Hi everyone. I know you've all been waiting for your newest Wrestling Manager update and don't worry, the updates will start flowing again very soon. For now though, let me introduce you to our newest title. 5 Star Wrestling, to be released exclusively on the PlayStation 3 later this year. If you've been following us for a while, you'll know just how passionate about wrestling we are. Here's a little bit of a sneak preview. http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/5-star-wrestling-coming-to-ps3-monday-night-just-got-a-lot-more-raw-18377 there will be a lot more info coming very soon. 
 If you love wrestling enough to be here reading this, chances are you appreciate just how good Dolph Ziggler is at making everyone else look better than they actually are. It doesn't matter who you are or what the move is he sells it better than anyone. He's made of the same building blocks as some of the best of all time so it's no surprise to see early comparisons to Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels. With that in mind, how great is it to see him in a high profile match against the companies biggest star at TLC? I don't think I've come across one single wrestling fan that has enjoyed the AJ/Cena/Dolph/Vickie storyline. It was cringe worthy from the start, the writing was terrible and never made sense to anybody and it got in the way of more important story lines but in true WWE fashion, the outcome might just be worth it. Dolph Ziggler vs John Cena for the MITB brief case. It doesn't get any more intriguing than that! Some people have blasted the WWE for the way they have given Cena this opportunity and that's fine, everyones entitled to their opinion but for me, this isn't about John Cena's opertunity, this all about Dolph. He either beats Cena in the ring and leaves TLC as a credible number one contender (most likely through an AJ heel turn on Cena) or gets beat and the Art Of Wrestling fans world wide jump fully on the Dolph Ziggler bandwagon, which for a guy as talented as Dolph, can only lead to CM Punk type status. So much can happen off the back of tonight. AJ could screw Cena, giving Dolph a huge victory while simultaneously allowing him to get rid of Vickie. This is the kind of thing your average Cena Hater will love and it would be great for Dolphs career which can only be a good thing. or Cena wins the World Heavyweight Championship and goes on to Wrestlemania to face the Rock in a title unification match. It would be the biggest rematch, on the grandest stage for all the gold and while your average Cena Hater will moan and bitch about it for months on end, it will be the WWE's biggest PPV of all time and more importantly, it will put the titles back together and put meaning back into the championships. The Cena haters will become Dolphs biggest fans as they will see him as a victim. or (this is a really long one but what I think should happen) Rock vs Punk would be the Main Event at Royal Rumble, so Brock shocks the world with his return and wins the Rumble. Then in the title fight, he appears and just like Shield/Maddox, etc. Everyone thinks he's going to save Punk. Brock F5's Punk and The Rock picks up the title. (Could anything make Punk look stronger than getting screwed by Brock) It would lead to Brock vs Punk at the Chamber with the winner facing The Rock for the WWE Title (Rematch Clause vs Rumble Winner). So now Paul Heyman is in the middle of stars. The Ref goes down and out come Shield. Brock's looking worried but it's not Brock that should be worried as Punk gets triple powerbombed. Out runs Maddox and Brock covers for the 3. Paul Heyman is constantly giving Punk advice that he's not listening to. Punk is ungrateful to Paul after all he's done for him. After all, it was Heyman that arranged The Shield and Maddox to save Punk's title, it was Heyman that persuaded Vince to keep Punk off of TLC even though Punk said he could compete. Paul screwing Punk will be a shock to the wrestling world but it will make sense when it happens and the WWE get to promote Movie Star vs MMA Star for the WWE Title. Wrestling/Boxing/MMA are all at their best when we don't know who is going to win and do you think Brock came back to get beat by Cena and The Rock? In Brock's first WWE tenure, Vince put him over everyone and Brock screwed the WWE, has Vince really brought him back to do the same again? So who's winning that match? Punk by this point is a massive Face which is what he needs to be at Wrestlemania. His entire fan base is the Wrestlemania fan base and the WWE can't put him in the ring as a heel because the NJ fans will all cheer him. That doesn't matter against Cena because the WWE don't care if you boo Cena and he's going to get booed in NJ anyway. Punk needs to know if he can beat John Cena and Cena vs CM Punk for the World Heavyweight Championship in a Face vs Face match is another "Who's going to win" match. It's also by far the BEST time John Cena could turn heel and truly put Punk as the biggest Face and Cena as the biggest Heel in the same way Austin turned on The Rock in their Face vs Face match at Wrestlemania. Loose ends to tie up. Cena vs Big Show at Royal Rumble. Remember that Big Show caused Cena to lose his last Money In The Bank opportunity. So that's fitting. Cena entering the Elimination Chamber. Remember that there was only 1 Hell In A Cell match and it was for the WWE title, well I'd bet there's only going to be 1 Elimination Chamber match and The Rock sure as hell isn't going to be part of it. What happens to Dolph? Swaggers due back soon and when he is, he's either going to target or team with Dolph and either way that could be a great. Maybe none of the options I've put forward comes true, either way, I just think there's so many things that can come from tonights match and it's the main reason I want to see TLC. In case you didn't get that, I'm saying Dolph Ziggler is in WWE's main match tonight. That's HUGE!  It's an incredible honour to be named as part of Develop's list. I just wanted to take a moment to say congratulations to everyone else on there and a big thanks to all those involved. -Dan "Develop’s annual talent spotlight has returned to shine a light on the young talent of today; those people on the frontlines of development who are shaping the games industry of tomorrow." http://www.develop-online.net/features/1780/The-fourth-annual-30-Under-30 Serious Parody today announced that the company are throwing their support behind fellow indie wrestling games creator Dave Wishnowski, as he makes a last ditch effort to raise funds for his Kickstart project Pro Wrestling X. The company are donating 50 copies of their signature iPhone title, Wrestling Manager, to his project which has already raised nearly $20,000 from over 350 backers but only has a couple of days left to raise the remaining $55,000 required. Serious Parody C.E.O, Dan Hinkles commented "As a wrestling gamer, I can't wait to get my hands on Pro Wrestling X. Dave's a fantastic guy, who has worked tirelessly for years to make this game and I only wish we could do more to support him. Hopefully by doing this, we can help raise awareness of his Kick Starter campaign at a time where it's really needed." Pro Wrestling X is a fairly unique Kick Starter in that the game is almost complete and the money raised will be used primerily for crucial bug fixes and art tweaks. Wishnowski, had the following to say "My team and I are humbled and flattered that the Wrestling Manager team would so graciously help us out in this manner. Helping each other bring new games to wrestling gamers is what we're all about and in this case it's truly the fans that win. Thank you!" Here's a link to the Kick Start Campaign. Let's help Dave get this bad boy off the ground! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/prowrestlingx/pro-wrestling-x-bringing-back-classic-wrestling-ga  We launched Wrestling Manager exclusively on iOS back in November 2011 and here we are, a year later still supporting the game with even more new content, features and tweaks. Just like we always said we would be! The only thing better than starting your own wrestling promotion as a millionaire, is starting your own promotion as a billionaire! Yes, we've finally added a bunch of different starter packs to the game. We've also given you the option to pick up currency packs too. Over the last year, one of the biggest requests has been to speed up the selling times in the auction. So by request we've added a brand new '5 Minute' option for sellers looking to get rid of their cards in a hurry. We've also added a new pop up for those of you that have a little more patience in the auction. If you sell cards while your phone is off, the game will now show you which ones. New things like brand new critic cards are cool but the main focus of this update was to fix the bugs that have caused a small percentage of you some fairly annoying problems. Please know that we are really sorry to those of you that were inconvenienced by the roster changing bug in earlier versions of the game. We want you to know that we've stepped up our testing procedures over the last year. Since the last update, we've added even more people to our internal test team and before releasing this update we've held our largest ever beta test to make extra sure that the problem doesn't effect you when you start a new game. THIS FIX WILL WORK WHEN STARTING A 'NEW GAME'. As you can see from the list below, we've fixed/tweaked a lot of things. As a thank you to everyone who has supported us so far, all of our existing players will receive a free gift. Everybody updating the game from an earlier version of Wrestling Manager will receive 500,000k upon starting a new game. Thank you for playing and please rate our game, leaving feedback so we know what you'd like to see next. -checks if card expired while game was off -fixes for duplicate cards and card sell bug. -fixes for selling managers and celebrities -fix for buy it now on expired card. -fix for being able to use an event location you had sold -sqlite set to serialised mode and get instance methods for matches and locations -handle duplicate cards when loading auction database -fix for unsellable cards being sold -fix for selling a card that you just bought and having the selling card immediately expire -new icons added to the game -new currency packs added to the game -new billionaire and millionaire starter packs -checks for card value of matches, manager and location cards -added new card expired alert number/define -added counter for cards sold when off and an array to hold the names of those cards -added pop up which informs of expired red cards when populating database. -added expired Selling user Card function to handle expirered cards that the user has sold -auction fix for non expiring cards -changed the way ratings are returned so that it floats with 1dp -changed ppv rating to ppv buys  I just wanted to stop by and say thank you all for your great feedback on our latest version of Wrestling Manager. We learn a lot from what you guys have to say, be it those of you that email us or contact us via Twitter & Facebook, our forums or even on the App Store. I have NO DOUBT in my mind that our beloved wrestling game wouldn't be as good as it is today if it weren't for each of you. By The Numbers At the time of writing this, Wrestling Manager has had 139 App Store reviews world wide and the latest version (1.0.7) has received 41 App Store reviews throughout the world. The reviews for v1.0.7 are as follows:
I'm a 'glass half full' person so I look at this as largely positive. Over 50% of our reviews are full marks while less than 10% of our reviews are 1 star ratings. Speaking of... I know most games companies have a policy of publicly ignoring negative reviews. I'm sure there's a brilliant PR reason for this so people will probably think I'm crazy for what I'm about to do but I just wanted to take a few minutes to address the few negative reviews we've received. This isn't in anyway me trying to 'shout down' our detractors. I just recognise that people pay what is considered a premium price tag for Wrestling Manager and I hate the idea that someone has picked up our game and not taken enjoyment from it. So I'd like them to know their voices have been heard and where possible we will improve. Addressing The 1 Star Comments (WARNING: Very Wordy) WilburWheatley.yog wrote on the Italian App Store "The game is great but... It's so bug infested that it's unplayable!" Hi Wilbur, I'm glad you think the game is great and I'm really sorry for any bugs you're experiencing while playing. I hope you've used the Contact Us form on here so that our team have been able to help you out. Please know that we are constantly striving to improve our testing abilities. For example, right now we are in the middle of running our largest beta ever for Wrestling Manager 1.0.8. We've had more 'in house' testers on it than ever before and our main focus of v1.0.8 is to squash the main bugs that people have reported. Fortunately, only a tiny potion of our user base have experienced game changing bugs but believe me, we don't want anyone to feel like the game is unplayable. This is no excuse but Wrestling Manager is a huge game and it's so hard to test fully with the resources we have. Angry Birds has made more money than just about every other game on the iPhone and it's been around for years but if you go look at the user reviews for it, you'll see a ton of people still reporting crash bugs, graphical glitches, etc. Part of that is because as developers, we have so many devices that need to be tested on. In the last two months alone Apple have dropped 3 devices on us, each with different screen resolutions and capabilities. Then of course, there's the ever changing operating system and development tools. It's really hard to keep up with all of the changes and dedicate resources to fully testing everything but believe me when I say we are doing our best and v1.0.8 is feeling incredibly stable. Fizzweeoo wrote on the UK App Store: "A game that costs £6.99, then being charged for any add ons, what a complete waste of money!!! For the price you pay, you shouldnt be expected to fork out anymore money!!" I've touched on this before but it's worth reminding people. Our In App Purchases (iAP's) are 100% optional and there is nothing in our packs that you can't unlock simply by playing the game. Wrestling Manager is not meant to be a 'grind' to play. It's a strategy game and it can be played through in about the same length of time as Game Dev Story. The more times you play through the game, the faster you will be able to complete it because you will have worked out more of the nuances that make for a winning strategy. In truth, the IAP's are really there for those who want to support us! We've spent every single penny Wrestling Manager has ever taken on the continued development of Wrestling Manager. We launched the day before WWE 12 last year, WWE 13 is already out and we're still rolling out FREE updates for Wrestling Manager. In fact, all of our updates have been free and we've added a ton of great features since launch. We simply wouldn't be able to give that kind of support to the game if it weren't for those who've supported us by purchasing packs. Calmmonkey101 wrote on the UK App Store "I really do hate it when I spend £7 on a game, then it comes down to 69p. Even when I was the one to help point bugs out. Not happy! I need to be honest this game is still not worth £7! It keeps crashing" The back story to this is that around 6 months after release, we ran a weekend promotion where we dropped the price. Our goal with the price drop was to create a little buzz for the game without spending any of our limited resources on marketing. I remember hearing Gabe Newell from Valve talk about the positive effects of a limited time sale and while our findings weren't quite as great they could have been, we did get some solid coverage out of the sale, which in turn helped us when the price returned to normal. While I appreciate that it sucks when you buy something and then see it on sale later, I don't think anyone could legitimately accuse us of neglecting our existing customers. Not only have we given our existing customers £15's worth of free packs/currency since launch, we've also had several major updates to the game adding a huge bevy of features and we've never charged for them. What more, we've stuck by our policy of focusing on existing customers rather than on attracting new customers; by adding new features rather than focusing our resources on taking features out to create a lite version of the game. (Another policy I'm sure most people in the industry would think is insane) I hope you can understand why as an indie developer with limited resources, we would need to do anything possible to create buzz for our game. It's incredibly rare that game journalists will cover games on the app store. One guy from a prominent gaming blog played our title, told me he was hooked on it, emailed me several times to talk about it and when I asked him about reviewing it, he basically said "I'd love to but we only really cover apps that have super mass market appeal like Angry Birds". I'm fairly proud to say that Wrestling Manager isn't aimed at the super casual market. We wanted this to appeal to the diehard wrestling fans. Those who are passionate about fantasy booking and that know what Kayfabe, Heel and Face mean. Hell, WWE 13 is part of one of the most popular gaming series of all time and GameSpot hasn't even reviewed it yet, neither has Kotaku for that matter and that game appeals to casual wrestling fans just as much as it does the hardcore market. What chance do we have of getting major coverage with our "niche within a niche" game? So we have to try things out and see what works. I really do hope you can understand and I'm sorry if you feel like we some how betrayed you by having a sale. Halo3original wrote on the US App Store "Do not get this game. Biggest disappointment of my life" All I can really say to that is, if you have any suggestions on how we can improve, please use the Contact Us form or reply to this post and we'll do our best to address your issues. Wrestling Manager is the only wrestling strategy game on any mobile device and we were to my knowledge the first iOS game with a dedicated mod community. (To this day I still can't think of another iOS title with mod tools). We're constantly trying to find ways to improve the game and with our next update comes some more heavily requested improvements. There's no chance in the world you are still reading this now but if you are. Thanks and please leave your thoughts below on how we're doing. -Dan  I truly do love making wrestling predictions and fantasy booking. Below are my prediction for Hell In A Cell, TLC, Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, Wrestlemania 29, right through Wrestlemania 30. Brock Lesnar will save Punk on Sunday. He'll rip the cage door off or something and save Punk because they are both Heymans guys. This will set up Survivor Series. Team Punk vs Team Cena. If Cena wins, he get a title shot, if Punk wins Cena never gets a title shot ever again. Punk, Lesnar, Big Show, Cody, Sandow vs Cena, Ryback, Daniel Bryan, Kane and HHH. (Revealed either the week before Survivor Series or at Survivor Series as a mystery partner) Team Cena wins. The night after Survivor Series is CM Punks 1 year anniversary. Cena will cash in his title match right there and then. Brock Lesnar will hit the ring and the fans will all think he's heading to save Punk again, this time he will cost Punk the title and put him out of commission. He'll be out of action for a few months. Brock Lesnar vs John Cena at TLC in a major rematch. Brock will win the title. Brock vs Rock at the Royal Rumble. It will garner all kinds of crazy media hype. Brock will have The Rock in an F5 position and the lights will go out. The Undertaker will cost Brock the match and the Rock leaves the Royal Rumble the WWE Champion. Brock hasn't Conquered The Streak! On the same night, John Cena will enter the Royal Rumble and make a huge deal about winning the Rumble so he can go on to Wrestlemania and avenge his loss against The Rock. It will look like Cena is about to win and Punk will resurface, eliminating Cena and win the Royal Rumble. The Rock will have his first ever Elimination Chamber match and lose to John Cena. He will use his rematch clause to make the main event at Wrestlemania John Cena vs The Rock vs CM Punk. Cena will win by pinning Punk. (I'd normally say Punk should win but Cena's taken a huge back seat and this means he gets to beat The Rock at Wrestlemania without pinning him) The next night The Rock will say he's done it all and there's nothing left for him to do except End The Streak at WRESTLEMANIA 30!  Wrestling Manager v1.0.8 Exclusive BETA DUNDEE, Scotland - October 11, 2012 - The team here at Serious Parody are happy to once again demonstrate commitment to our fellow wrestling game fans. Our aim is and always has been to create THE BEST wrestling games on iOS and this new update should help show just how dedicated we are to to achieving and maintaining that goal. V1.0.8 of Wrestling Manager is edging closer and closer to release but before we unleash the update on the general public, we want to make doubly sure that our changes have improved the game. Over the coming weeks while the BETA is live, we will be adding in more changes and based on the players feedback, the team will tweak where needed. Serious Parody C.E.O, Dan Hinkles said "We are incredibly proud of our innovative achievements within Wrestling Manager and we're forever grateful to the amazing community that has helped make it the best wrestling game on any mobile device. Now we're looking to that community again to help take us to the next level." Wrestling Manager is the only wrestling strategy game on iOS. At heart it's a card collection game with a difference. With over 500 characters and over 650 cards to play with, it's easily one of the biggest games around. It's the only wrestling game on iOS that lets you fully customise every character in the game and it was the first iOS game ever to provide modding abilities to players. With a few simple clicks in iTunes, players can swap out all 500 characters and create their very own dream roster.  THANK YOU & WELCOME! A few things you need to know about Wrestling Manager:
Downloads aren't too shabby for a game that's nearly a year old, ay? We couldn't have got this far if it wasn't for the support we've received. Thank you to everyone who left a review on the App Store, Tweeted about us or posted about us on Facebook. You have been a huge help in terms of introducing people to Wrestling Manager and because of last weekends downloads, we were able to expand the Serious Parody offices this week and we're hiring even more programers to bring more wrestling game content out as fast as we possibly can. Once again, Thank you! -Dan | AuthorDan@Serious-Parody.com ArchivesApril 2013 Categories |
RSS Feed