How an 8th grader coded NIL computer game for BYU's Masen Wake
The antitrust, class-action lawsuit O’Bannon v. NCAA that revolved around the use of athletes’ likenesses in EA Sports video games was among the events that helped spur the start of the NCAA’s NIL era in July 2021. Now, BYU tight end Masen Wake is using his NIL rights in an arcade-style computer game called “Masen Wake’s Hurdle-Mania,” presented by the NIL collective CougConnect.
“Masen is unique in that he’s hurdled multiple defenders and it always gets people excited,” CougConnect co-founder Jake Brandon said Tuesday in a phone interview.
Wake is a rising fifth-year senior who has 32 receptions, 304 receiving yards and four total touchdowns in his career. Brandon said the idea has been years in the making.
“You know the dinosaur that jumps over cactus game when your website crashes? We should make that game but with you jumping over football players,” Brandon said when recalling his pitch to Wake.
Brandon said some developers quoted CougConnect between $1,000 and $2,000 to produce the game. Ultimately, an eighth-grade student named Thomas Hansen designed the game (and granted Brandon permission to use his name).
Brandon, who’s a former teacher, said Hansen, who was one of Brandon’s then-students, finished a Spanish quiz and Brandon saw Hansen working on his computer. Brandon asked what Hansen was doing and Hansen replied that he was making a video game. Hansen had made five or six video games and he invited Brandon to try them firsthand.
“I was like, ‘Man, we were wanting to make a video game that’s really simple,'” Brandon said. “‘You know, it’s kind of like this,’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, I could make that so easy.'”
CougConnect hired artists to make artwork for the game. “But in terms of the coding and the actual game, it was all made by an eighth-grade student,” Brandon said.
‘Masen Wake’s Hurdle-Mania’ will be available for $3
The video game’s designer and its namesake had the opportunity to meet during the final week of school. The eighth-grader and fifth-year college senior played the computer game together.
Brandon is excited for “Masen Wake’s Hurdle-Mania” to go to market.
“It’s peak NIL,” Brandon said. “It’s fun stuff. It’s using your name, image and likeness to do cool things.”
The long-awaited “EA Sports College Football” is scheduled to hit the market next summer, while college football players wonder about their value for opting into the game and as the College Football Players Association calls for a player boycott of the game.
The Matt Leinart-backed Hall of GOATs is also scheduled to release an arcade-style video game in 2024.
“We also like that it’s like an 8-bit game,” Brandon said. “It’s kind of like early NES, early Atari kind of graphics. Because we could’ve made it a little bit cleaner but it was more fun, I think, to make it that way.”
As users progress through the video game, they’ll face different teams to hurdle. There’s also an updated version CougConnect might release, which has multiple “skins” available for Wake’s character to wear, including blackout and all-royal uniforms.
The game will be available for $3 and Brandon said Wake will receive more than half of that amount.
“We’ll try and recoup some of the cost that we paid the artists,” Brandon said. “And we actually did pay Thomas a little bit for his time even though he said we didn’t need to. I don’t know if we’ll make all the money back we invested in it. But it was a project we’re super excited about, and Masen will definitely make some money off of his name, image and likeness for being a part of it, too.”
CougConnect plans games for Malik Moore, Jake Retzlaff
Brandon said the worst-case financial result of the partnership wouldn’t result in CougConnect losing “a lot” of money. He calculated some metaphorical back-of-the-napkin math, and he estimated that CougConnect spent a couple of hundred dollars on the creation of the video game.
“Probably in the $350 to $500 range,” he said. “So, for us, it definitely has the potential to catch fire, especially as passionate as BYU fans are.”
Brandon also called the production of the video game a learning experience. CougConnect hopes to make the game available on mobile devices someday but it currently doesn’t have a potential timeline. The game could be wildly popular or it might not. If it is, CougConnect has plans for more player-specific, arcade-style video games.
“We’re learning, like, ‘Hey, is this a viable thing? Can we roll this out with other players?'” Brandon said. “And we’ve got two other games in the works. They’re kind of experimental. We’ve got a ballhawk or a safety game for Malik Moore, who’s one of our starting safeties. And then we’ve got a quarterback scramble, run-and-gun kind of game for Jake Retzlaff, who’s one of our quarterbacks.
“You know, if this one is successful, then we’ll probably continue forward with those ones and release those ones down the road but they’ve already been started to be programmed and developed at a basic level.”