Sporty Group acquires Jon Hare's Sociable Soccer

• Sporty Group are the owners of the SportyBet, SportyTV and Sporty.com brands
• The purchase of Hare's Sociable Soccer marks their first foray into the world of video games

Sporty Group, the owners of SportyBet, the group’s flagship betting and gaming brand, has acquired Sociable Soccer, the FIFPRO sponsored action arcade football game from Jon Hare, the creator of the 1990's smash Sensible Soccer series.

Sensible Soccer gave the beautiful game a fast, action spin, driving the early home computer game boom on platforms such as Commodore's Amiga. Sociable Soccer is its modern-day 'sequel', offering similar action-based gameplay across today's PC, Mac and mobile platforms with Xbox and PlayStation coming later this year.

Sporty Group engages with millions of daily users worldwide across 10 countries and three continents via SportyBet, one of the world’s most visited betting and gaming platforms. They also operate SportyTV, their free-to-air, 24/7 linear TV channel offering exclusive live broadcasts of the Premier League, Serie A, UEFA EURO 2024, Olympic Games and more to Nigeria and Ghana.

Additionally Sporty.com, their sports app, provides sports news, live scores, social features, and more.

The purchase of Sociable Soccer marks their first foray into video games.

Most valuable player

Jon Hare has designed 11 number one best-selling games across his career including a chart-topping football game in each of the last four decades. Having initiated the Sociable Soccer project several years ago he will continue to spearhead its development "leveraging Sporty’s resources and vision".

Hare commented: “In recent years, game development and publishing has become more complex than ever and the landscape ever more competitive, making it harder for titles to find their audience. Bringing our talented development team under the Sporty umbrella allows us to continue to focus on what we do best, designing and creating hit games for as many platforms and gamers as possible.

"To be able to do this safely in the knowledge that we have a highly successful, growing sports entertainment conglomerate behind us makes Sporty the ideal partner for us as it will allow us to build better games and expand our audience."

Pushing forwards in extra time

Gregory Parsons, Vice President of Business Development for Sporty Group, added: "As we continue to enhance and diversify Sporty Group’s overall portfolio, we have been considering adding a football video game to the Sporty ecosystem.

"As part of this process, we have investigated a number of opportunities in the sector. Once we sat down with Jon and his team it was clear that we shared the same ambitions and we were only too happy to bring them into the Sporty family. We have great plans for the future of Sociable Soccer and view this as just the beginning of a journey."