Season 3 Look Ahead

Season 2 has been a success, with more than double the active teams than prior seasons and record-setting retention. Matchmaker games, additional challenges, Rookie Fest, and the Bronze Jugs have been well received. This isn’t to say there weren’t any hiccups, including an unstable secondary market, falling prices, and some friction in onboarding as many new users as we’d like. 

We look forward to continuing to build in Season3. While not all is firmly set in stone at this point, we have begun thinking about Season3 and some improvements that we will aim to deliver on. Much of this comes from the feedback and input from the community, for which we are thankful. 

While we can’t share too much more about this publicly, Swoops leadership is currently in fundraising conversations. Depending on the success and timing of this, much of the below may change, but here is how we are currently thinking about it:

• Season 3 will maintain its open structure, w/ a 13 week season.
• New additions, including the Bronze Jug and Rookie Fest, will now be included in every season moving forward.
• Bring back random money games – not yet clear on exact how we will execute this, but we’ve taken feedback that those small moments of delight are important.
• Prize pools – Each Season’s prize pool is determined by a variety of factors, most importantly revenue brought in from mediums such as the mint, secondary sales, starter packs, and the Swoops Store. Assuming budget allows it, we’ll likely keep prize pool similar for Season 3 ($30k), or increase a bit, split in a somewhat similar way (Swooperbowl, Bronze Jug, 2 Majors, Daily Tournmanets, ASG, Rookie Fest, Random Money Games, etc).
• Continue to tweak and optimize the F2P Journey into the Swoops Ecosystem.
• Delivery of ‘Starter Packs’, a way for new entrants to buy their 2^nd and 3^rd players at an accessible price, and be ‘bought in’ to the Swoops ecosystem.
• Mint – Because F2P Swoopsters and Starter Packs will likely comprise the majority of the new supply of 1 and 2 star players, the ‘Mint/Drop’ will now be comprised of only higher-end, 3 thru 5 star players. Additionally, supply will be more concentrated, likely in the 200-300 range. Price will likely remain the same as usual (.05).
• Burn Mechanism – Trying to correct some oversupply mistakes from the past, we will likely implement a simple burn mechanism, whereby each Swoopster burned will earn a credit, something around $25, to be used on mints or in the Swoops Store. This means 3 burns would equal a mint.
• Add matchmaker to the 1 and 3 Swoopster lobbies.
• Test out different format tournaments (perhaps by age, star, physical attributes, etc).
• Algorithm Changes – nothing major. May try to dial up shooting efficiency just a little bit (1-2%)

While we likely won’t get to launch the following features during Season 3, we would at least like to architect and share our thoughts and a potential timeline:

• Real Money Gaming (aka paid entries into tournaments)
• League Structures
• Retirement Mechanism