).

If you click the link to the full project I also used British Light Heavyweight Anthony Yarde as an illustration of another stock-fighter.

As for dreaming about what could be done today, I would love for this project to actually make it into some development rather than just a concept, I was a huge fan of Championship Manager 01/02 back in the day, I always felt that working of the structure and database would be perfect for these types of mobile games with in-app purchases!

 

A gap surely exists, although from what I can see boxing management sims just don't have a return on PC as they once used to. It will be interesting to review attempts to fill this gap, but I suspect mobile is the best option to get any numbers behind a game about boxing management.

Hippo hits on a good point, the game (if mobile) will need to be ad driven if localized to areas where boxing is popular. Boxing is not the predominant combat sport in Japan/Asia, so if targeting that region it'd be wise to consider other more popular combat sports. One of the main reasons MMA is SO popular.

I also like Hippos suggestion to focus on an era, or have a 'hook' that other boxing management games simply don't have.
I've never seen a game that offers a good, interesting, interactive cornerman mechanic. I think that could have boundless potential, not just related to mini game type play. Dialogue, agility, technique, improvement, addressing a slew of issues for the athlete - all could be really interesting.
OR
Over the top blood/gore, set in a time when rules/regulations on at-time injuries were less consistent.
OR
Provide all martial arts available in the game, MMA rather than straight boxing, so the target audience is - the world rather than exclusive to only one. That'd be a game that was 4-8x more complex than a straight boxing management game, but at the benefit of expanding the audience 10 fold and giving the game a fighting chance to succeed.

For an era specific game - I think bare knuckle would be a very interesting era to set the game in. Could be really authentic with sepia toned visuals with high contrast on blood. Could even have some local government-lite intrusion and political-lite tones that provide situations to address beyond the core management loop.

 

Mate, this is brilliant! I have most of my game running now, but tbh the 3d match engine is not good enough and I've currently moved onto a different project. If I had your art style I would probably make a 2d boxing management game.

I would certainly love to have your artistic skills or perhaps collaborate with you on a project at some stage. Fantastic work

 

Just a quick one: it's been a long time coming, but I finally got my boxing management game finished...well, on Android at least...after a last minute technical nightmare (trying to get the APK size down below the Google Play 100MB basic limit was a gruelling challenge). It's not got the artist flair of @redraft 's mockups, but it does its job.

Anyhow, if anyone's interested there's both free and paid versions, just search for "Leather The Game" in the Play store.

 

100mb limit?
Wow! That must have been really tiring for you.

 

I was aware of the 100MB limit before I began the APK publishing process, but the Play Store has a thing called Expansion Files which allows you to bundle more content in above the limit...however I made the mistake of assuming that the implementation of these Expansion Files would be trivial...

...which it isn't. My original build came in at 165MB, and so I began researching Expansion Files, and found there was a huge quantity of new code required. More code would mean more testing, and I was desperate to get the app out no more than a week late (implementing and testing Expansion File downloading would have taken 2/3 weeks), so I decided to re-structure some of my databases.

I saved 50MB alone just from changing GUID primary keys into int64's.

 

That's the truth. I have one on steam and it's just not what I wanted. Hasn't been a good one since the Dreamcast if you ask me.

 

Which one on the dreamcast?

 

Ready to Rumble, I loved that game so much when I was a kid.

 

Wooah! I had a suspicion it was that game.
Afro Thunder! Lol!

 

AFROOOOOOOOOOO THUNDEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Haha, god that game was delightful.

 

Yep. And alot of fun too.

And then Afro would say:
It's time to dance!....It's time to dance!

After all of these years, I still remember his famous quote. Ha! Ha!

 

I was a total nerd that pre-ordered it, and I got this white shirt with the logo on it. It was like an extra large and I was in middle school, but I wore it all the time lol.

Thinking back, I'm fairly sure Ready 2 Rumble was the first game to have real crowds with individual people and such instead of an iso cardboard.

Edit: It's 2 not to

 

Try this one
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.justdrill.theboxingmanager

 

Hey DrObey,
I love your game, it's really fun. I'm trying to do something similar, and with that aim, have been playing a fair amount of what is out there. There isn't much, which is encouraging, as I tend to have a similar viewpoint to the OP, but yours is comfortably the best I've found, and does quite a lot of the ideas I have had for mine, which is both validating and annoying, lol!
Fun to see how your approach is similar in some ways and different in others, and has given me much food for thought, but I really want to congratulate you on such an involving game, especially if you are a one-man-team as you say. I am beginning to appreciate just how much work goes into something like this, being a complete game dev noob. I work in computing, but on the database side, so nothing to do with games. It's why I picked a stats based game to write, and will hopefully not have too complicated a front end while doing all the processing work in a database, where I am far happier lol. I'm worried by the size limit you mention, as I would also like to push this for phones rather than PC.

I actually saw your game on youtube a few months ago, while I was researching, but couldn't find it on the play store, and assumed it was ios only. It was only when I read your post on here that I went back and looked for it and it came up, so I don't know if some algorithms have been working against you. Anyway, I hope you are having every success, as you have put an awful lot of work in and come up with a really polished game.

All the best

 

Hi there, apologies for the delayed reply - this pandemic has gotten in the way of life a little bit - it goes without saying.

I am indeed still a one-man team - one thing worth mentioning here is that app development is certainly not a viable path to becoming an overnight millionnaire, as Leather has certainly not made me that, but it's ticking along nicely. It'll be a while before I get to the level of needing other people involved, but I think that's for the best with these things; if you've got a strong enough vision for how you want the game to work then you don't always need other people around you diluting it - stick with your vision.

There are ways to work around the size limit - expansion packages can be attached to Android apps, whereby the initial app installs and then downloads the extra stuff it needs, rather than it all being stored in the main installer. I only had a little bit of experience with mobile app development when I launched into it (I'm a back-end logic guy), so for me it was also something of a learning curve.