At the beginning of the baseball season, Topps physical released the first ever on demand trading card series that ran through the entire year. Being that on demand is what makes digital so attractive, it was only a matter of time before it was brought to the other apps. As of today, all of the sports based apps have Topps Now as a series, and the question becomes whether or not the success is translating well to the digital crowd.

Personally, I had indifferent feelings towards recap based cards in general for the apps, unless it was something truly special. Milestones were cool, especially for the players that reached one of the major career numbers. Outside of that, a nice performance dictating a recap card release was interesting to a point, especially early on in a season when player collections were thin.

Now that we are through the “onboarding” stages of the Topps Now game in all the apps, im starting to wonder when we are going to get the next iteration of the cards. Topps has had signature versions and relic versions through the baseball playoffs, and we havent QUITE yet gotten the same type of content on the digital side. There have been a few variant type cards, but nothing consistent.

It makes me wonder when we will start to see Topps Focus from NHL Skate start to translate into a worthwhile program in the other apps. Even more so when full video can be used for daily recap content. Similarly adding live signature type content when the Topps Now cards do eventually get signed would also be really cool to see. I could even see them offering a digital version code when the physical version is purchased. A two for one type of deal.

All in all, it becomes an exercise in testing the water on a platform built around on demand type content as it is. If we are being frank here, Im not sure Topps Now type content even is as interesting in digital format specifically for that reason. Digital already had a significant use for recap style content, and did a pretty good job of it. Headlines has been a part of Bunt and Huddle for a number of years, and it didnt really need a re-branding.

Im curious to see where this goes, as its clear that Topps Now is not going away. With new technology coming to the app, going to be cool to see how they can increase interest for users that want to partake. I think its kind of getting stale at this point a bit, and the World Series might be a way to get things back on the right track.