Sorare has a problem. Or more accurately, Sorare’s users have a problem and as any company, your customers’ problem is your problem.
We’ve all seen the posts, and in recent times more numerous,
“X points now only good enough for a T5”
“Sorare isn’t as fun anymore as I’m not winning as much”
“Thinking of selling up as the ROI is no longer as good”
“Sorare aren’t managing the supply well enough”
“My gallery value is dropping”
Here’s a couple of examples just from the last few days. This is by no means a dig at these users, always respect everyone’s decision & opinion.
I’ve said it again and again. The problem for many of us users is, unfortunately, expectations. The heydays of early 2021-mid 2022 are long gone. That was a fantasy world akin to tulip mania and we all got caught hook, line and sinker for it.
I somewhat agree that more can be done experience wise, but credit where credit is due — Sorare are doing a lot more: numerous opportunities to win matchday experiences, signed jerseys, the new app, rivals mode, UX improvements etc.
Unfortunately, users still consider monetary gain as the main driver of contentment. At the end of the day, users are putting money in and expecting money out. I don’t really like to compare indirect competitors such as gambling companies but Sorare is closer than people want to believe. With bookmakers, the house always wins and very few users win. Sorare is in the same boat, the house has to win. After that, only a small portion of users will win (financially). We’re winning by having fun too, right? :)
Users often contradict themselves. We want more users (or less supply) to maintain price stability, but we still expect to win significant rewards, irrespective of those other users competing (or a reduction in rewards). Unfortunately for us, that’s the nature of the game. Cards are bought to compete, mostly. So we as users are between a rock and a hard place with the current model, I understand. Average price levels and rewards are a catch-22 if you will. As average price levels either rise or decline, clearly so too do the rewards value. I think users overlook this sometimes.
Also, as a sidenote — users are somewhat taking Sorare to the cleaners in recent weeks in terms of threshold earnings (particularly midweeks). Sorare will be very thankful for this international break for a breather but don’t be surprised if changes are made there soon enough. To me it makes sense to remove card rewards from cap 240 as a start, perhaps leave podium places only. Encourage users to make a choice.
So what can be done?
We’ve all heard suggestions of SO7/8/11 — this for me is just pushing the problem further down the line without properly addressing it with a solution.
We’ve also heard more ETH rewards and less cards given out as rewards. This works for a while, keeping users happy and perhaps reducing supply (if auction rate remained unchanged) but as I’ve previously demonstrated, the current ratio of primary:secondary sales is ~1:2.6, meaning for every $100 spent on the platform, Sorare only see about $30 of it (including the 5% secondary market fee).
Not to mention users withdrawing from the platform. It might also render many lower quality cards completely worthless as users see no value at all in purchasing them from the market.
You don’t need me to tell you that Sorare would very quickly lose money. It doesn’t work long term at all. Something that we users perhaps forget about: Sorare can only sell a card once at auction. We, collectively, can continue to sell that very same card over and over and over again.
Another suggestion that’s been touted is creating limiting ranges where people can enter, e.g. only two scarcities. This goes against the whole “own your game” mantra and I don’t believe it solves any real issue other than kicking high end users out of the lower scarcities.
If I worked at Sorare today, here’s what I would do…
For context, I’ve been active on Sorare for 2.5 years now and love the concept. It’s like nothing else out there and like many users, it has captured more than its fair share of my time, effort and headspace over that span. IRL, I work in strategic growth, with a background in marketing, sales and hospitality. I’m an analytical person, as any regular reader of my articles or tweets might know already. While I have zero “gaming” experience and little crypto experience, I have built various scoring systems for companies I have worked for — from lead gen to nurturing customer journeys, optimizing CRM systems and working on strategic revenue growth initiatives. So that helps a tiny bit, but overall I think the best experience comes from being an avid user of the platform the past 2.5 years.
A complete overhaul of the game as it is today and move to working with an ELO-style rating system. Of course traditional ELO only works when it’s 1v1. I’m aware that when it comes to thousands of users, the mathematics is complex and my model likely needs some work but it’s definitely possible. My dummy template took me a few hours to map out on excel — I’d love to have the resources and skill set of a full-time developer! I’ve gone with naming it “SO Rating” or “SO Ranking” for now, not very original but hey-ho.
The product is still maturing, we all get that, and while many do and will kick up a fuss when changes are made, I do believe Sorare need to settle on a somewhat polished product in the near future in respect to the gaming side. Of course tweaks, improvements and changes can be made. I realise this would be a significant change, but it’s one I believe creates an equitable, sustainable, profitable future for Sorare where users, for the most part, would be content.
Why SO Rating?
Well, to address all of the problems listed out earlier in this article. Plus:
- Users will love to see where they place globally. We’ve seen the momentum with longer-form tournaments — these should continue and have the opportunity to with this model.
Who really is the best Sorare manager in the world?
Everyone wants to know, and many will strive to get there. (p.s. — shameless plug alert, I’ve been running #SorareSurvivor for a while now and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, users enjoy this style of competition). - Users only compete against X% of managers entering a given tournament in any given gameweek — more chance of that “winning” feeling. And it would make a dent in breaking down the animosity some users have towards “whales”.
- Rewards are proportional and relatively split amongst the divisions. The better users (higher SO Rating) play in the stronger competitions and have stronger chances of better rewards.
- Users know where they stand. For example, a user could be in 56,000th position in the world. Their goal might be to climb into the top 50k. Further, Sorare has the opportunity to market/gamify this or even reward it, for example: “most improved” rewards every 90 days.
- Sorare can create demand from the user base by offering special competitions where only users with a certain SO rating can enter.
- Better control of supply. We don’t like the sound of less rewards at first, but in reality we all know it needs to happen — this model is scalable based on the active userbase. If the distribution of rewards feels more equitable, I believe users will be one step closer to happy. To the whales thinking this might be unjust towards them, I promise it’s not — you’d be competing against a far smaller field.
How it works
I’ll try and keep it simple, but I’ve used real data from GW413 across Champion Europe, Challenger Europe and All-Star (all scarcities) as my test data.
A user’s SO Rating is updated after every GW. It is determined by a number of elements with varying weighting including:
- your finishing places in all tournaments/divisions you enter
- the quality of users you come up against (division strength)
- the strength of the region (e.g. Champion EU holds more weight than Second Div. EU)
- L90 days average score across all entries
- no. of tournaments entered
- winning divisions or placing on the podium
- Beating users with a higher SO rating, and scoring less than users with a lower SO rating than you also come into play.
90 days seems like a fair stretch to use to avoid any gamification e.g. users sandbagging. Also, new users won’t have an SO Rating until they have been actively entering competitions for 90 days. Scarcity bonus still exists and is counted in L90 days average score (up to 1.2 for Super Rare and up to 1.4 for Uniques), some users might see this as unjust — but from Sorare’s point of view — naturally the higher you go up the scarcities, the “better” player you are considered to be. Better in Sorare terms (spending money) as well as potentially winning.
Every user has one score, not different scores per region or scarcity. So if a user is elite in the limited scarcity, and decides then to purchase rare cards to compete there they will initially likely enter into the top divisions within rare. But after a few weeks their score will normalise for their level and their investment. Does this discourage users from moving up a scarcity, with the jump being too much investment-wise for them? Perhaps, but the progression bar has been spoken about for nearly two years now and this allows for clear progression WITHIN scarcities. (Sorare still wants to keep the money coming in, so they should create an environment where users strive not only to win weekly competitions, but perhaps spend more on the best cards too).
I’ve taken the exact amount of ETH and card rewards for GW413 within Champ EU, Challenger EU and All-Star. Currently given the breakdown of users, it makes sense to split the Limited and Rare Divisions into five divisions, Rare Pro into three divisions, and leave Super Rare and Unique as they are. The calculations are there for Sorare to alter this should they see an expansion or contraction in number of entries to a divide of 2, 3, 4, 5 or even 6, while still equitable and fair across the board. For example, quieter midweeks could see less divisions.
A user in any given GW might end up in Division A in U23 limited, division B in Champ EU rare and division C in All-Star rare for example based on the other users competing in those competitions.
Let’s isolate Champion Europe Rare as an example.
There were 2,108 entrants with a prize-pool of $4,300 and 210 card rewards ranging from T0s to T5s.
What this would do is split those 2,108 entrants into five different divisions at the deadline, based on their SO Rating.
The top 5% of entrants (105 managers) would enter into division A.
The next 10% of entrants (211 managers) go into Division B.
All the way down to the last 40% of entrants (843 managers) who go into Division E.
Then, how do we split prize pools equitably? ETH rewards are the easy part. It’s simply the reverse of the 5%-40%.
40% of the ETH prize pool goes to Division A, 25% to Division B and so on.
How does it look then?
Now, 35 managers (+17% more) are receiving ETH rewards with the same amount of ETH distributed.
But but, what about the whales, they have to share their winnings?! In the actual Champ EU Rare GW413, first place took home $510. First place in Div A in this model gets $516. And you’re competing against 1/20th the number of other managers.
But but, what if I’m in Div B or Div C and I “would have won overall”, then I win less? Yes, but you win your division, and you progress, in this more equitable model. The chances are, you may move up a division next week based on your SO Rating and can compete for a better reward.
Purely from a numbers standpoint, entering into Champ EU rare using the existing model stood a chance of 1.42% for an ETH reward (top 30) and 9.96% for a card reward (top 210). To win a T0 or T1, you had a 0.028% chance, based on the number of entrants.
So on the rewards front, it’s not as easy as saying 40% to Div A, 25% to Div B etc., as reward tiers hold different value. So we need to work on a ratio tier entry model. Here’s how this competition would have looked:
Notice the ratio of rewards to entries. It is always skewed slightly better for each division going up. This is to ensure equitable distribution while at the same time rewarding managers at the top of the ladder, and those who wish to progress.
I can already hear objections similar to what some are saying in regards to the new month-long cap 270 competition beginning next week. “If I have a really good score but miss out on rewards in my division, it’s not fair because if it was the way it used to be I would have won something”. Sure, but this is about thinking of the game in a new way, and besides, with this formula, you have better chances of winning something than you would have beforehand. You’re coming up against less other managers. Also, wouldn’t we all like to brag/compete with our friends on our overall global rank? You could with the SO Rating!
It works for Challenger, it works for All-Star, it works for all scarcities. Side note — I recommend the cap competitions (220,240 & 270) to be separate and not counting towards SO Rating. In my opinion it should only be regionals and all-star counting.
Essentially I’ve tested running this over a few GWs and various competitions. I created a pool of 500 dummy users, assigned them a random SO Rating, then assigned them random scores in various divisions over a few weeks to see how it would evolve. I neither have the skill nor the computing power to do this at scale, test it out with different reward quantities, play around with the weightings etc., but for now, it works and I believe it could be the answer to a lot of the problems we, as the user base, identify today.
It brings fun back to competing and climbing the ladder.
It ties into the direction Sorare are going with longer-format tournaments.
It creates natural progression WITHIN scarcities.
It is more equitable in its distribution of rewards.
It doesn’t really harm any user cohorts, all users are competing in smaller fields with better chances of winning.
It creates opportunities for managers to be strategic in deciding which tournaments to enter.
It delivers an extra thrill of finding out which division you are placed in once the GW deadline closes.
I’ve written before about the need for new users, and for the need for Sorare to increase the LTV of existing users. While it seems complex initially, I think a well implemented version of this system could well hit both areas.
