QuickHit Football Shutting Down

Majesco has announced they will be shutting down operations on QuickHit Football come August 17. Less than two months ago the company stated that QuickHit would be losing the NFL license which it had utilized for a two year period and now the free-to-play browser based game is closing for good.

QuickHit began in 2009 hosted solely on its own website and later expanded to be playable on Facebook as well. It featured generic players and teams but with five current NFL players signed to be involved along with a number of legendary NFL players and coaches. In June 2010 the company announced they had reached a deal with the NFL to incorporate the league licensing within the game. September of that year the NFL integration launched featuring the official league branding, stadiums, team logos and colors. Majesco announced the acquisition of QuickHit during E3 2011.

The exclusive NFL license is currently with EA Sports running through 2013 (Madden NFL 14). That agreement however has never extended to mobile platforms or browser-based games which has allowed other companies to produce licensed products there.

It’s unclear whether Majesco will be delivering partial refunds to those who purchased annual membership subscriptions. Those went for $48 providing bonuses, removal of ads, and full access to the NFL branding packages when they were available. Others may have balances in their account or have paid for items they’ll now never receive as well.

The free-to-play but microtransaction and ad supported structure hasn’t really taken off with sports themed games. Even the ones with higher awareness levels have only found middling success. Until the products warrant consumers buying into them with rich feature sets and gameplay experiences they’ll continue to struggle to gain traction and hold users beyond the initial try-out period.