Manchester company BlockRocket has announced the launch a
new blockchain-powered football digital collectible game. Called Nifty Football, the new game lets
players collect and play with provably scarce, unique digital trading cards
powered by Ethereum. The first digital trading cards are now available for
purchase, the company said on Wednesday.
Nifty Football trading cards use the same token standard as
other popular blockchain-based games including CryptoKitties. Each card has a
unique non-fungible token (NFT) comprised of particular traits and attributes
that affect scarcity and gameplay. These include the nationality of a player,
their kit and the power of specific attributes which contribute to a card’s
ranking within the game. Each trading card is illustrated by Manchester-based
artist Stanley Chow.
Initially, Nifty Football will launch with players from 6
nationalities, 30 kits, and 26 colorways, meaning that the first series will
comprise tens of thousands of combinations of cards available.
Cards will be sold as blind packs in multiples of three.
These packs will be randomly generated with some traits scarcer than others and
discounts available for those who purchase in larger amounts.
Nifty Football will
initially sell two types of blind packs: regular, which will have four
nationalities (England, USA, Italy and Argentina) and elite, which will have
the possibility of two more nationalities (Russia and Brazil).
Customers will be able to
instantly view their cards on the public Ethereum blockchain, via the
company’s decentralized application (dApp), and on popular third party trading
sites such as OpenSea.
The first 1,000 cards will be treated as genesis cards and
the design including card color will reflect this scarcity.
Nifty Football is being built by BlockRocket. The company consults and builds blockchain solutions including NFT solutions and crypto-collectibles such as KnownOrigin.io, CryptoKaiju.io, and BlockCities.co. CryptoKaiju.io, which manufactures and sells Ethereum-powered figures, was co-founded by Oliver Carding, the founder and owner of Coinjournal.net.
“After building crypto-collectibles for the last eighteen
months we have become obsessed with how digital assets will change the world,”
said Andy Gray, co-founder of Nifty Football and BlockRocket. “KnownOrigin.io
was a perfect use case for proving art provenance, we are now excited to launch
Nifty Football, a sports-based trading card game as we think this space has
huge untapped potential.”
During the development process, the team will focus on expanding
its platform and provide players with the ability to view their squad within
the app and any other compatible digital wallet, see their best team of 11
players to spot where stats can be improved, customize their team name which is
associated with their Ethereum address, and see how their team and players rank
in the existing card pool.
In the coming months, games and Top Trumps-style battles
will be released on the platform, allowing users to pitch their players against
one another and compete in leagues and knockout competitions.
The inaugural competition will be organized in collaboration
with global brewing brand BrewDog. Teams will compete in the Brewdog Founders
Cup to win prizes as well as an ultra-rare trading card.
Martin Dempster, vice president of innovation at Brewdog, explained
the company’s decision to collaborate with Nifty Football, stating that it was “intrigued
by the development of crypto-collectibles as a new way to engage fans and
consumers.”
“BrewDog have created some innovative products and
promotions such as our Beer Visa and Intergalactic Sticker Club, where we have
found our community are interested in interacting with each other and the brand
in new ways,” Dempster said. “We’ve been keeping a close eye on blockchain
technology, and have got to know BlockRocket well, they are always on the
lookout for novel and beautifully designed real-world applications.”
Blockchain-powered crypto-collectibles rose to fame in 2017
when CryptoKitties, an
Ethereum-based virtual game that lets users buy, sell, collect, breed and
exchange unique cats, went viral with some rare kitties going for well
over US$100,000 each.
Since then, a horde of blockchain-based virtual games have
emerged including CryptoCelebrities, CryptoPuppies, CryptoPets, Cryptobots and CryptoBunnies by China’s smartphone
maker Xiaomi.
Yet, according to James Morgan, co-founder of Nifty Football
and BlockRocket, the potential of NFT is still untapped and underutilized both
inside and outside the crypto space.
“We hope that Nifty Football will become an onramp for
further adoption by showcasing the power of what can be achieved. Being a
sports-oriented game represents a vast opportunity for the blockchain space to
reach a new set of collectors and we intend to help push applications of NFTs
to the next level,” Morgan said.