Middle East games development studio Quirkat launches new product

Quirkat's Fantasy Football offers players already familiar with the genre all the features they'd look out for in forming their fantasy teams. All 736 players from the 32 teams participating in this summer's World Cup in South Africa are featured and fully customized in a visually rich playing environment. Teams are scored against a host of real-world player events, such as scoring, successful defending, and bonus points for Man of the Match stature. The game also allows users to create their own leagues in which they can compete head to head against selected friends.

"Naturally, we'd been interested in exploring the Facebook potential for our games and we had been equally pursuing an entry into the sports games category. Fantasy sports are among the most successful game genres worldwide. Integrating Facebook with our fantasy football game and coinciding it with the World Cup was a great opportunity for us. Going forward, Quirkat will invest significantly in the sports games genre across social networking platforms", said Mahmoud Ali Khasawneh, Quirkat's CEO.

"What we are aiming to do is differentiate our game with the visual style, playability and the integration into the social fabric of Facebook. The idea was to expand the appeal beyond the stereotypical male sports fan and across into the social and casual demographic. The game's social integration allows for users to increase their team budgets by sending and receiving virtual currency among friends, and allows for topping up the player transfer quota as the World Cup progresses; through in-game micro-transactions.", said Candide Kirk, Quirkat's CTO and games producer.

The game aims to break the language barrier across Arabic, English and French speaking markets with a shared love of football. The game community has been growing steadily since the game's soft launch last week and will form a foundation for Quirkat's upcoming pipeline of sports related social games.

Since 2008, and with the launch of Fuzztak (www.fuzztak.com), Quirkat has been committed to carving a name for itself in the online games space. The deployment of a Facebook game is in line with this strategy. Quirkat is intent on entering the global games market and sees its Facebook venture as a first step. Subsequent to the World Cup, Quirkat's fantasy football game will serve football league enthusiasts across Europe and the Middle East", he added.