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English Premier League football club Manchester City has announced a partnership with avatar creation platform Ready Player Me (RPM) and HiberWorld for the Man City Summit Sprint.
The partnership will see the club launch a special collection of Manchester City branded avatar skins, as it becomes the first football club to launch skins on Ready Player Me’s Premium Skins Catalogue, which first launched in October last year.
This means players will be able to use their Man City skins across RPM’s network of games and experiences.
Alongside its collaboration with RPM, Manchester City is also collaborating with Hiber3D through its web gaming platform, HiberWorld – an RPM partner platform – to launch Man City Summit Sprint, an ‘obby’-style mini-game where the new Man City skins will first be available for purchase.
There will be four skins available for purchase, with the skins featuring a range of Manchester City branded Hoodies, T-shirts, and Joggers. Players will also be able to unlock a Man City avatar skin for free by completing the Man City Summit Sprint mini-game.
A digital leaderboard will display the fastest completion times allowing players to go headto-head with fellow Manchester City fans. There will also be competition at launch, giving fans with the quickest completion times the chance to win a signed Manchester City shirt.
“Our collaboration with Ready Player Me marks an exciting innovation for Manchester City, as we become the first football club to offer branded skins on the platform’s Premium Skins Catalogue.”
Kristoffer Lewis, Manchester City
Players who achieve the fastest times in the Summit Sprint Obby by Friday, December 27th, will have the chance to win a Manchester City shirt signed by the squad.
The news comes after a 1v1 Man City Fortnite map launched earlier this year.
Kristoffer Lewis, Head of Esports, Gaming and Metaverse at Manchester City, said: “Our collaboration with Ready Player Me marks an exciting innovation for Manchester City, as we become the first football club to offer branded skins on the platform’s Premium Skins Catalogue.
“This collaboration allows fans to represent City in a unique way, bringing our identity to life across a vast network of games and virtual experiences, such as Hiberworld’s platform.”
Kaspar Tiri, Co-Founder & CCO at Ready Player Me, added: “Our collaboration with Manchester City highlights the power of interoperable digital assets.
“By bringing Man City skins to our network, we’re enabling fans to express their identity seamlessly across multiple games and experiences, unlocking new possibilities for virtual self-expression.”
The Man City Summit Sprint can be accessed on HiberWorld here
Man City footballers in FC 2v2 following poor run of form
Man City are going through what some in the media are calling a ‘crisis’ right now.
The Premier League champions, who have won the league for the past four seasons, find themselves in awful form. They have picked up several losses and draws over the past two months, and are currently sitting seventh in the Premier League table.
Some of their footballers have recently taken to competitive video game FC.
The official Man City social accounts shared the following 2v2 Rush video, featuring Rico, McAtee, Doku and Savinho, with the mini tournament won by Rico and McAtee.
Man City of course also have their own FC esports players.
Earlier this year, Man City won the 2023/24 ePremier League with Tekkz and Bonanno, becoming the first club to win it twice.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
