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Kickstarter

Actua Sports brand set to be brought back to life via Kickstarter campaign

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By Ishbel Macleod, PR and social media consultant

February 1, 2013 | 2 min read

Actua Sports, the classic video game series, is set to re-launch for a new generation with Ian Stewart, the founder of Gremlin Interactive and creator of Actua.

Stewart has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to bring back Actua, with the goal of raising £30,000 to develop the game and release it on Facebook.

The plan is for Actua Poker to be the first game in the series launched.

Stewart explained: “The original Actua games were huge projects, with large development teams, which brought major sports such as football, tennis, golf and ice hockey to consoles and PC.

“Times have changed however and for the first new Actua title, we wanted to create something which didn't require the huge team, or huge budget, but which in our opinion has not yet been successfully created. I'm a serious poker fan, but all the games out there are pretty focused on extracting money from players. They're not a great deal of fun to play. Getting to the game itself, in between all the pop-ups, offers to try other games, reminders to pay more money, requests to invite friends and the cheesy pretend casino graphics, means that the real fun - the poker - gets lost.”

The original games were released in the period between 1992 and 1999.

Stewart added: “We've spoken to a number of professional players and serious poker fans about what they'd consider an incentive to supporting the game and we've built a rewards structure that will support every single backer, each and every single time they play the game. Instead of t-shirts, or postcards, we're giving every backer the one thing poker players always need – chips.

“Everyone who supports the game will receive a huge multiplier which will increase their contribution and give them a massive bank balance within the game. For example, somebody who contributes just £3 will receive over $3.75 million in game currency, with higher backers getting multiple millions to start with and further bonuses every day they play, allowing them to play for the highest stakes, every time they visit.”

Actua Poker is being developed in Sheffield, by a team of experienced developers, overseen by Stewart.

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