With $50 million in financing, will Sorare become the football version of NBA Top Shot?
On February 25, Sorare, an Ethereum-based football NFT collection game, announced the completion of a $50 million financing led by Benchmark, venture capital firm Accel, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, FC Barcelona star Antoine Griezmann, etc. Participate in voting.
NFT statistics site CryptoSlam! The data shows that as of 15:00 on March 6, Sorare ranked third in terms of transaction volume and second in the number of buyers among all NFT collectible games.
The explosion of NBA Top Shot set off an upsurge in sports NFT collections. On February 23, the star card of Los Angeles Lakers star James was sold at a sky-high price of 208,000 US dollars, which also allowed players to see the wealth effect of such games. My A colleague turned the $20 in the account into $6,000 in just one month (if you want to read this story, I will write it next time).
secondary title
Step 1: Registration and wallet link
Like NBA Top Shot, the first step to enter the world of Sorare is to register, the address is "https://sorare.com/?action=signin", you can also choose to log in quickly with your Google or Facebook account.
After the registration is complete, players need to set up their personal information in several steps, including setting their nickname (Nickname), team name (Club Name), and choosing their favorite football club in reality.
secondary title
Step 2: Obtain NFT collection card
Each card in Sorare is an Ethereum-based, NFT collectible authorized by the corresponding football club and player.
When novices enter the game, Sorare usually presents a certain number of silver and white star cards to players directly or through novice tasks (as shown in the picture above), but the treasure level of these silver and white cards is "Common (Common)", the quantity Unlimited, no collectible value.
In Sorare, the truly collectible cards are divided into three grades, namely "Rare" with a red background, "Super Rare" with a blue background, and "Super Rare" with a blue background. Gold "Unique". Each star has three corresponding cards in each real season (especially the football season in the real world, which is different from the game season below). The total number of cards of different levels is respectively 100 sheets, 10 sheets, 1 sheet.
There are three ways to buy collection cards. At the beginning of each game season (specifically refers to the season in the game, which is different from the real season, which will be described in detail below), Sorare will release a certain number of new cards. These new cards can only be obtained through "New Signing (New Singing)" market auction (Bid) acquisition. As shown in the example above, the Rare-level 2020-2021 season Lewandowski collection card numbered 61 released in the new season has now received 20 bids, and the price has also been called to 0.572 ETH (759.15 euros).
In addition to directional bidding for a certain card, players can also directly package and bid for some team-themed card packs. After successful bidding, they can directly obtain all five collection cards in the pack. However, the bidding price of the card pack is generally more expensive than a single star card, and the combination in the card pack is determined by the official, and other cards sold with one or two popular cards are sometimes slightly less attractive. As shown in the picture above, this group of card packs that have been called to 0.312 ETH has received 24 bids, but probably most players are going for Salah.
If players feel that the bidding mode is too unstable, they can also buy specific cards directly at the current price in the "Transfer Market". This is a free trading market among players. Consignment here.
Take a look around in the trading market, and you can see many top-level cards, such as the Unique 2020-2021 season Ronaldo collection card in the picture above, which is currently priced at 150 ETH, and another card from the late football king Ladona’s Super Rare collectible cards sell for as much as 220 ETH.
secondary title
The third step: how to "card card"
Once you get your favorite collection card, can you just hold it and wait for it to increase in value? Sorare's designers don't think so. In this game, players can use the cards in their hands to form troops and earn new cards.
Specifically, Sorare has designed seasons and various events in the game that players can freely participate in. The season here is not the same as the season in reality. Every four days is a new season. It can be seen from the game that it is about to enter the 149th season.
As for events, Sorare will create various exclusive events based on the different attributes of the cards, such as events that can only be played with Unique cards, events that can only be played by players under the age of 23, etc. Players can use their strengths and avoid weaknesses according to their own collections. Appropriate competition entry.
image description
Note: In the game against Barcelona on February 17, Mbappe scored a full score in the game for the hat-trick.
One thing I have to mention is that Sorare's scoring will not take into account the competitive environment and the strength of the opponent, so in fact, it does not necessarily mean that the score of a high-popular card is high (is playing Atletico Madrid the same as playing R&F?). Looking back at the rankings of the seasons that have ended in the past, many non-top league players can score very high points. The stars of the top leagues are facing greater defensive pressure, and the situation of not scoring high also happens from time to time. , Players need to flexibly deploy according to the actual game situation.
Another point to pay attention to is that sometimes players cannot play in the game during the season due to injuries or rotations. Players need to pay attention to the game dynamics in time and adjust the lineup if necessary.
secondary title
Will Sorare explode like an NBA Top Shot?
Back to the question of the title, can Sorare explode like NBA Top Shot in the future? So far, there are actually quite a few challenges.
First of all, in terms of the atmosphere of cryptocurrency and NFT, the United States as the center of basketball is obviously hotter than Europe as the center of football.
Secondly, the gameplay of Sorare still needs to be improved, limited by authorization constraints, Sorare is currently unable to provide collection cards of many top stars, and the playability of the event mode also has room for improvement.
In more detail, although Sorare seems to provide a richer game scene than NBA Top Shot, because Sorare's collection cards can only be purchased or auctioned directly, it lacks a key entertainment attribute of the latter - blindness. Box (open the bag and draw the card).
However, it must also be admitted that Sorare’s current development trend is quite good, and its performance on the NFT game track is no less than that of any game other than NBA Top Shot. As mentioned at the beginning, from the perspective of the fan base, football is only a lot more than basketball, which is also the biggest reliance of Sorare in the future development compared with other NFTs.
If there is a place to bet on which NFT game will catch up with NBA Top Shot in popularity in the future, Sorare seems to be worth a shot.
