Since the start of 2022, our community has participated in a record number of Flash Challenges, set new Marketplace activity records and welcomed in tens of thousands of new fans with the help of Kevin Durant.
This is an incredibly exciting moment in time for NBA Top Shot, made possible by innovating together with our community. But innovation isn’t always easy.
We can all agree that whether you’re new or have been around since the summer of 2020, the Elite and Standard Pack drops that occurred in the last week did not meet your, or our, expectations.
Yesterday’s packs largely addressed the sequencing and distribution of randomized packs in the Queue, which was originally identified during Thursday’s Elite Pack drop. Every collector had the exact same opportunity to pull a Legendary or Rare going into the drop as the final result.
A planned early drop audit caught an issue involving the first 101 collectors who purchased packs during Monday’s Standard Pack drop. We were able to identify the issue and address it quickly, ensuring the following 130,000+ packs were successfully randomized within the Queue.
The first 101 fans didn’t have an appropriate opportunity to pull a Rare or Legendary Moment, effectively increasing everyone else’s chances of pulling a Rare or Legendary Moment for the rest of the drop. Each one of those first 101 fans has been compensated with a KD Certified Standard Pack.
Additionally, while the Drop Score (Collector Score + Drop Bonus) calculations functioned correctly for entry into the Elite and Standard Pack Queues, we saw an issue with transaction limits about one hour into the drop. Because of this issue, some of the first 7,000 people in the Queue were not able to buy as many packs as they should have been able to. After a fix was implemented, the remainder of the Queue was able to buy the correct amount of packs.
As a remedy for the situation, our team is handling tickets on a case-by-case basis to make sure everyone is able to get as many packs as they should have been able to.
While we solved the crux of the issue we sought out to address yesterday, we learned of a new and completely separate issue after the drop that led to distortions in pack composition. To be clear, every collector still had the same chance of pulling a rookie, Game Recognize Game, MGLE or Holo Icon Moment no matter where they were in the Queue. However, the packs with Holo Icons had an outsized share of the three-star Rookie Moments in these Standard Packs. Put simply, these packs had a larger proportionate allocation of rookies.
We have implemented a change to avoid this happening again and plan on validating that fix with a Stress Test later this week that will include some of the Moments in our new Standard and Elite All-Star Packs, featuring this year’s Rising Stars.
Going forward, we will consistently Stress Test as we experiment with new types of drops.
We are beyond excited about all that we have planned in the month of February, and we can't wait to keep building with you.
