#868 FIFA Rivals launches 12th June
Time to really kick-off
Top 300 Web3 Games Index: ↓3% today, ↓56% YTD
Ronin Games Index: ↓8% today, ↓77% YTD
Immutable Games Index: ↓4% today, ↓54% YTD
AI Gaming Agents: ↓3% today, ↓60% YTD
Jon’s TX Games Index: ↓1% today, ↓52% YTD
Jon’s 2025 Reboot Index*: ↑2% today, ↓60% YTD
*Definitely not investment advice
No surprises given the first matches in the first FIFA Club World Cup start next Sunday, Mythical Games has finally announced its much anticipated arcade mobile game FIFA Rivals is going live globally through app stores on Thursday 12th June.
The soccer version of its (fairly) successful NFL Rivals game, FIFA Rivals will see players building up a squad of licensed real-world players, which I assume will be a mixture of web2 and web3 assets.
These will provide the metagame as players train them to level up their stats, also trading the NFTs in-app or via the Mythical Marketplace.
Over the past two years or so, NFL Rivals has generated around $13 million-worth of NFT trading volume.
I’d expect FIFA Rivals’ trading growth to be much faster, partly because of its higher profile appeal but also the features Mythical has added over the years, such as Quick Trades, which enable players to bundle-sell a lot of cheap NFTs to buy a more expensive one.
As well as being very convenient for players compared to attempting individual NFT trades, it’s also highly lucrative for Mythical as it gets to arbitrage the swap.
When it comes to the gameplay, it looks like FIFA Rivals will be more arcadey than NFL Rivals, with players having super-power abilities in terms of pulling off extreme moves such as crazy overhead kicks and unstoppable fireball shots.
Already an official FIFA licensed game, its marketing will be further boosted by a multi-year deal with Adidas, which will include various in-game assets such as branded kits and boots.
Mythical has also struck a deal with soccer community OneFootball, which in April 2022 announced its own $300 million web3 initiative. Backed by Animoca, Dapper Labs and Liberty City Ventures, it never actually happened.
Still, three years on from those strange times, I have a lot of confidence that Mythical has aligned this game, its underlying blockchain stack, the monetization and the potential community to create an opportunity that could make this a very big title for the entire blockchain gaming sector.
My main concerns are how much blowback it gets for:
being a blockchain game — unlikely, it doesn’t ever mention blockchain, or
the gameplay being too arcadey — which is certainly possible.
A stretch concern on the positive side is that there will be a spate of headlines about people losing money trading NFTs because FIFA Rivals is so successful, its economy does a NBA Top Shot-style boom-bust.
But all-things-considered that would be a lovely problem for everyone to have — other than Mythical Games’ customer support staff, of course.
You can still pre-register for FIFA Rivals here.
Sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing 📈 in the future 🔮 of gaming 🎮
Weekly News roundup
Voya’s fully onchain idler Craft World is launching on Ronin this summer.
Sleepagotchi is first non-Ronin game in Pixels’ staking rewards scheme.
Henesys breaks 70,000 DAUWs, while MapleStory N NFT sells for $12,694.
Sports brawler Sparkball is now coming to Somnia.
Nominate best mobile blockchain game at Mobile Games Awards 2025.
Web3 version of ROM: Remember of Majesty coming to Wemix.
Following R&D tax credit rejection, Dogami in “strategic negotiations” to sell game, assets and ecosystem.
Fishing Frenzy’s season 1 results highlight growth.
How Flappy Bird hopes to solve the web2 vs web3 dilemma.
Fully onchain game Blob Arena to launch at Armored MMA event.
Launcher Capital raises $4 million for its AI, web3 game-making platform.
Reputation protocol Shards raises $2 million.
As discussed below
🔗 Additional Links 🔗
A legendary Angry Dynomites Labs Fire Dyno just sold for 1 ETH, a rise of 1,329% from its mint price in May 2022.
Solana-enabled retro gaming handheld PSG1 — pre-order for $329 — has announced its final tech specs, including an octa-core Rockchip RK3588S SoC, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of eMMC storage and a 1240×1080 OLED touch display.
One-time web3 mech shooter Animo Stars has gone web2 and is launching a Kickstarter.
Shares of USDC provider Circle rose 168% on its first day of trading.
this actually sounds way more fun than i expected lol
i thought it’d just be another boring nft game but the quick trades and fireball shots? kinda sick
do you think fifa rivals could actually go mainstream or is it still too web3 for normies?