Designer scores with net football

By LIBBY MIDDLEBROOK

Game designer Kevin Toms is $3000 closer to kicking off an internet-based games company for football fanatics.

The Auckland man was developing an online football strategy game in his spare time when he came across the Great New Zealand Business Venture, a business-plan competition.

With $360,000 prize money up for grabs, Mr Toms entered his quirky football strategy game plan earlier this year and last week was one of 20 people who won $3000 in prize money in phase one of the three-stage competition.

"I was in the process of putting a business plan together for an online internet games business when I saw the competition advertised in a magazine. It was perfectly suited to what I was doing ... winning $3000 is really going to allow me to crank up the development," he said.

The Great New Zealand Business Venture is a business-plan awards programme, to promote entrepreneurship within New Zealand.

Venture director Bridget Wickham said 1150 entries had been received, up 280 per cent on the previous year.

Mr Toms, who plans to use his prize money to finance webserver costs, based his proposal on two best-selling football strategy games he developed while living in Britain in the early 1990s. Though the games sold more than one million copies combined in Europe, Mr Toms said player numbers were limited.

"Back then we didn't have the internet and it meant that the number of people who could play against each other was constrained. Now, with the internet, any number of players can take part."

The objective of the game, which is yet to be named, is to win football leagues through tactical decisions.

Game participants, who act as team managers, put together team strategies, covering anything from resource distribution to team values.

"What you're trying to do is be successful with the team and that depends on how you balance your tactics. The star member of the player's team might have an injury and the player has to make a decision about whether to put them on the field."

Mr Toms, a project manager for Datacom, believes the game has potential, with thousands of players taking part each day. He plans to charge between US$10 and US$20 a month for unlimited play.

"Football's the most popular sport in the world and most people who watch the game have an opinion of how a club should be run."

Other proposals which won in phase one included an interactive website for South Pacific travel information, a cattle processing system and a car alarm and safety system.

The next two sections involve more detailed business plans. First prize is $80,000.