UK-based independent games company New Star Games, the developer behind New Star Soccer and Retro Bowl, has officially revealed a big change to Retro Goal’s monetisation model.

Launched in 2021, Retro Goal has had a paywall to continue playing beyond a certain limit in career mode, until now.

Giving players options

A game splicing team management with arcade football gameplay, Retro Goal was developed with a 90s style in mind. Its graphics are inspired by the 16-bit era but, being on mobile, uses touchscreen controls for better accuracy based on user inputs.

Changing to a free-to-play approach for its career mode, players don’t need to pay to play beyond the previous limit any longer but can instead purchase "unlimited mode". Either way, the game will continue to be free of ads.

The new purchasable material includes a range of content and benefits, such as 500 free Bux, in-game weather effects, extra options like adjusting season lengths and difficulty, and saving players in a Hall of Fame. Additionally, a tournament mode has been added for paying players called Global Championship.

New Star Games developed Retro Goal together with fellow UK-based games studio Five Aces Publishing. The former won a BAFTA back in 2013 and proceeded to see great success with Retro Bowl, which launched in January 2020; as a game inspired by American Football, its release was a timely one, coming out just ahead of the annual Superbowl.

The ball really got rolling in September 2021, when Retro Bowl found itself featured on the App Store and in many TikTok videos. We interviewed New Star Games founder and CEO Simon Read at the time about how Retro Bowl started out as "a simple RPG" where players embodied "a high school kid with friend and family relationships to manage", and how it developed into what we see today.