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Classic British franchise Championship Manager will arrive on Facebook – but as a game made by GameStop.
The global games retail giant has nabbed the rights to Eidos’ footy management game as part of its plan to roll out locally relevant digital content.
GameStop currently has two mainland UK stores and a chain in Ireland, but says it isn’t interested in growing the number of outlets it has in Britain.
Instead it wants to use online games to reach more UK consumers.
We’re looking for other ways to serve that market,” International VP Mike Mauler told MCV.
The UK is a very exciting sector, and we won’t be expanding our store base there but what we are doing in terms of digital content applies to that market.”
Championship Manager will launch on Facebook in beta form in just a matter of days before a full roll out by the end of April.
It will be brought to market through the GameStop-owned Jolt online gaming business, which has already launched some free-to-play browser-based MMOs.
Eidos sold us the rights to publish on Facebook and the game has been in development for almost a year,” said Mauler.
Those kind of digital products will do well in the UK. It’s a very popular game in Europe and we’re very excited with the possibilities that brings.”
GameStop also last year bought casual games site Kongregate, which has a significant UK audience and recently expanded to Android phones.
Mauler said: We’re seeing an increasing amount of consumers engage with us through Kongregate and we’re of course growing our e-commerce business too.”
Ultimately, Mauler said GameStop wants to be culturally in-sync with gamers around the world, whether it has bricks and mortar stores in their country or not.
He said: We’re making sure that GameStop is relevant wherever gamers are active.
As consumers expand the amount of time they spend gaming, be that on mobile or browser games, we want to make sure that GameStop is there and they spend time with us.”
