Web3 Gaming Platform, The Sandbox

We have witnessed a massive avidity towards the mix of decentralized gaming and unconventional currencies such as crypto, with terms like metaverse commonly being spread around. 

When Meta launched its Metaverse, the project led by Mark Zuckerberg, major architects and gaming enthusiasts keenly started building in the ecosystem, the hype and mania especially soaring due to great anticipations and expectations regarding virtual reality. However, the appeal towards the virtual ecosystem died down, leading Zuckerberg to go all in on AI instead. 

Despite Meta’s failure in the matter, the president of the Blockchain Gaming Alliance, Sebastien Borget, has chosen not to back down, evidently through the creation of his Web3 gaming company and decentralized blockchain virtual video game, The Sandbox.

Starting Out in The Sandbox

Acting as founder and chief operating officer of The Sandbox, Borget built the blockchain project as a way to make decentralized gaming more accessible. Unlike Meta’s Metaverse, which requires users to utilize costly virtual reality headsets, The Sandbox’s Metaverse is available through web browsers and The Sandbox’s free client software.

To start one’s virtual ecosystem journey, users can visit The Sandbox site and create an account by signing up with their email, Gmail account, or crypto wallet. The crypto wallet options include Metamask, Coinbase, Bitski, WalletConnect, Venly, Wombat, Opera Crypto, and Brave.

While one is able to sign in without priorly owning a crypto wallet, wallet ownage will become significant in continuing their Sandbox Metaverse journey. In the case where one does not have a wallet yet, the process to create one is free and swift.

Users will then be prompted to create a nickname along with their avatar, customizable with vast options of hairstyles, skin and hair color, tops, bottoms, shoes, and so on. Not limited to humans, users can create avatars that resemble animals and other living creatures as well.

As commonly experienced by gamers, when it comes to creating one’s character in a video game, this process might take a while, especially due to the abundance of choices.

To Play or Create?

Once you have established your profile and avatar, the virtual ecosystem experience begins. Whether you’re in the mood to relax and dip into the vast worlds available on the Sandbox without spending any money, or you’re feeling ambitious and want to invest some of your funds to design your own games and assets, The Sandbox aims to provide an equally exciting and satisfying experience.

When one enters The Sandbox Metaverse, a gargantuan map filled with many plots of digital land can be explored, with unique games placed in spots made from players’ original ideas or from brand partnerships in media.

Some of the lands players can explore include those inspired by media franchises such as The Walking Dead and Smurfs, and even musical artists like Snoop Dogg, along with printed media like Playboy Magazine. Most of the games available in these lands can be easily accessed by players by downloading The Sandbox’s client software, while others can only be accessed when players manage to complete certain quests. Some games also need to be purchased using The Sandbox’s currency.

While, as previously stated, players can jump right in and choose a game to start, there is also the option of plotting their own land and creating a game to place there, done through the low-code/no-code Creator Portal. In an effort to build a virtual ecosystem completely and freely filled with user-generated content (UGC), Borget integrated three products into the platform for players to create, which include Voxel Editor, Marketplace, and Game Maker.

The Game Maker allows players to build, share, and monetize their games, even “renting” them to other players for them to develop further. The Voxel Editor lets users create 3D animated objects like humans, animals, vehicles, tools, etc., which can then become tokenized ASSETS sellable as NFTs. Users can upload and sell their NFT creations as well as purchase other players’ ASSETS in The Sandbox’s Marketplace.

Currencies

In order to make purchases possible, The Sandbox has two different token types to keep the circular economy between players, creators, curators, and land owners going outside of the UGC NFT ASSETS.

These tokens include SAND, which is the main utility ERC-20 tokens used to purchase ASSETS and LANDS, customize avatars, play some paid games, and do some crypto staking, and LAND, which is the digital piece of real estate that players can buy to populate, available on the public Ethereum blockchain (ERC-721).

Essentially, as soon as one registers its crypto wallet in the virtual ecosystem, everything owned by players is open to monetization. NFT ASSETS can be sold in the Marketplace for SAND, and LAND can be rented to other players or tidied up so its value increases, which, in the end, results in revenue.

Since launching back in 2018, The Sandbox has 23,5K virtual landowners as of last May, selling 70% of its digital land parcels, which was said to be over 166K in number. Due to players’ consistent use of the virtual ecosystem, Borget predicts double-digit player growth getting into 2024, with plans of creating a Metaverse game on smartphones in the next year.

Meme & AI-Generated Picture

Job Posting

• The Sandbox - Lead Gameplay Programmer - United States (In-Office/Hybrid)

• Chime - Senior Software Engineer, Quality Services - Chicago, IL+ (Remote/Hybrid)

• CrunchyRoll - Senior Engineering Manager, Video Transcoding - San Francisco, CA+ (Remote/Hybrid)

• Samsara - Senior Embedded Software Engineer - San Francisco, CA+ (Remote/Hybrid)

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