Q1. TOPGOAL has always focused on the sports sector with strong expertise. How have the past achievements in sports been?
We began developing our first mobile football manager game in 2013, started developing 3D games in 2015, and by 2020, we had our own motion engine to showcase players' movements during matches. As of last month, our seven products had a total revenue of $42 billion and 21 million downloads. One of our games won the Best Strategy Game award from Google Play in 2019. These experiences allow us to launch a high-level Web3 football game at a relatively low cost and in a short time.
Q2. The team has been focused on the sports sector for two years. From the beginning with NFTs to Web3 football games and then to RWA, why did the team choose these businesses?
There are two reasons why we focus on the sports sector. First, the team's past experience and resources are concentrated in the sports industry. Secondly, the ceiling for the Web3 sports sector is high enough and is still a blue ocean market.
Our Web2 team has over ten years of experience in developing sports mobile games, which have signed many stars familiar to fans as game ambassadors or image spokespeople, thus maintaining good cooperative relationships with them. When our NFT business approached them, both parties could often quickly reach new cooperation intentions.
Sports, especially football, is a massive and rapidly growing industry with a market size in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The football RWA business is inspired by numerous star RWA projects in 2024. We have thoroughly researched opportunities in the sports sector and found many similar RWA businesses in Europe and South America. The slogan of TOPGOAL's RWA project TOPMARKET is 'I contributed to the rise of a football star.' For fans, being able to personally discover, participate, and have the opportunity to earn substantial returns is something to be proud of. We visited scouts, agents, and clubs in Europe and America and found that many people understand our ideas, often speaking at length about it after we introduced it. We believe this is the right direction. I hope to make the sports world better through decentralization and self-sovereignty.
Q3. It sounds like Web2 football games are the starting point. How did you embark on the path of game development?
In 2013, I obtained a master's degree in the United States. During my studies, two seniors from my undergraduate school encouraged me to design independent games in my spare time, and I was responsible for the UI and part of the planning work. That game project ultimately ended poorly due to a lack of investment and some technical difficulties. After reflecting, I decided to formally seek angel investment and start a full-time venture. I struggled for a long time between three themes: football, military, and Dota, eventually choosing football, which I love the most. I have played EA's FIFA series for over 10,000 hours, and I believe I understand very well what fan players want. After receiving angel investment, our company maintained a scale of ten people, operating out of a rented house costing 2,300 euros per month. Later, several games performed well, and the company received investments from notable institutions and leading companies in the industry, including Sequoia and Tencent.
Q4. What prompted you to choose to enter the Web3 sports sector?
The direct reason is the explosive popularity of NBA Top Shot, which made me first understand how suitable NFTs and the entire logic behind them are for sports fans. Since someone is already doing well in the basketball sector, I can start exploring in football, which I am skilled at.
Another reason is that since 2019, traditional Web2 sports games have been increasingly impacted by traditional giants' products. At that time, our company's monthly revenue was second only to the FIFA and PES series on mobile, but no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't close the gap. Our analysis concluded that the console sports game market is much larger than the mobile game market, with FIFA and PES together generating over $2 billion in annual revenue, far exceeding the total marketing investment in mobile products. Consequently, their mobile products benefit from massive advertising expenditures on the console side, meaning mobile gaming teams only need minimal funding to achieve downloads far exceeding those of smaller companies like ours. This competition is hardly fair, but we cannot change it. It is difficult for us to become number one unless we find a new track, and Web3 happens to be such a track. In this space, there are no EA Sports or Konami, giving us some time to try various ways to become number one.
Q5. Have you encountered any difficulties in the past two years? What lessons have you learned?
Yes, we have encountered many difficulties I never imagined and learned many valuable lessons from them.
Entering the Web3 industry with almost zero experience due to unfamiliarity with media and channels, we missed many opportunities to expand our visibility.
The first game, TopManager, did not achieve significant user growth due to a lack of familiarity with Web3 operational methods. We wasted a product that took nine months to transition to Web3. This prompted us to think that we must launch a brand new design, something that does not exist in the market, a game that both Web3 and Web2 fans can quickly adapt to. This is now Footballcraft.
Due to unfamiliarity with the security of Web3 chains, we were twice attacked by hackers in 2023. The first incident caused significant losses and led to a certain degree of misunderstanding within the community.
During the OKX platform's Cryptopedia event in the summer of 2024, the event rules provided rewards based on accounts, leading to an influx of bot players, which put too much pressure on the server and caused continuous crashes. During the first week of the event, our server engineers hardly had a full night's rest.
Seeing many player complaints and grievances online, even some misunderstandings, I often feel very guilty. I dove into this industry without fully understanding it, and I would like to sincerely apologize for the bugs and mistakes we've made. After two years in the Web3 industry, the cumulative unexpected events have exceeded a decade's worth in Web2, which I believe is characteristic of a rapidly growing industry.
Q6. Has anything happened that motivates you to keep going?
Aside from my love for football and the goal of connecting sports with Crypto, the support of our community has always been my source of motivation.
During the first year of the project's inception, I regularly updated the X account, and many players gave me encouragement and recognition, while some expressed understanding for the misunderstandings I faced through private messages, which touched me deeply. Later, due to force majeure, I abandoned that X account, which made me uneasy. However, thinking of the many supporters of this project gave me great motivation and courage to make TOPGOAL successful. Perhaps after both new projects are launched, those who previously misunderstood me will have a new understanding of us.
We have encountered many very nice partners during our gradual transition from being ignorant about Web3 to becoming qualified developers, and they have provided us with significant unconditional support. Chiliz has reserved a television or booth for Footballcraft at every Web3 conference in Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai, strongly promoting this unique game to their community users. OKX Web3 colleagues specifically coordinated the launch timing of other Cryptopedia projects during the European Championship to ensure we could catch up with the match days. Everyone who has helped us, including BNB Chain, Cyberport, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, has allowed us to move forward fearlessly despite FUD.
Q7. What are your expectations for Footballcraft? In your ideal scenario, what state will this product reach?
Many people understand Footballcraft to be a simplified version of Football Manager, but it is actually a more complex version. Football Manager is a buyout single-player game, where players' competitive actions are PvE, and each player can accumulate gameplay time to earn funds to sign their favorite stars. However, Footballcraft is PvP, just like the real football world, where every high-level league club is backed by a continuously thinking brain, defeating real opponents in a simulated environment to be recorded in history (all players share the same timeline, and all champions will be written on the blockchain), a feeling unmatched by any single-player game or pay-to-win game.
Ideally, once all countries in the game are opened (we cannot open all 200 countries immediately when the game launches; they need to be gradually opened based on the number of active players), the entire world should not rely on frequent updates from the development team. Theoretically, it should operate as a virtual parallel world based on existing football world rules. Several months later in the world (one year in the game equals one month in real life), there will be its own football stars, just like real-life Haaland, Mbappé, and Vinícius. The World Cup champion every four months may come from Asia, a managerial player may sell their club for $100,000, and the coach of the European club champion might be an old lady who appears at the stadium every week...
Q8. How do you understand sports RWA? How will TOPGOAL approach this sector?
TOPMARKET is the first platform to tokenize and trade the economic performance of the world's most promising football players. The revenue from RWA sales is distributed among players, agents, and the platform, ensuring sustainable growth.
Core Asset 1: Future earnings of players/agents/clubs
Obtain a share of the future salaries of top players.
Obtain a share of the commissions from top agencies.
Obtain a share of the club bonuses.
Core Asset 2: Virtual asset products - Limited edition NFTs
For example, NFT players are very powerful and helped me win the league championship in Footballcraft.
Core Asset 3: Signed cards and jerseys
Before players become superstars, they will have exclusive signed cards and jerseys. Imagine how crazy fans would be if we could present Yamal's signed jersey from when he was 14 years old.
Q9. Will the RWA products signed with individual players receive legal protection? How can we ensure that RWA holders can share in the profits they deserve?
Of course. RWA contracts between players/agents/clubs and TOPGOAL are legally binding, comply with legal regulations, and respect players' rights. This agreement ensures that players and RWA holders can profit from this new system while guaranteeing fairness and effective balance. TOPGOAL has established a strategic partnership with Plume Protocol to provide ongoing cooperation and compliance solutions for this project.
Q10. What is the overall progress of the project? When will it be launched?
I am currently negotiating with some potential partners—we work in the same or different fields, but I believe our visions align. More details will be announced in the first quarter of 2025.
Q11. What future plans can you share with the community?
Of course! I have many exciting plans to share with the community.
We will share the link for the second phase of the open test on the official X platform. Everyone is welcome to experience Footballcraft. Most importantly, your feedback has the power to drive change.
The official website of TOPMARKET will be launched in January 2024, marking the birth of the first RWA platform in the sports sector.
We are actively communicating with the exchange where $GOAL is listed and will take the opportunity of the RWA project launch to officially rebrand. We believe the TOPGOAL team can carve a path to establish a stronger connection with fans.
In the upcoming year, we will particularly focus on Europe, South Korea, and Japan, which have a large football fan base. We believe that friends in these regions can participate in the game, purchase RWA and tokens through local exchanges—this is a well-rounded ecosystem experience both narratively and visually.