1. Casual Player Knowledge of Boxers
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Reality Check:
Most casual players only know the biggest household names—Ali, Tyson, Mayweather, maybe Canelo or Fury. Beyond that, their boxing knowledge is thin. -
Weight Classes:
Even hardcore fans sometimes struggle past the top 10 in each weight class. Casuals usually know 2–3 names max per division (e.g., Fury, Wilder, Joshua at heavyweight; Canelo, GGG, maybe Charlo at middleweight).
This means licensed rosters don’t matter as much to casuals—because they weren’t going to use 90% of the boxers anyway.
2. Why Gameplay > Roster at Launch
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Casuals Buy Fun: If the game looks fun, plays well, and has good marketing hooks, casuals will pick it up. They don’t care if it has “Kid Gavilan” or “Jose Napoles” in the roster.
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Creation Suite Fills the Gap: A strong Create-A-Boxer mode with community sharing lets casuals download or make the 2–3 names they know. That scratches their itch without needing official licenses.
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Long-Term Value: Once they’ve had fun, THEN they’ll want more recognizable names. That’s when DLC and phased licensing comes in.
3. Lessons from Other Sports Games
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Fire Pro Wrestling: Thrives for decades without WWE stars—players just create or download the stars they want.
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UFC Undisputed 2009: Its success came more from being the only sim-style MMA game than its roster depth.
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EA Fight Night: Fans kept playing Fight Night Champion not because of the full roster, but because of deep gameplay + modded boxers on PC/emulators.
4. Implication for a Blueprint-Based Boxing Game
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Launch Focus:
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Market as “the most authentic boxing simulation ever made”.
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Emphasize systems (damage, stamina, AI) and creation freedom over name value.
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Casual Buy-In:
Casuals won’t care if the game doesn’t have 200 licensed boxers—they only wanted to play as Tyson, Ali, or Fury. With a community-driven creation suite, they’ll still get that. -
Hardcore Buy-In:
Hardcore boxing gamers will care about realism, tendencies, clinches, referees, stamina wars, etc.—exactly what the Blueprint pushes.
✅ Conclusion:
Casual players don’t know most of the roster anyway. That means licensing is not a dealbreaker for sales. If the game nails gameplay and customization, both casuals and hardcore fans will buy in. Licensing can be layered in later as icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
Do you want me to map out a 2-phase launch strategy (Phase 1: No licensed boxers, focus on gameplay + creation; Phase 2: Bring in legends & modern stars as DLC to spike sales)?
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