“Digital collectible” came to mean NFT for a few years, and a lot of people searching for a card collecting game now want to know, before anything else, whether they are about to be sold crypto. The short answer: most digital card games have nothing to do with a blockchain, two well-known collectible apps are built entirely on one, and the difference is not subtle. We make three of the apps in the first group.
The list
| App | Cards are | Type | Blockchain | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boxed Up Conwov | Real sneakers | Collect & trade | No | Numbered limited cards and a player marketplace, in coins only |
| Tuned Up Conwov | Songs and artists | Collect & trade | No | Music collecting with the same economy |
| Filmed Up Conwov | Movies | Collect & trade | No | Film collecting with the same economy |
| Pokémon TCG Pocket The Pokémon Company / DeNA | Pokémon cards | Collect & battle | No | Pokémon packs with restricted trading |
| Topps BUNT Topps | MLB players | Collect & trade | No | Licensed sports cards with player trading |
| NBA Collect by Topps Topps | NBA players | Collect & trade | No | NBA cards without the blockchain of Top Shot |
| Disney / Marvel / Star Wars by Topps Topps | Franchise characters | Collect & trade | No | Franchise set-building |
| Marvel Snap Second Dinner | Marvel characters | Battle-first | No | Quick battles; no trading of any kind |
| Hearthstone / MTG Arena / Master Duel Blizzard / Wizards / Konami | Their own card games | Battle-first | No | Deck-building CCGs; cards are crafted, never traded |
| NBA Top Shot Dapper Labs | NBA video moments | Marketplace | Yes | Real-money ownership of licensed highlights |
| Sorare Sorare | Football, NBA and MLB player cards | Marketplace | Yes | Fantasy sports with tradeable, real-money cards |
Collecting games with no blockchain
Boxed Up
Conwov · Collect & tradeFixed-supply numbered cards and a live marketplace, with the server as the ledger and coins as the currency.
Boxed Up gives you most of what people wanted from NFT collectibles — scarcity you can see, serial numbers, a market with real supply and demand, ownership that transfers when you trade — without any of the machinery. Weekly drops mint a Green card in a fixed supply and every copy is numbered in pull order; the marketplace runs listings, auctions and direct offers in in-game coins. Nothing can be cashed out, and every card can be earned by playing. Tuned Up (music) and Filmed Up (films) are the same design with different subjects.
Pokémon TCG Pocket
The Pokémon Company / DeNA · Collect & battleCards stay in the app; trading is deliberately restricted.
Pocket is the best-known example of a modern collecting game that never touches a blockchain. Its trading system, added after launch, uses in-app items and rules that limit what can be swapped, which is the opposite of an open market.
Topps BUNT
Topps · Collect & tradeLicensed sports cards and direct trades, entirely in-app.
Topps ran a short NFT experiment years ago, but its current apps — BUNT, NBA Collect, Disney Collect!, Marvel Collect!, Star Wars: Card Trader — are standard in-app collecting with player-to-player trading and no tokens.
Marvel Snap
Second Dinner · Battle-firstNo blockchain and no trading at all.
The battle-first CCGs — Snap, Hearthstone, Magic Arena, Master Duel — keep cards inside the app and do not allow trading between players in any form. If “no crypto” is really “no way to lose money to other players”, these are the safest of all.
Apps that do use a blockchain
Named so you can recognise them, not to warn you off. Both are legitimate, licensed products. They are markets, and they should be approached as markets.
NBA Top Shot
Dapper Labs · MarketplaceLicensed NBA highlight clips as tokens on the Flow blockchain, bought and sold for real money.
Dapper Labs' Top Shot sells “moments” in packs and runs a marketplace in dollars. Prices are driven by demand and speculation, and the value of a collection can rise or fall sharply. There is a game layer, but the market is the product.
Sorare
Sorare · MarketplaceFantasy sports where the player cards are Ethereum tokens with real resale value.
Sorare's football, NBA and MLB cards are used to enter fantasy competitions and can be bought and sold for real money. Free cards exist to get started, but the collecting is financial.
Why the difference matters
- Money. Blockchain collectibles can be sold for cash and can lose most of their value. In-app collectibles cannot be sold for cash and cannot lose you anything but what you chose to spend on packs.
- Who can play. Real-money markets need payment accounts and, in practice, adults. In-app collecting games are playable by anyone the store allows, with purchases controllable by parental settings.
- What scarcity means. Both kinds can have fixed-supply, numbered items. On a blockchain the scarcity is public and permanent; in a game it is enforced by the studio's servers, and it only matters for as long as the game is fun.
- Trading. Wanting to trade does not mean wanting crypto. Boxed Up, Tuned Up, Filmed Up and the Topps apps all have player trading with no token anywhere.
Questions people ask
- Are Boxed Up, Tuned Up and Filmed Up NFT games?
- No. Cards are records in the game's own database, the marketplace runs on in-game coins, and nothing can be cashed out or moved to a wallet. There is no blockchain, no token and no real-money trading between players. Numbered cards and fixed-supply drops work the way they do in any game: the server enforces the supply.
- What is the practical difference between an NFT collectible app and a normal one?
- In an NFT app the item is a token on a public blockchain that you can sell to anyone for real money, so the app is a market and prices move with demand and speculation. In a normal collecting game the cards live inside the app, trade for in-game currency if at all, and the studio controls supply. The first gives you real ownership and real financial risk; the second gives you a game whose value is the fun of collecting.
- Can I still trade cards with other players without NFTs?
- Yes. Boxed Up, Tuned Up and Filmed Up have a full marketplace with listings, auctions and player-to-player offers in in-game coins. Topps BUNT and NBA Collect allow direct trades. What you cannot do in any of them is turn a card into money.
- Is Pokémon TCG Pocket an NFT game?
- No. Cards stay inside the app. Its trading system is deliberately limited and uses in-app items rather than money.
- Which well-known collectible apps do use a blockchain?
- NBA Top Shot and the other Dapper Labs products are on the Flow blockchain, and Sorare uses Ethereum. Both involve buying and selling with real money. Neither is a bad product; they are simply a different category from the games above, and worth knowing about before you spend.
- Are digital cards without NFTs worth anything?
- Inside the game, yes: a low-serial Green card in Boxed Up trades for far more coins than a common one, and the marketplace has real supply and demand. Outside the game, no, and by design. If resale value in dollars is what you want, you are looking for a marketplace product like Top Shot, not a collecting game.
Collecting games with no blockchain
Free on iOS and Android. In-game coins only; nothing cashes out. Full category comparison in the best card collecting games for iPhone and Android.