The Basics

So why are we still playing this game that is getting close to a decade old? Well, click on the other links and you will begin to see where our madness derives from Just to give you a little more history then what was listed in the side panel, Football Pro was originally developed by Dynamix and released in late 1992 as Front Page Sports: Football. The game was once again updated in 1994 and released as Front Page Sports: Football Pro 95, now with the clout of a Publisher, Sierra On-Line. At this time Sierra was a strong company with many top release under it’s belt, such as Half-Life, Leisure Suit Larry 1-6, and even a couple of the Ultima’s. Sierra eventually bought out Dynamix and by the time that Football Pro 96 was released, it was completely owned by Sierra. Football Pro 96 may have been as big of a disaster as the 99 release, but thankfully; at the time, Sierra had the strength and foresight to forge ahead with patches, and create the 97 release.

Although since the 95 version, online play was available, it was only available as a simulation type mode. What this meant was you could create a game plan and a profile for your team, include your custom plays, and send them to the commissioner, or home team and they would simulate the results using your setup for your team. With the 97 release all that changed, and Sierra introduced the Football PRO world to SIGS (Sierra Internet Gaming System). With SIGS, you could meet an opponent online and coach your team head to head using your plays and plans versus their plays and plans. By the time the 97 game had ran its course, and 98 was released, I would venture to guess that there was over 5,000 leagues available to play on the internet. One of the more memorable ones was created by Khary Williams; it was a massive NCAA type file set that had 112 available teams in it. Unfortunately the league never got off the ground, as many other leagues before and after it, it folded before it ever really got started.

The 98 version pretty much maintained the 97 fan base as the only real improvements were front end graphics. This set the stage for the 99 release, which many hundreds of thousands of FBPRO fans eagerly anticipated. To fully understand what happened to the 99 version, you have to understand a little more of the business aspects. Sierra was bought by Vivendi software, and Vivendi became the owners of the Sierra On-Line publishing company, and Synergistic Software (The actual developers of the 98 version). Although Vivendi purchased Sierra, many in the industry felt that they had “cooked” their books and were in desperate financial straits. With that the forced the developers of the 99 version to push out and ship the software before the Christmas Holidays. A disaster of a program, 99 was unplayable, and many felt that it would have had to be completely re-written in order to make a solid product. Vivendi decided to end the Football Pro Series and re-called the 99 version. Thus the end of a legacy, but here we are still hanging on to the 98 version. So click on and see why we still play.