Fantasy sports are some of the most popular games in the world, but they appeal to a hardcore fandom. One website wants to expand on the hobby’s popularity by making a game that everyday sports fans can appreciate.
ScoreStreak thinks it can bring in an audience of sports fans that want to try fantasy sports but don’t want to deal with some of the minutia and complicated elements of drafting teams and setting lineups. Former 3DO and Namco Bandai developer Ross Borden founded the company, and his goal is to combine his knowledge of video games with some elements of daily and weekly leagues that are popular these days. To kick off the busy fantasy football season, the company is putting a Tesla Model S sedan on the line. With 40 million players helping fantasy football make $70 billion, ScoreStreak is hoping it can get a big piece of that by doing things differently.
“ScoreStreak takes the fundamental elements of traditional fantasy sports — [selecting] players to your own team; [scoring] as a result of your players’ real-life performance’ and [competition] with other managers to win real money — and removes the barriers to existing season-long fantasy and daily fantasy sites,” Borden explained to GamesBeat.
Instead of getting stuck with a team of stinkers, players pick a new team for every contest. Players don’t have to worry about a salary cap, and they even get to pick any player they want regardless if someone else in the league picked them. ScoreStreak also does away with complicated scoring.
“Instead, each position in your nine-player lineup has a single goal [that they have to achieve],” said Borden. “Goals are either difficult for 14 points, moderate for 8 points, or simple for 5 points.”
For example, in each match, you need to select three quarterbacks for the difficult, moderate, and simple positions. You’ll only get the points from the difficulty box if the QB you select for it scores four or more touchdowns. You’ll get the moderate’s 8 points only if that QB scores more than three touchdowns.
The game has you do the same for running backs and wide receivers
You can see how this might create some interesting strategic matchups.
“Picking Peyton Manning to score two or more touchdowns would be a near lock for 5 points,” said Borden. “Based on your assessment of his upcoming matchup and weather, you can decide where you wan to slot him — if at all — in your lineup. It’s about assessing risk and reward.”
To entice fans to its site at the start of the National Football League’s season — which starts Thursday with Green Bay facing off against Seattle — ScoreStreak is holding a promotion that could earn someone a Tesla Model S electric car. It’s called Perfect Streak, and the automobile will go to the first person to score a perfect 81 points three weeks in a row in games on Score Streak. To accomplish that, all three of your picks in the QB, RB, and WR categories have to reach their goals.
ScoreStreak is one of the latest in a growing number of fantasy-sports sites. Competition includes Draftstreet, FanDuel, and Draftday, which all focus on daily and weekly leagues. Startup DraftKings, which is also in competition with ScoreStreak, just raised $41 million in series C funding.