This is an ambitious project, no doubt about that. Let’s look at everything that is going against this:

• Cost – To get the game to a level that will be acceptable will require quite a few staff to make it the best we can. Staff aren’t cheap! The more features we want to add the more it costs but we want only the best.
• Finance – To cover the cost we need money. We have been in discussions with publishers, investors, platform holders, other stakeholders, and had very productive meetings, but each have their own ideas on what is feasible and what can be financed. We are currently in conversations with our most promising partner and hope this will bring the game to fruition.
• Player expectations – Sports video games are extremely popular, but only a handful of sports are seen as viable for video game treatment. Only soccer, American football, basketball and ice hockey are able to sustain yearly updates. Other sports do have games but they are far less frequent and with a much smaller budget. With a smaller budget, compromises must be made with the development but that doesn’t mean the player expects or deserves compromise. We can’t promise FIFA levels of production though and hope players will accept the levels we can bring.
• Publisher expectations – Publishers are all about the bottom line and that’s fine, they are an avenue in to getting games made. If they don’t the game will make a profit for them they are very unlikely to fund it. There are times when they may just “take a punt” but you need to be extremely lucky to find this. Gaelic Football is a niche market, so we need to be absolutely sure we get our figure right in how much we expect to sell to make it a worthwhile investment.
• GAA expectations – The GAA aren’t going to hand over their licence without some guarantee it will not adversely affect the brand. This could mean ensuring player likenesses, accurate stadium modelling, appropriate branding, quality of the game and support going forward. Each of these are further stresses on the budget so considerations need to be made to keep all stakeholders happy.
• Our vision – We are first and foremost fans and want the best representation of the game as possible. We are taking our years of sports game knowledge and applying it to what we want to achieve with this game. We want the wide range of experiences we have played in sports games through the years to be available in our game. This doesn’t mean we will be able to achieve this but we at least have a checklist in what we want to bring to the table. If we are able to hit everything on the list we would be ecstatic but this still impacts the budget.

So everything boils down to financing which is why we have spent so much time outside of actual development. With so many things to take in to account we always need to keep adjusting what we present. We will continue to do this to make sure we are in the best position to get the game made.