Football is usually all about the big guns: for Manchester United, Chelsea or Manchester City in the Premier League, read FIFA or Football Manager Handheld on the app stores.
Yet the latter is sprouting some intriguing giant-killers too: independently-developed football games giving the established franchises something to think about. Two British examples from the last year: New Star Soccer and Fluid Football.
The latter has just hit a notable milestone: "We're up to half a million downloads on iOS and are on course to replicate that on Android before the end of the year," says Robin Clarke from Fluid Football's publisher AppyNation.
"The half million is only on iOS, from 16 August until now. Android has only been out a bit over a week, but is already doing tens of thousands of downloads a day, and still climbing."
The game involves drawing lines on a pitch viewed from above to send players on runs in and around the penalty box, before switching to a 3D view to shoot. It's presented as a series of challenges where the aim is to score: as much a puzzle game as a football simulation.
Fluid Football was developed by independent studio Chromativity, whose chief executive Simon Prytherch says that the game currently has around 20k daily active users, with iOS accounting for 40% of them, and Android the other 60%.
Prytherch and his colleagues had form in the area of football games, with this background helping attract football pundits Andy Gray and Richard Keys to work with Chromativity on the tactical elements to Fluid Football.
"People know me for my tactical awareness and knowledge of football, but I really wanted to work on a game that could combine the two," says Gray.
"Keysie and I met with Simon Prytherch through our business
partner Jason Cooper. Simon has made loads of great football games in his career, including LMA Manager and Club Football. Working closely with Simon and his team has been great fun, and it has allowed us to make the game we wanted."
Fluid Football's popularity owes much to the tactical side, although its release at the start of the new football season gave it a running start too. Since then, though, word-of-mouth has been a big driver of its downloads.
"I genuinely believe the biggest reason for Fluid Football's success is the fact that it's the first football game designed from the ground up for touchscreen devices," says AppyNation's Andrew Smith.
"It meant that we fill a hole in the footy market – the tactical focus of the play – but we feel it also proves how strongly the games-playing public will respond to games that suit the platform."
Clarke says AppyNation "haven't spent a penny" on traditional advertising, with the investment going instead into PR, video trailers and presences at games exhibitions like Eurogamer.
It's important to note that most of these downloads were not paid: Fluid Football is only available for free on Android, and in a choice of free and "Pro" paid versions on iOS. The money comes from in-app purchases of gameplay packs and virtual coins.
"The conversion rate is broadly in line with what you'd expect for a free-to-play game," says Clarke, who explains that AppyNation and Chromativity are working hard on honing their model: what's available for free versus what's sold in-app.
On Android, distributing the game for free then charging for in-game content means Fluid Football sidesteps the complaints of some developers – including Football Manager Handheld maker Sports Interactive – about high levels of piracy on Android.
"There's no point losing sleep over piracy: it'll always be there," says Clarke. "Make a game that speaks to the players who ARE willing to pay is the only sane way to approach it. Also, being out on both iOS and Android has meant that the visibility of one has spurred on the other, which is nice."
More platforms are on the way, with ambitious plans on Prytherch's part to look beyond iOS and Android.
"The ones planned already are Amazon, Kindle Fire, Nook, BlackBerry and Windows 8 tablets," he says. "With our background, we are also looking at consoles, PC and Mac for a bigger, enhanced version of the game."
Meanwhile, a major update for iOS and Android will be released before Christmas, which Prytherch says will herald "a huge change" in the way people play Fluid Football, and boost that daily active users figure.
"It will give you compelling reasons to return every day and play with your friends," he says. "Fluid Football will start to build a real community… This is just the start."
He's also keen to partner with developers of other football games, and promote one another's titles.
"I think this will be seen as a benefit to our customers, as we will be recommending a game that they would be interested in playing," he says. "With four or five quality titles with regular updates, we could keep a football fan happy all year round."
