What is NBA Top Shot? (Remove the game, remove the shoes)

February 27, 2021

Made this video about NBA Top Shot and a hunch about why it’s popular: people hate standing in lines but love to talk about standing in lines. It’s really cool packaging for gameless loot boxes. (Also: People love money.)

NBA Top Shot allows you to stand in a digital line to get a digital pack of digital highlights. The packs are limited. Rare highlights can be resold at a much higher value.

Digital collectibles were made popular through computer games. You could buy different items, skins, that sort of thing, and then resell it for real money.

NBA Top Shot allows you to do that without the game.

Number two: NBA Top Shot removed the shoes. You used to stand in line outside of a physical store to get in on a drop, buy shoes, and then you could resell those. Some people were building up their collections, but the value comes from reselling and the reseller market.

That experience became digital through things like the SNKRS app, where you could stand in a digital line to get physical shoes.

NBA Top Shot removed the shoes from this. You stand in the digital line to get a digital good that you can resell without having to go to the post office.

NBA Top Shot removed the game and removed the shoes.