What is The Sandbox and why is it gaining popularity? We delve into this decentralised metaverse and see how it is changing the way games are made with its community-driven gaming ecosystem.
If open world sandbox games like Minecraft and Roblox are your jam, then you would definitely be familiar with the idea of crafting items and houses in-game while hanging out with friends in the virtual world. But what if you could earn from the custom in-game activities and items that you craft? That’s where The Sandbox comes into play.
What is The Sandbox?
The Sandbox is a Minecraft-like open world gaming ecosystem that allow users to create and monetise in-game assets and activities. The entire metaverse is built on the Ethereum network, and players use SAND tokens as the main utility token for transactions and interactions.
Players who are used to the 8-bit style of Minecraft would feel comfortable navigating the graphics style of The Sandbox. Not only can participants plug into a blockchain-supported gaming universe, they can also contribute by building it with up with the platform’s integrated tools and own in-game assets they have created via blockchain and smart contracts.
Before jumping into the metaverse, users can create their own avatars that best represents them. With over 39 different pre-designed characters, users can also customise their character’s head and apparels as well; the avatars can then be linked to the user’s account and digital wallet. Not satisfied with the default look? You can jazz up your character by buying equipment or wearables created by other users from The Sandbox NFT market with SAND tokens.
What are the features available in The Sandbox?
The Sandbox platform has three main features that allow users to jump right in and start adding their personal touch to the metaverse.
VoxEdit
The free programme by The Sandbox allows content creators to create static or animated 3D objects for use in the game. Voxels, which are square 3D pixels similar to building blocks, can be manipulated with VoxEdit to create block-like humans, animals, plants, and tools. These objects are referred to as ASSETS and use the ERC-1155 token standard, allowing for both fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to be minted with a single smart contract. The creator can then use the NFT in-game or sell it on The Sandbox marketplace.
Game Maker
Another way that users can add to the metaverse is by creating their own gameplay and sharing it with others. Instead of the game giving you objectives in-game a la Skyrim style, other creators can add their own game vision for players to try out.
The best part of the Game Maker is it allows anyone to build the game they envision, even if the creator doesn’t have prior coding experience. To create a game, creators will first need to purchase LAND in The Sandbox’s metaverse. They can populate it with voxel models bought from the marketplace or create and mint their own models with VoxEdit.
NFT Marketplace
The Sandbox’s NFT marketplace is where users can list their NFTs in the form of equipment, models, and avatars, or list their LAND digital real-estate to be sold. By monetising these digital tokens, the creator gets 95% of the revenue when sold while the remaining 5% is re-injected into the ecosystem to support both the Game Maker Fund and Creator Fund.
Buying LAND and in-game items
In The Sandbox, LAND are digital pieces of real-estate and a non-fungible ERC-721 token at the same time. Both LAND and in-game NFTs can be bought with SAND tokens in The Sandbox NFT Marketplace, or purchased with other cryptocurrencies like ether on OpenSea.
What can users do with LAND? Well they can launch events on their plot, design and play games created on their LAND, or vote for Sandbox proposals with their LAND tokens acting as governance tokens for the metaverse. The digital estate has a 96m x 96m dimension, but they can be combined to form ESTATES, and even that can be combined to form DISTRICTS which must be confirmed through a majority vote of participants.
The Sandbox Alpha
The Sandbox Alpha is an open event happening on November 29 2021 which allow players to explore The Sandbox Metaverse for the first time through 18 different experiences. Players can utilise an NFT item called the Alpha Pass during the event to explore the various experiences and earn up to 1,000 SAND tokens plus three exclusive NFT rewards, which are the Alpha Gate, Alpha Dragon, and Alpha Sword NFTs.
There are only a limited number of Alpha Passes so it is not available to all, but users without the pass can also access three full experiences and the Alpha HUB, which is a central multiplayer experience showcasing a range of locations and quest.
To get an Alpha Pass NFT, players can join in one of the following activities:
- The Alpha Raffle, where LAND owners can stand a chance to win one of the 1,000 passes for VIPs.
- The Daily Social Contests, where anyone with a Sandbox account will be able to participate in The Sandbox’s daily social contests.
- Purchase the pass through OpenSea.
The Sandbox Team
Arthur Madrid
Chief Executive Officer
Sebastien Borget
Chief Operating Officer
Lucas Shrewsbury
Chief Technical Officer
Marcelo Santurio
Chief Financial Officer
Conclusion
The company wrapped up a Series B funding round on 2nd November, 2021, with $93 million raised by notable VCs such as True Global Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, Galaxy Interactive, Kingsway Capital, Alpaca VC, and SCB 10X.Â
Plus, their list of notable partnerships include artists such as Snoop Dogg, DeadMau5, Avenged Sevenfold, The Walking Dead, Smurfs, Manchester City, Square Enix, and Atari. Taking into account the increasing interests in virtual worlds and metaverses after Facebook’s Meta announcement, The Sandbox could be a promising project to keep an eye on in the next few years.
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