Gamernode: Features - Goal Line Blitz: the best sports game you don't know about

Goal Line Blitz: the best sports game you don't know about

Category: Industry, Posted: 04/21/2008 at 12:46PM CDT by Brendon Lindsey, Editor-in-Chief

You may not have heard of it yet (and if you haven't you obviously haven't talked to me in a good month), but Goal Line Blitz is going to be the next big thing in gaming. Combining the modern love of easy-to-access browser games with fantasy football, Goal Line Blitz is easily the best football simulation on the market--and it's 100% free. But this article isn't entirely about the game, or how it works; if you want to know that, you can read the article Chris wrote. Instead, I wanted to offer people a small look at the two creators of the game (who oddly enough live about 20 miles from me), and how it is GLB came to be.

The brainchild of Peter (Bort) and Jesse (DigitalDaggers), GLB is a rarity in this day and age: a game designed by fans of the sport and games in general, built for fans of the sport, with their satisfaction in mind. The two met at their job five years ago, and like many co-workers loved to talk football; especially fantasy football. Not satisfied with the current availability of football games on the Internet, Peter took things into his own hands.

"I've always thought football would lend itself to a big multi-player video game where everybody plays the different positions, and it just seemed like a good time to dive in," he said. "So, I talked to Jesse about it and he agreed to help me out with testing, planning, strategy, and the business aspects of running the game."

If early indications and the gut feeling of any who play the game are right, Peter was on to something. Combining traditional RPG aspects with the sport of football, Goal Line Blitz is a football fanatics dream, and something even a non-sports fan can get into if they love building their own characters over time. When you create your account you're given 400 points to spend creating your player (300 for glory positions; 200 for defense, tight ends and fullbacks; 100 for the OL and kicker/punter), and as that player participates in games and trains each day, he'll gain experience which will increase his level, thereby giving him stat points to distribute in both physical stats and football skills.

As any sports fan will agree, reading about sports just isn't the same as watching the replays. Peter and Jesse realized that, and GLB features a play-by-play replay of every play in each game (except for kick replays, which Jesse promises is coming soon). Obviously the visuals won't blow the next Madden game out of the water, but watching your key plays in a game is a blast, and trying to understand the coding behind it makes my head hurt. (Here's a video someone put up on YouTube showing how the replays work.)

In fact, trying to understand the coding behind anything in Goal Line Blitz makes my head hurt. They began the game last September, and started coding what we see today in early October. During this time, the two put in many long hours making the game what it is now. According to Peter, "Running something like this requires a LOT of time and effort. We've been working on the game 7 days a week, burning the midnight oil after work, and I still feel like we're behind in what we wanted to accomplish to this point."

The long days and restless nights certainly seem to be paying off, though, as the game is far exceeding any expectations the two had for it. "I know we we've been working hard to put out a good product, but we were expecting to maybe have 2 or 3 thousand people signed up at this point with maybe a few hundred active," admitted Peter. "Right now, we've had 50,000 signups. We're glad about it, but it's been surprising and somewhat daunting. When we went from having 75 alpha testers to having over 10,000 users within a week, we were pretty overwhelmed. We worked a bunch of 20 hour days in a row that week to keep up and we were both pretty ragged. Jesse has a brand new baby girl as well, so it's been crazy at his house for sure."

Jesse agreed that his home life has been rather crazy in the recent weeks. "My baby launched out the womb on Friday, March 14th," a pi baby, as he's quick to point out, "and GLB launched on Sunday, March 16th. I knew my life would be changing, and it has been an extremely busy time for me, but there is nothing in my life that makes me happier than seeing by daughter smiling and happy."

I have no doubt that their hard work will pay off and Jesse will continue to smile in the long run; just take one look at the active players on their forums and you'll come to the same conclusion. Goal Line Blitz will be around for quite a while, and one day you may even play against one of the teams Chris and I run. (If you beat us, by all means feel free to brag.)

Like all successful games, I also have no doubt that Goal Line Blitz will inspire a rush of rip-offs when it finally breaks the barrier and becomes an Internet phenomenon. For those of you considering that, heed Peter's advice. "If anybody out there is thinking about starting something like this, and they think it will be all fun and games, they need to realize that it's a lot of work and you have to be very dedicated to not get discouraged or burned out. In the end, it's all worth it, but be prepared for a lot of grueling nights. "

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Posted by Chrispy on 04/21/2008 at 05:34PM

If anyone wants to play for Brendon and me, we're in charge of two teams in two hemispheres!

Just PM us and check the thread we have on the forums: http://forums.gamernode.com/showthread.php?t=19044

Posted by Brendon on 04/21/2008 at 07:32PM

And if anyone posts their referral links in the comments, expect them to be edited; no need for comment referral spam here =P

Posted by lololololol on 04/21/2008 at 11:28PM

wanna join goallineblitz???

http://goallineblitz.com/

Posted by xfrozenxsoulsx on 04/22/2008 at 12:20AM

Alright,

I've been playing text based games such as outwar since round 2, for over 5 years now. I've played mmorpgs such as world of warcraft since open beta, lineage 2 since beta, silkroad,neocron, everquest, tonss more.

I've also been gambling on sports since the age of 18 (now 20), win a few lose a few. Still try to gamble a few days a month now even living in the USA =/. DUMB GOVERNMENT!. Anyways, I also play Fantasy sports when they come around. Mostly just Fantasy Football with my friends every year.

Last week I was looking around the internet because I was bored and was sick of playing lineage 2. I am a big browser player and love playing these browser games that involve just text, images, and java. I searched mmorpg.com on the forums for anything related to sports mmorpg. Someone posted about cal ripken baseball game. I checked it out, it sucked. That gave me an idea to search for mmosgs. It's very new and I figured I wouldn't come across anything. Well after a while of searching I found, cyberdunk.com. It sucks, the layout sucks, its a piece of crap. However, to be honest the game itself and concept isn't all that bad. They have over 100k players with over 80million pages viewed a day. Ye I know, considering their layout...LOL...which btw is crap. I then ran across someones goallineblitz link in the forums. Bam, came across a GOLD MINE.

I also own a game that's text based and have been running it for the past 5 years. We only have an active player database of 7,500-10,000. 120-250 online players at a time. We only have been made by word of mouth and have never bothered advertising. It's hard work with 10,000 active. I can't imagine 70,000+ on this type of game.

The creators are brilliant and couldn't pick a better time. I heard some came over from cyberdunk and maybe even dd did, I'm not sure about all that. I do know that mmosgs are becoming more and more popular. You have shots golf or w/e that game is, you've got soccer browser games like this one out (trophy manager), and many others.

Here, you've got FOOTBALL. The American DREAM GAME! I mean seriously, being a fantasy football junkie for any player on this game is a step up. It just makes you feel good to play something you enjoy. If you love Fantasy Football, you will love this. They made an mmorpg thrown with a Fantasy Football idea and exploded it into 1.

To get 75,000+ players signed up in 2-3 months is amazing consdering all they have done is word of mouth. I can't imagine the opportunities these guys have ahead of them down the road. We can be looking at contracts with companies, selling ad space on their site, etc.... I mean Cyberdunk has been up for 1 year now and it's at 80,000,000 - 100,000,000 page views per day. Goallineblitz has already reached that in 3 months or less! It amazes me how fast they are growing by word of mouth. It's just a smart game to create. Fantasy + Text Based Gaming into 1, I love it. It's like playing madden with no graphics. It gives these guys at the office that like to waste time playing card games something to do. Now instead of a card game they can play Goallineblitz and run a team. They can sit at the office and get ready for an upcomming game and write down tactics to use.

When you look at it, the owners are walking into a gold mine. What they can produce down the road to make even more money is endless. Subscriptions, ways to use flex points (playbooks,custom plays,skills,etc..), and so on. I'm looking forward to the future of this game. I know it will go far.

If you haven't tried it, try it. It's not your average text based game. It's got Java involved as well so I mean it's really something to look at if you love football and want to be the next Brett Favre.

This is the next Facebook, myspace, youtube, as far as business goes. They are getting up there fast and if they keep playing their cards right and keep doing as good as they are doing, they could be walking into a millionaire online club in a year or 2.

- XfrozenXsoulsX

http://www.goallineblitz.com Try it out today! Hell of alot of fun! One of the big sports mmorpgs out! The 1st real football text based sports mmorpg with java.

( Btw, sorry if I repeated myself, haha.)

Posted by Kester on 04/22/2008 at 02:33AM

Go Spartans!

We going to win the league this season?

Posted by jambo on 04/22/2008 at 08:50AM

All thanks to Hank!

Posted by Chrispy on 04/22/2008 at 01:44PM

And Rita Poon!

Posted by Mykel on 04/22/2008 at 06:31PM

I love this game! IF you are looking for the link to check it out go here

http://goallineblitz.com/

Posted by colabil on 04/27/2008 at 02:15AM

I hate to break it to you but the only "rip-off" in this article is GLB itself.

Games like this have been around for 10+ years and there is nothing groundbreaking or original about it. The game is about 5-6 years behind its predecessors as far as features and presentation goes.

The only thing it does do is inspire lots of spamming of other games around the net in order to bring new users to it. Not exactly user friendly; more like money hungry. How much did you get paid for writing this article? 10,000 Flex Points?

Posted by xfrozenxsoulsx on 04/27/2008 at 04:11AM

Alright colabil you make no valid point here. All you're doing is calling glb a rip-off but for what reason. Oh and you say it inspires spamming of other games around the net in order to bring new users to it, but so does EVERY other game that has referrals to it.

All browser based games have referral systems. Infact I own one of them, thunderarena. Fact is, you're just Jealous that he has created something no other browser based game has. Football. These other games out are soccer, baseball, and basketball. Of course then you got your mafia type browser based games, you're monster based browser based games, etc... the list goes on and on. It depends on what the owner wants to create to make his game unique.

Here's where Goalline comes in and becoems unique, it's a Fantasy Football game thrown into a Browser Based Game world. Browser based games are big nowadays and have been big ever since Outwar, Kings Of Chaos, Aegis, and all the others started up.

You say it's 5-6 years behind but that makes NO SENSE whatsoever. Seeing as how it is different in every way shape and form compared to the other browser based games out. The only thing that is similiar is the fact that it is Browser Based. I think you need to think before you post something against a game you know nothing about. I think you just don't like the fact that Goallineblitz is making so much money off of a great idea they decided to go ahead with, and you're jealous. I'm just going to leave it at that. I would like you to explain how they are 5-6 years behind the other browser based games. I only knew of 2 that where out at the time and they still suck ass today and they are pretty much gone. That's sports browser based games btw and I do not remember any Football based browser games. Atleast, if they where big back in the day I would have heard about them. I'm just now starting to hear about them and I've been playing big browser based games since I was in hs in the 11th grade which was 5 years ago.

Have a good-1. To all readers, if you enjoy a good browser based game while you're at work or simply on the computer browsing the net, give goallineblitz a shot!

-XFX

Posted by Brendon on 04/28/2008 at 12:27AM

"The only thing it does do is inspire lots of spamming of other games around the net in order to bring new users to it. Not exactly user friendly; more like money hungry. How much did you get paid for writing this article? 10,000 Flex Points?"

If you take away the 1 from that number, that's exactly how much I got paid for writing it. Heaven forbid I write an article about a game without being bribed to do so! What's this look like, GameSpot? (Too soon?)

Posted by jdstathopoulos on 07/05/2008 at 12:09PM

Me read good?

Posted by peterc17 on 07/19/2008 at 01:08PM

this is a great game!!

http://goallineblitz.com/game/signup.pl?ref=12186279