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Tennis enthusiasts as well as experimental players will have the opportunity to choose their academy or create their own from scratch, shape their champions, and rise to the top of the tennis scene and embrace the life of a manager by dealing with finances, infrastructures, staff, coaching and much more.
Developer: REBOUND CG
Location: Paris – Angouleme
Team size: 25 total with 10 full time + freelancers
Progress: Early access
Contact details: +33695855621 apluchet@4-esports.com
Tell us about your game and why you decided to develop it?
As a global leader sport, we thought tennis was missing a simulation game. After a launch on mobile that served as proof of concept (1.5 million installs), and an amazing match simulation (five years of R&D) acclaimed by the core sports gamers, the logical next step was going to PC/Mac on the premium model, in the likes of our reference Football Manager.
Who do you think the audience is?
Our audience is 75 per cent male with an average age of 28 years old on mobile (audience on PC should be slightly older). Users are sports gamers playing sports simulation and/or management games. Can be tennis enthusiasts.
What experience does the team have?
Rebound is the association of sports marketing entrepreneurs (and probably the largest experience and network in sports media and in tennis nowadays) with a team of veterans in mobile free to play (over 10 years experience)
Why did you decide to use Unity to create this game, can you tell us anything about using the engine on this project?
We chose Unity because it supports C# and has a complete editor for handling 3D Scene and Animations. Thanks to C# for this project we have been able with ease to build a game that can work without an engine and only use Unity for the 3D. This was very powerful for quick testing and fast development. This could only be achieved due to Unity engine design.
How long has the title been in development, how long will it likely take to complete?
We created the studio in July 2017 to first launch our free to play mobile version in Jan 20219. Thanks to this first experience and great learnings, we then started to produce Tennis Manager 2021 for PC / Mac (completely new game) on the premium model. 18 months later we were able to launch it in early access on Steam and EGS (May 2021). The final release is expected to be end of Q3/4 2021 with new features, additional languages, more licences and a version on Mac. The match engine is a continuing effort since 2017 (4+ years of R&D program, awarded by the French Ministry of Research).
6. What kind of support are you looking for from a potential partner?
We are looking for a partner able to finance and/or publish, or only distribute, depending on the package :
• Final release of Tennis Manager 2021 on PC and Mac in Q3 / 4 > considering we may look for a marketing and or distribution partner worldwide + China
• Publishing of the Tennis Manager 2022 on PC and Mac for May 2022 (Roland Garros) worldwide + China
• Port and Publishing on Xbox and Switch
• Port and eventually Publishing on mobile (premium model)
