Quick Hit Football, the browser-based strategy simulation, will re-launch in September with NFL licensing. Though it won't carry real-life rosters, the game's maker can cut deals with individual players, and Dallas linebacker DeMarcus Ware has been added to the stable.
Ware joins New England wide receiver Randy Moss as stars for this year's game. Per the rules of the NFLPA, QuickHit can negotiate with up to five active players individually. Any number more than that requires a group license negotiated with the union, the kind of thing that delivers all players' likenesses for use.
I have asked if QuickHit, after securing the NFL's license in June, is negotiating with the NFLPA. The answer's still the same: No comment, although reading between the lines, one could assume this is a very appealing idea to the Foxboro, Mass.-based studio.
QuickHit launched last year with no licensing whatsoever and built a solid base of early adopters of the game, which is more of a management and in-game strategy simulation than an action-and-skill game like Madden NFL. That helped QuickHit land a league license which, while not undoing the terms of the NFL's notorious exclusive license with EA Sports' Madden game, still makes it one of three video games allowed to use the league's teams, symbols and logos. Gameloft's NFL 2011 for the iPhone and iPad is the other.
When the game relaunches in early September - by the start of the NFL regular season is what I'm hearing - it'll be called QuickHit NFL Football.