SKALE Gaming Makes Slam Dunk With Web3 NBA Tie-In

NBA personalities LaMelo and Lonzo Ball, along with the entire Big Baller Brand family, are set to take center stage in the new Web3 game StrayShot (formerly 0xBattleGround), which will see two of the stars featured as playable NFT characters. The game, developed by iBLOXX Studios, has just launched in beta on the SKALE Network.

Bringing Elite Athletes To SKALE

NBA All-Star and Rookie of the Year LaMelo Ball is one of the best-known basketball names in the world, regarded as one of the top five global basketball talents under 22. LaMelo recently signed an incredible $260 million contract with the Charlotte Hornets.

His older brother Lonzo Ball was the number 2 draft pick for the Los Angeles Lakers and an All-Rookie Team honoree, and helped push the Chicago Bulls to the Eastern Conference's top seed before a knee injury put him out of action for the 2023-24 season.

While it's not the first time elite athletes have sought to expand their presence and appeal through the blockchain, the unique properties of the SKALE Network and the clout of Big Baller Brand set this collaboration apart, as iBLOXX CEO Domenik Maier says.

We are very excited to announce our partnership with the Big Baller Brand Family and their elite NBA athletes. This collaboration underscores our commitment to delivering unparalleled gaming experiences to our community and we could not think of a more influential squad to work with than the Ball family.

The Ball family is also excited to push into Web3. LaVar Ball, co-founder and CEO of Big Baller Brand, says:

My boys and me will not only dominate the basketball court, we will also dominate the battleground of StrayShot!

Top-Tier Gaming Experience

StrayShot introduces the basketball stars as in-game playable characters. Their inclusion promises to pull in a huge crossover of players who have previously ignored blockchain games due to the stigmas surrounding crypto and relatively rudimentary mechanics of existing games—winning new hearts and minds to decentralized technologies.

To these ends, StrayShot prioritizes a top-tier user experience in which Web3 functionality enhances rather than intrudes on the gameplay.

Alongside the release of the game, iBLOXX Studios is releasing the Ball NFT collection: A series of exclusive NFTs that can be traded across all major NFT marketplaces, including OpenSea. A dedicated digital asset marketplace will round out StrayShot's offering, enabling players to buy in-game NFTs. 

The Secret Sauce: Invisible Web3 Gaming

One of the key elements that sets StrayShot apart from the competition is its integration of blockchain as an "invisible" component of the game. This is critical, since StrayShot is aimed squarely at the traditional gaming sector, and its use of NFTs and on-chain gameplay must not adversely impact the UX. iBLOXX's success is this regard is evident from Strayshot’s closed beta, which attracted 7,000 players in a single week.  

The seamless use of blockchain can be attributed both to iBLOXX's outstanding UX design, and the fast and gasless properties of the SKALE Network, which enables on-chain interaction without requiring players to hold native gas tokens.

SKALE has been recognized as the fastest blockchain network in a Dartmouth blockchain performance study of the world’s leading blockchains, and is also the fastest-growing blockchain ecosystem in terms of user numbers and transaction volumes.

To download StrayShot and start playing, visit StrayShot.game.

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