Continuing Stick Cricket’s irreverent attitude, players will have the chance to test their skills against the likes of Martina Shankitova, Horan Ivanitchisac and Moanica Shrieker. However, things get more serious with World Domination and The Slam game modes where players are offered over 64 opponents from current top seeds to tennis legends, each with customised player attributes.

Player caricatures make for amusing viewing with the option to play Mullet Andre against Bald Andre, truly a tennis first. Game performance is still the main focus, and challenging play is offered via six different game modes on ten international courts, each with unique characteristics.

Dispensing with the complex controls usually associated with tennis games, a simple, one fingered swipe action has been employed to choose direction and timing, resulting in truly intuitive tennis game play.

For the competitive, The Daily Challenge offers players a one-off match against a featured opponent, with scores posted to form a daily world ranking table.

“Stick Tennis, combines simplistic game play, speed and depth, making it appeal to both casual and hard-core gamers. If you like Stick Cricket, you’ll love Stick Tennis,” says Stick Sports Managing Director Paul Collins.

Available as a FREE download from iTunes. Additional game modes are available – The Slams at 69p and World Domination at £1.99.

Summer time has finally arrived in London, judging by the amount of pale flesh on show in the park opposite Stick Towers. That means it’s just a few short weeks until they’ll be queueing up for strawberries in SW19, all eagerly anticipating Andy Murray’s annual routine of raising British hopes and then dashing dreams with a semi-final exit.

There’s been no tanning for the Stick Sports team however. We’re flat out putting the finishing touches on a new mobile game for iOS (Android will follow soon after), inventively titled Stick Tennis. If all goes to plan, it should be available on the App Store before Sharapova’s first shriek of Wimbledon 2012.

Features of Stick Tennis will include:

• Casual Sets Tennis Club: The best place to learn the ropes, commitment-free. Book a practice match against the likes of Martina Shankitova or Musthav Curtains, with the Prac-o-meter to help you master shot timing.
• World Domination: If you’ve played Stick Cricket World Domination, you know the drill. Take on 32 of the biggest names in both men’s and women’s tennis history in your quest for World Domination.
• The Slams: Three slams (France, Australia and England) will be available initially, with USA slam arriving in August.
• Daily Challenge: Every day of the week there’ll be a new challenge for you to complete and compete – see how you stack up compared to other Stick Tennis devotees.
• Challenge a friend: Coming later in 2012. Better start finding yourself some friends.
• Blue clay: Just kidding. We’re not that crazy.

Make sure you’re following us on Twitter and Facebook, as we’ll have a gameplay trailer for you to feast your eyes on soon.

Update (12/03/2012) – We’ve now completed the transition to brand spankin’ new servers and your custom teams survived the shift. All should be working again now – let us know if you have any problems.

You may have noticed that recently our servers have collapsed more frequently than the English Test middle order in the UAE.

Rest assured we find this just as frustrating as you and we’re in the process of migrating to a new and more robust server solution. We’re not really sure what that means either, but the geeks assure us it will result in much less downtime (and much less productivity for you at work/school).

While we’re in the process of migrating to this fandangled new server, we’ve had to reduce some functionality – such as custom teams – to help the current system cope.

Rest assured all team data will be retained and restored in the near future, although we can’t guarantee your players won’t all return as rangas…

Super Sixes – a batting game featuring the sadistic bowling machine, the Bowlomatic 3000 – was featured as Pocket-Lint’s App of the Day, hailed as “smashingly good fun” (Mactalk) and has attracted thousands of five star reviews from hooked gamers worldwide. It’s even the game of choice for Olympic gold medallists.

One thing that was absent from the Super Sixes experience was an easy way to find out how you stack up against the rest of the six-smashing community. Or, if you’re fortunate enough to have any, your friends.

Thankfully we’ve solved this problem with the latest update to Super Sixes, available for free from the App Store today. Game Center now forms a key part of the game, keeping track of where you stand amongst your pals on three key leaderboards: Overall Score, Level Reached and Super Sixty Seconds tally.

For some this may result in merciless humiliation from your mates as you can no longer hide the fact that you’re constantly thwarted by the big stumps level.

But for those in need of an ego boost, look no further than the credits page: the Stick Sports team have included their (not very good) personal best scores for you to compare.

This update (1.1.0) also contains some performance tweaks designed to ensure a smooth Super Sixes experience on your device.

As always – if you encounter any issues, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Cricket’s traditional rules have been dispensed with: starting with three lives, players bat with the objective of beating their own personal best score. No fielders or LBWs means it is all about hitting out and, as the name implies, belting sixes. Clearing the boundary from a ‘Super Ball’ unlocks an extra life or a risk-free 60 seconds of point-scoring mayhem.

The Bowlomatic 3000 has an arsenal of ammunition, ensuring a harrowing time at the crease. Levels include baseball (a deadly fast ball), evil eye, invisi-ball and giant stumps.

Super Sixes is available for download at 99c from the iOS App Store as a universal app.

The simple, high-speed format will appeal to arcade and sports gamers alike, as well as Stick Sports die hards.

Super Sixes is published by Stick Sports Ltd, an Anglo-Australian company creating sports games. Along with Stick Football, Stick Baseball, Stick Tennis, Stick Aussie Rules and Stick Racing Games, they have also created custom games for clients including UEFA, KFC, Pepsi, Toyota, Slazenger and The ECB.

Stick Cricket is now available as a free download from Android Market. The pro pack featuring additional games modes is also available for $1.79

“A title of online legendary status,” (Pocket-Lint), Stick Cricket sees the player assume a batsman role, with the opportunity to select from 14 international teams in 5 match formats. Real player names and true to life international venues (right down to seagull sound effects) make for a compelling time, fine tuning form and honing the perfect cover drive, hook or six against the likes of Anderson, McGrath, Holding and Lillee.

Responding to significant demand for an Android app, and released in time for Christmas and the Australian cricket season, Stick Sports Managing Director, Paul Collins looks forward to welcoming Android players to the challenge, “Given the success of Stick Cricket on iOS, it’s finally time for Android users to experience the phenomenon. We have invested in significant research and testing to meet the challenges presented by multiple handsets and screen sizes, and are excited about the results.”

Stick Cricket is published by Stick Sports Ltd, an Anglo-Australian company creating sports games. Along with Stick Football, Stick Baseball, Stick Tennis, Stick Aussie Rules and Stick Racing Games, they have also created custom games for clients including UEFA, KFC, Pepsi, Toyota, Slazenger and The ECB.

Just eight weeks after launch Stick Cricket’s new App for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch has hit number one in all the major cricketing nations including England, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and South Africa, as well as Jamaica and Botswana. The App also features in the Sunday Times’ 2011 Top 500 Apps in the world.

In customary Stick Sports style, the game is easy to play but notoriously difficult to master. It’s all about shot selection and timing – get either wrong and you will be punished. With subtlety a master batsman can hit every ball for six.

Stick Cricketers can track their run rate and the number of times they reach the boundary in real-time, and the game keeps a running total for the batsman’s Stick Cricket career. Users can add their score to the game’s high score charts, unlock specific achievements and compare their success with other batsmen around the world.

Additional features of the Stick Cricket App include:

• Bonus Cricket World Cup Edition game
• 10 and 20 over All Star Slog modes
• 14 additional levels of World Domination
• Challenge any user to a head-to-head via Bluetooth or local WiFi network

• 5-over All Star Slog and three levels in World Domination mode
• Mimic the on-pitch banter of the Cricket World Cup stars like Australia’s Ricky Ponting and England’s Andrew Strauss by using the App’s Facebook and Twitter integration to sledge fellow players.
• Play head-to-head with upgraded friends via local WiFi networks or Bluetooth

Stick Sports publisher Paul Collins said: “The new World Cup Edition follows the massive success of the Stick Cricket App for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The App has clean bowled all other sports games this year, building on the massive online success of Stick Sports and the Ashes fever that

gripped young men in England and Australia. The game looks cool, is amazingly addictive and it’s so easy to play that I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few of the Twitter-addicted Cricket World Cup stars playing away on it during their downtime while padded up in the changing rooms.”

The Stick Cricket App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, or at www.itunes.com/appstore. The premium upgrade is available for £1.79 through In App Purchase and features the bonus World Cup Edition Game.

Stick Tennis is already hitting the sweet spot for online gamers with an impressive 800,000 visits in its first test month, over a third more than Stick Cricket managed when it first launched.

The majority of Stick Tennis players are young male professional office workers, who average around 16 minutes of playing time per visit. This means that if the number of players continues to grow at its current rate it could cost British employers nearly £75m in wasted wages as employees play over the ‘net during working hours.

Players can choose to hone their backhands and volleys in the ‘All Star Smash’ against a choice of three opponents, from novice to Hot Shot. Alternatively, they can take aim at tournament success by competing in ‘Grand Slam: Australia’ and choose from the widest number of real-world male professional players of any online tennis game, from Andy Murray to Roger Federer.

In customary Stick Sports style, the controls are straightforward but allow a good selection of forehands, backhands, lobs, volleys and smashes. The retro feel is appealing to young and veteran gamers alike and the three difficulty levels provide a suitable test for any player. Players can choose from one, three or five set matches, so it’s the perfect diversion for a coffee break, a lunch hour or a long, boring conference call.

Interactive online games have emerged as one of the most exciting and effective marketing platforms and Stick Tennis is no exception. The game provides a platform for a variety of ad formats, including rich media, video pre-rolls, custom page and takeovers, providing companies with unrivalled opportunities to market to its youthful, predominantly male game players. From simple branding to competitions and product placement, Stick Sports’ games have customisable content to fulfil any company’s marketing objectives and reach more than 2 million monthly users who are overwhelmingly young male professionals with disposable income.

Developments are well underway to provide a selection of variations on the game and its features. A ‘head2head’ option will allow players to battle it out with other online players around the world. Users will also be able to build their own ‘player profiles’, increasing their rank and status with each victory. Further enhancements will enable gamers to go for world domination by winning each country’s most prestigious tennis tournament.

Stick Sports’ publisher Paul Collins said, ‘Stick Cricket’s easy charm and addictive game play knocked online gamers for six when it launched in 2004. Such has been the impact amongst young male professionals that it was rumoured to have affected the GDP of Great Britain and Australia. With Stick Tennis already more popular than was Stick Cricket at the same stage of its development, it looks like game, set and match for productivity at work.’

New Portal Is One-Stop Shop For “Work Avoidance” Gaming

The new portal, www.sticksports.com, brings together all the games from the Stick Sports brand into a single website. The portal features Stick Sports’ cricket, football, baseball, motorsports and tennis games, encouraging devotees to try out different games, keeping them on the site longer and making it easier for advertisers to run campaigns across the whole of Stick Sports’ portfolio of games.

Stick Sports’ more than 2 million monthly users are overwhelmingly young male professionals playing the game at work, and its games’ popularity among office workers is thought to have cost employers around the world millions of dollars.

Stick Sports Publisher Paul Collins said, “Stick Sports’ free online games are predominantly played by young male professionals, so it’s a great way to market to a key demographic with disposable cash. The online games medium for advertising continues to hold its own despite the recession, while Stick Sports continues to grow in terms of users and ad revenue.

“Stick Sports is more than just a games site – it’s a community, with forums, polls, news and results to keep our 2.2 million monthly visitors on the sites for long periods of time, which is great news for our advertising partners. What’s more, Stick Sports enables us to be creative with different advertising platforms, such as bespoke sponsored games and in-game advertising which engages, rather than distracts, our players. It all adds up to fantastic return on investment for our advertising partners.”

Stick Sports Seek New Ad Sales House

Stick Sports is searching for a new advertising sales house to maximise advertising revenue from brands eager to target the site’s key demographic of young male professionals. The new sales house will be truly independent, publisher agnostic and will be able to deliver a variety of ad formats, including rich media, video pre-rolls, custom page and takeovers. Given the popularity of the Stick Sports brand in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, the new sales house will naturally provide worldwide reach.

Stick Tennis Set To Be A Smash

March sees the official launch of Stick Tennis, the latest addition to Stick Sports’ portfolio. Just like its sister games, Stick Tennis serves up fast-paced, utterly addictive action which is easy to play but fiendish to master.

Stick Tennis provides even more engaging opportunities for marketers, with a wide variety of ad formats on the web page as well as “in-game”, including sponsors logos appearing on the court or on perimeter advertising.

Advertisers will take note that Stick Tennis garnered an impressive 800,000 visits in its first test month, a third more than its wildly popular sister game Stick Cricket achieved when it first launched. What’s more, Stick Tennis is proving to be highly “sticky”, with users averaging 16 minutes of playing time per visit.

Its three difficulty settings mean players can start competing immediately and hone their backhands, serves and smashes until they’re good enough to take on the ultimate adversary – the Hot Shot – or have a crack at winning the Australian Open. Players can choose from one, three or five set matches, so it’s the perfect diversion for a coffee break, a lunch hour or during a boring conference call.

Stick Sports’ Ambition For Global Domination

Stick Sports is complementing its global user base with on-the-ground operations in key territories around the world. A new office opens in Sydney’s central business district in March. The company is also finalising a sponsorship agreement with a major satellite TV network that will see Stick Sports’ games marketed to new audiences in Asia.

Paul Collins said, “”Over the last five years, Stick Sports has grown from an idea based on a cult cricket game to a multi-sport business, attracting blue chip advertisers from around the world and pulling in millions of unique visits a month.

“By combining our games onto a single portal, we’re bringing all of our audiences, whether for football, baseball, cricket, motorsport or tennis, to one place. This means that our advertising partners will maximise their exposure to our valuable demographic.

“Over the past five years we’ve created a real community of Stick Sports players, as evidenced by the amount of irreverent banter and cheerful “sledging” on our forums, our 1.5 million registered users and by the number of Stick Sports clips posted on video-sharing websites – not to mention a couple of dozen dedicated Stick Sports groups on Facebook alone. In the near future we’ll be incorporating social media elements into Stick Sports games making the portal even more engaging for users and encouraging them to stay on the site even longer.

“And we’re continuing to innovate for our advertising partners – we can now provide the capability for players to order food from delivery outlets directly through ads placed in or around Stick Sports games. Given that many of our users are playing games in their leisure time – in the evening or during lunch breaks – it’s a natural to progression to enable them to order food while playing games.

“This is set to be a great year for sport, and Stick Sports are gearing up for a host of events, including Wimbledon, Formula One, the Ashes, the Indian Premier League and the Twenty20 World Cup, not to mention the culmination of the English Premier League,” concluded Collins. “Our continued refinements mean that we’re now able to provide advertisers with an unbeatable range of opportunities to market to young consumers with disposable income.”

Stick Cricket is an Internet phenomenon, with over one million young male professionals logging onto the site every week to play a range of fun, free-to-play cricket games, get the latest cricket news, and take part in online polls and banter. Companies who advertise on the site, such as Microsoft Live.com, KFC, Pepsi, Intel and Marston’s can therefore target their marketing to the key demographic of 18 – 30 year old men with disposable income.

Rob Smyth cut his commentator’s teeth with a spell on the Channel 4 website in 2000 before moving to the Guardian Unlimited website in 2004, where he was part of the legendary Over-by-over (OBO) commentary team. He’s also the co-author of Is It Cowardly To Pray For Rain?, a collection of all the OBOs from the Ashes series of 2005. Rob has also written for GQ Style, The Economist’s quarterly supplement Intelligent Life and the Manchester United fanzine Red Issue.

“Rob has an encyclopaedic knowledge of cricket coupled with a man-in-the-pub style of writing, which we know will appeal to the millions of people around the world who visit stickcricket.com,” declared Chris Berry, Director ofwww.stickcricket.com’s parent company Stick Sports. “Frankly, traditional cricket journalism is often dull, stuffy and aimed at the MCC blazers dozing in the stands at Lord’s. The young male professionals who visit stickcricket.com will be bowled over by Rob’s approach to the game – often fast and fun, but always intelligent and in-depth.”

Rob Smyth said: “What’s great about working for Stick Cricket is the wide range of writing I’ll be doing – anything from interviews and features to blogs and sidebars. The site’s users know their cricket, so the coverage has to be in-depth and light-hearted at the same time. The real challenge will be to cater for the site’s worldwide audience and to meet this we are expanding the OBO coverage this winter to take in one of sports fiercest contests – the test series between Pakistan and India.”

Rob admits that although he enjoys playing Stick Cricket, he’s not much better at it than he is at real-life cricket. “Even after years of playing the game – when I should have been working, I might add – I still struggle with the spinners.”