Quick Hit NFL Football

Changing the Game

When I left the world of football game development following Madden NFL 06 to work on non-sports IP, I didn't know if I would ever go back. So imagine my surprise when I took the trip out to the East coast to see if Quick Hit, Inc. could sell me on the idea, only to have me end up enthusiastically trying to sell them. I had shipped six different NFL games to date, and really wanted to try my hand at something else, but as we talked more about the idea of taking on the 800-Pound Gorilla that was EA Sports with a casual, Free-to-Play football title, the more I knew two things:

1.) It would be the challenge of my young career

and

2.) I was totally in.

I knew it was going to be an uphill battle, as it was only a matter of time before the competition headed into the space with their comparably colossal resources in tow but, like many game designers, I never met a dream I didn't want to see made real. And like most folks with production experience, I seldom squared off against a pile of problems I didn't yearn to solve. So, I hopped back on a plain to LA, gave my two weeks notice, and started packing for what would surely be a game for the ages.

From D&D to 4th and 3

Quick Hit was based just outside of Boston in Foxborough, MA - less than a mile where the New England Patriots played. It was, ironically enough, founded by a group of fantasy MMO expats from Turbine Entertainment Software, best known for their work on titles like Asheron's Call and Dungeons and Dragons Online.

There were a lot of things I loved about working there: Creating something new in a well-established genre, bringing in some of my favorite ex-coworkers together on single "dream team," learning a TON about free-to-play, user feedback loops, and making the right choices on a live product...but my favorite?

Translating what I knew about football to folks who mostly spoke fandom.

Not to say they were "sportsball" haters. Boston is, after all, a huge sports town with a rich history and they all subscribed to that on some level, but not in a way that always made the need for a feature critical to football fans.

Luckily, I was a D&D nut as a kid, and since we were essentially setting out to make a sports RPG, one of the coolest things about presenting milestones was translating concepts from the gridiron to our resident game masters. It taught me a lot about managing up and meeting people where they are at vs. where you think they should be.

What's more, since I had spent a lot of my career to that point making hardcore sports games, they also had a ton to teach me about how to take some pretty dense ideas and help them mean something to the masses.

A fair trade, if you ask me.

Project Highlights

The Old Man and the TD

Long before my younger self learned there was lots to love about life outside of video gaming, my Dad had one thing he truly loved: Marshall University Football.

We never really got to spend a lot of time together, but many of the precious weekends I had with him were spent at the stadium watching the Thundering Herd do their thing. But just like he never really understood why I loved dungeons, dice, and d-pads, I can't say I had much of a clue as to what what he saw in football...until it became my job to make games for the NFL.

The thing is, even though I knew he was proud of me for working on a big game like Madden, he never was much for all that "newfangled" technology.

"Too many buttons!" he'd say when I tried to pass him a controller. "Too much going on. I'm too old for this ****, son."

And so, despite me finally thinking we'd finally share a hobby, we were still somehow worlds apart. So, when I was approached by Quick Hit, I recognized that part of me decided I was finally going to make a game that, well, even my Dad could enjoy. Casual, quick, and set on rewarding folks who knew and loved the chest-bumping chest match that is American football.

By all accounts, we did just that, scoring well with young kids and middle-aged gamers throughout the product's life cycle. And even though I hadn't exactly considered that he wasn't much of a PC gamer, either (*shurgs*), I'd like to think that what we built at QHF helped bridge the gap for other father-son duos where gaming was never quite as cool as the field itself.

Even now, that thought still makes my day. That, and my Dad whapping at an Xbox controller like a cat trying to squish a bug...