Sponsored Feature: Serious Parody on developing, releasing, and supporting iOS's first wrestling-sim Wrestling Manager

Visit the app store in search of a good wrestling game and you'll find no shortage of arcadey button-bashing affairs.

Serious Parody, however, decided to do something different, releasing the first wrestling-sim for iOS devices: Wrestling Manager.

We spoke with Serious Parody's Dan Hinkles on some surprising AAA talents, unlikely inspirations, and working with the community on Wrestling Manager.

Dan Hinkles: Yeah it’s kind of a cross between that and FIFA’s Ultimate Team but for wrestling fans.

Game Dev Story was one of the first iOS games that gripped me. On the surface it looks like a really shallow game. You hire staff, create, promote and sell games then you rinse and repeat.

In order to really master it you need to find the best strategy, and that’s where the fun is.

And this is something you wanted to bring into Wrestling Manager?

In Wrestling Manager we wanted that same simplicity on the surface, so you hire wrestlers then create, promote and sell tickets to wrestling events.

You can build and run an event in under a minute but if you want to be the best promoter around, you need to come up with the right strategy and that’s where Wrestling Manager excels.

Do you pit your two best wrestlers against each other to sell the event or do you pair them off with bad wrestlers to train them up? Can roster sell out crowds in larger arenas or should you stay small?

Do you hire celebs to attract wider audiences or do you put on gimmick matches that can cost a fortune and risk injury to your wrestlers?

It’s a game that I really wanted to play and nobody else had made it so that’s what I set out to do. If I’m not playing wrestling games, chances are I’m playing strategy games and Wrestling Manager gave me the perfect chance to merge my love for the two genres together.

I’ve played every wrestling game on the iPhone and they are all pretty much the same two button, arcade game but with different graphics. I wanted to make something that will keep players entertained for more than a few minutes and something that’s better suited to the platform.

It’s amazing when I think about it. Our lead programmer worked on Portal along with some other blockbuster games, our lead artist was BAFTA nominated for his last title, a member of our management team had worked on Grand Theft Auto and even the guys we hired to prototype the game had worked on Crackdown.

I can’t stress enough how lucky I feel to be surrounded by this level of talent.

How big would you say the game is compared to other iOS sims?

It’s huge! We have over 500 characters in the game, a full-blown auction system and we’re the only iOS game that gives the player modding tools, which is something I’m really proud of.

Players can completely change the artwork and names for each wrestler in the game just by dropping a text file and some images into their iTunes folder.

The wrestling community love to put their favourite wrestlers and personalities into their games and we’ve made it so easy for them to do.

I’m sure the price tag does seem high compared with some apps but so is the amount of content and support. Every penny we’ve made so far has been reinvested in the game.

We released 4 months ago and we’ve already had 5 updates with new content, features and fixes all free by the way. Our next update is already in development and we’re fully committed to supporting Wrestling Manager for the foreseeable future.

This is a niche market and even if we gave the game away, we probably wouldn’t sell the 30,000 units we need to sell at £6.99 just to break even on what we’ve spent so far. This was never a “let’s get rich” game, it’s a passion project. All we want out of it is the ability to keep building on it for as long as possible.

I don’t want to play the “We’re an indie, we need support” card but we really couldn’t afford to keep doing this at any other price point. So players have to decide if they want this kind of game or not.

You have been quite active on your forums encouraging ideas and feedback from your community. How important have they been in shaping your product?

Hugely important! Players have been instrumental in helping decide what needs creating next.

I honestly can’t thank them enough and when we build features that they have requested or fix bugs they have found, we pop them in the credits because they really are part of our team.

You've said that you're planning on supporting the game over the course over the year. What sort of features are you looking to add in the coming months?

We’re currently building a ‘story’ feature for the game; we’ve got 100 more cards that we’re adding, each with their own functionality attached to them.

We’re also adding more customization tools in the next patch among other things. All I can say is that the game is already humongous and we’re just getting started!

Wrestling Manager is out now via the App Store and can be purchased here. Visit the game's Facebook, Twitter, and website for the latest updates on Wrestling Manager.

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