There’s no doubting the appeal of the arcade-style video game cabinet in the backroom of the Great Northern Hotel in Melbourne’s inner north. With its plywood box, plexiglass panels, clunky animation and blips and blops soundtrack, the aesthetic takes you right back to the local fish and chip shop circa 1990.

But for David Ashby, creator of the chaotic, comedic, old-skool Aussie Rules-themed game it houses, and Broden Kelly, who recorded the in-game commentary, the timber time capsule is but a first step towards a much greater mission.

“The cabinets themselves are just tools, in a way,” says Ashby, a film and video maker from Adelaide who has turned his hand to computer games for the first time with Pro Jank Footy. “It’d be cool to have it established as part of the pregame AFL culture, where you go to the pub for drinks before the footy. If Pro Jank became part of that ritual that’d be awesome.”

It’s not ubiquity itself they’re seeking, but rather a shift in how people engage with the sport. “The goal is literally cultural impact,” says Kelly. “Diversifying the way we talk about footy, by combining comedy and gaming.”

“And especially [being] anti-gambling,” adds Ashby. “We hate gambling. I really wish kids just gambled on themselves rather than sports, or anything else for that matter.”

These two have certainly done that. Ashby has been making content with his great mate Dario Russo out of his home in the Adelaide Hills for 20 years. Their greatest hits include the web series Italian Spider-Man, the TV series Danger 5, and the animated series Koala Man and Dad’s House, which Ashby and Russo created with Emmy-nominated Michael Cusack.

Kelly, meanwhile, is one of the founding members of Aunty Donna, the comedy troupe turned production powerhouse. Their company Haven’t You Done Well Productions, set up “to make the shows no one else would”, has turned out web series, TV series, stage shows and podcasts aplenty, for themselves and others. Now they’ve added a streaming platform to the mix, with Grouse House TV serving as a straight-to-the-fans distribution service for a mere $5 a month.

Though they’re both fans of Aussie Rules, they’re not so fond of the way the game has been corporatised by the AFL, nor the way fandom is monetised through gambling. And Pro Jank Footy is, in no small part, a reaction to that.

“What frustrates me with gambling companies is obviously ... people kill themselves because they’re in so much debt – that’s really annoying,” says Kelly. “But what also annoys me is that they use sketch comedy [to sell their product]. That’s what I do, but it’s not done for the same reason as me.

“My reason is to be part of the culture and to make fun jokes that we all connect to. Theirs is to be your ‘friend’, so that the next time you see their brand you feel familiar with it.”

The gambling industry has a stranglehold on the game, Kelly argues, and anyone wanting to be part of the broader footy culture is likely to feel its grip before long.

Kelly hosts a footy podcast (The Footy With Broden Kelly), and it is, he says, “one of the very few that is not taking wagering money. You get offered very early on in your career a big fat cheque from one of the wagering companies, and then you’re essentially bought.” He had a buffer because he had Aunty Donna, a hugely successful operation now in its 15th year, behind him.

Ashby had a buffer too, thanks to Screen Australia, which granted him $30,000 of seed funding to develop an idea hatched over beers with a friend into a viable prototype. Ashby handled the animation and enlisted a developer to build the game play, in which the field becomes overrun with pies and cars and the goals get bigger or smaller depending on who has control.

Tyler Roach “can do everything”, says Ashby. “And he actually played footy, but gave it up because he broke his nose and fingers too often.”

He was a rare find, adds Kelly. “A person who creates video games and who plays footy – the crossover is minimal.”

When Pro Jank Footy was voted best in show at the South Australian Games exhibition in early 2025, Ashby knew he had a winner.

The key is capturing a perspective on the game that owes more to grassroots fandom than the “AFL monoculture”, he says.

“We make fun of Australian sports culture, Australian culture as a whole, and embrace all the things that are great about this country and the sport itself. A lot of people take sport incredibly seriously, and forget that we’re actually quite exotic. The game’s not normal, but it is appealing.”

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