Thank you to the NanoNews Community for participating in Ask Me Anything (AMA) with The Sandbox on August 31, 2020. This guest star Sebastian Borget COO The Sandbox. If you were unable to join the live AMA, no worries, here comes our 53th AMA recap!
We are glad to meet here:
Sebastian Borget – COO The Sandbox
For taking your time out from busy schedule for the AMA!
Introduction Session
Q1: Can you introduce yourself to the community? What is your background and how did you join The Sandbox Project?
Hello everyone, I am Sébastien Borget, COO, co-founder of The Sandbox, which is a decentralized gaming platform (http://sandbox.game).
I am also the president of the Blockchain Game Alliance, and an advocate for #NFTs & blockchain in games., Nice to meet you all!
Q2: Can you briefly describe what is The Sandbox?
The Sandbox is a virtual world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences in the Ethereum blockchain using NFTs and $SAND, the platform’s utility token. We are combining user-generated content (UGC) with NFTs, enabling anyone to make its own NFTs using VoxEdit (our 3D Editor). Then you can own, trade and monetize these NFTs as you want.
In the coming year, our experienced and dedicated team will build an unique way to play in a virtual world where you can play, create, collect, earn, govern, and own anything in the game.
PLAY. CREATE. OWN. GOVERN. EARN. Welcome to the Metaverse!
Here’s a Teaser about The Sandbox: https://youtu.be/oi1mis3DGZE
Binance opened the trading for SAND/BNB, SAND/BTC, SAND/USDT and SAND/BUSD trading pairs on August 14th :
https://www.binance.com/en/trade/SAND_USDT
https://www.binance.com/en/trade/SAND_BTC
We are thrilled to see the demand for $SAND and also want to confirm our long term vision on building a gaming metaverse. We have great achievements, fantastic team, partners, ips and more. You’ll learn more about it today!
Alright, let’s start with the basics 🙂
At its core, The Sandbox is an ecosystem for Players and Creators, consisting of three main components: a Voxel Editor (named “VoxEdit”), a Marketplace, and the Game itself.
These 3 main components are:
- First VOXEDIT: it is a 3D modeling and animating package that allows users to create and animate 3D objects such as people, animals, foliage, and tools.
- Then the MARKETPLACE: it allows users to upload, publish, and sell their ASSETS made in VoxEdit, as Non-Fungible Tokens (Both ERC-721 and ERC-1155 tokens).
- And finally the GAME MAKER: it allows players to build 3D games for free. With the help of pre-assigned behaviors and visual settings, no coding knowledge is required.
We will be opening the public beta of the game in December 2020.
Players will be able to pre-register, create their avatar and customize it. The first experience is for players to socialize, talk, walk and interact with each other.
We are preparing a MMO-RPG inspired gameplay, where players will need to complete quests across the map (kill enemies, collect items etc), either in lands made by players or in procedurally generated lands.
Players can collect tokens and resources and trade them with other players, creators, artists etc on the platform.
This business model is called play-to-earn, as anything they collect in the game is truly owned by players, they can trade it to other players (inside the marketplace or outside on other websites), transfer it to other players or even resell it through our currency $SAND.
Here’s another video showing the 3 products in action, captured in-game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDkf1CrkF7Y
We do believe millions of players are interested in exploring the benefits of decentralization, interoperability, and the creator’s ecosystem.
Q3: What companies/projects do you see as competitors, and how does Sandbox stand out compared to them?
We are working to become the next Minecraft on the Blockchain, aiming for 1M Monthly Active Players within 2 years and 50 to 100M in the next 5 to 10 years.
Our two main competitors are Minecraft and Roblox.
- Minecraft has 100M MAUs, 176 million copies sold, $500M mobile revenue until 2018 and was sold to Microsoft for $2B. Minecraft is now a closed ecosystem since Microsoft acquired it. Code is not open source anymore, you can’t run your own servers and the Content you created is owned by Microsoft. You cannot monetize your Creations in Minecraft.
- Roblox has 100M MAUs, made $1B revenue on mobile, 290 million mobile downloads and raised $187.5M in Series F. In Roblox, Creators can monetize their creations and gaming experiences, which are still owned by a central company. They only receive a small percentage of the profit on their sales and Roblox has full control on the marketplace and the exchange rate of their currency. Very few Creators actually monetize.
Our approach is unique & differentiated from the companies above as we are focusing three key elements:
- True ownership and value for players and their creations
- The ability to create content with a consistent aesthetic and interoperability
- An environment that facilitates collaboration and working socially
In comparison wit other decentralized virtual worlds, Our edge is our experience in gaming.
We think it is great to have many decentralized virtual worlds and even we share similarities, each one has its own specificities. The Sandbox is more focused on building a gaming virtual world, where players can socialize in lobbies or play adventure/mmo rpg like type of games, with quests, fights, killing enemies, collecting items and rewards etc
We have been for 8 years already in the video game industry! The Sandbox project has been around since 2012 on mobile platforms and has gathered more than 40 million global installs on mobile.
Also, NFTs allow interoperability and users have the ability to use their NFTs across these multiple platforms. This is the beauty of the metaverse
If I may summarize The Sandbox, it would be
- Make NFTs with VoxEdit #Voxels
- Sell and Trade them on our #Marketplace
- Create fun games with our #GameMaker
- Play, Stake & Earn $SAND #Crypto
We think the the future for UGC games is 100% owned by players #NFTs
The community of players, creators, artists, land owners, $SAND holders are all stakeholders and they are directly being rewarded for their contribution to the growth of The Sandbox ecosystem.
Their interests and our interests are aligned, and we are always thinking users-first. This is a very community-driven approach
Q4: What is the use-case of the token $SAND?
One more video – one between each question 🙂
Thanks for being here today and watching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaihWTEHb_E
$SAND will enable players to create, play, own, govern, trade and earn within The Sandbox virtual world gaming platform. It is the ERC-20 token that will be used all across The Sandbox metaverse.
$SAND is an essential part of The Sandbox platform and we are working on establishing key mechanics that makes it intrinsically tied to the platform and its value.
Here’s a summary diagram of $SAND use-cases on our gaming virtual world
It will serve for/as
- Medium of exchange: Players can potentially collect SAND through gameplay, and subsequently spend $SAND to play games, purchase equipment, or customize Avatar characters. Creators can spend SAND to acquire ASSETS and LAND. Artists can spend SAND to upload ASSETS to the Marketplace and buy GEMs for defining item rarity.
- Governance: $SAND allows holders to participate in governance decisions. SAND owners can vote themselves or delegate voting rights to other players of their choice.
- Staking: Users can stake $SAND tokens to earn rewards, as well as GEMs and CATALYSTs for ASSETS creation.
Also, our fee capture model is important, as a total of 26.5% of all SAND transaction volume goes back into the Foundation and Staking Rewards
of course, users can earn $SAND by participating in the platform. Every user contributes to value of our ecosystem
How can you earn $SAND by creating and playing?
- Selling ASSETS: Users can create and sell ASSETS as NFTs on the marketplace
- Owning a LAND: Buy a LAND in one of the LAND sales. Players can then either rent them or populate them with content to increase the LAND’s value.
- Building Games on the Game Maker: Creators can build and monetize games using the Game Maker on the LANDs that are owned by players.
- Playing and participating in the game: In the Game, not only can creators profit from their creations, players can play-to-earn by collecting resources, rewards, and tokens.
One more video showing some action / fights in a game made by one of our community creator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCy0C-fZEkU
Q4: What are the major milestones The Sandbox achieved so far & what are in future pipeline?
Great questions – we have many achievements and more to be announced. Here’s below an overview
We have been for 8 years already in the video game industry! The Sandbox project has been around since 2012 on mobile platforms and has gathered more than 40 million global installs on mobile.
We’ve been working since July 2018 (2 years ago) on the new version of the game, 3D, multiplayer, multi-platform and using blockchain technology to offer a virtual world built on the Ethereum blockchain, where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences.
We’ve raised $4.5M USD from reputable investors on our Seed Round, including from Hashed (#1 cryptofund in Korea, True Global Ventures and Square Enix the video game company)
We’ve sold for more than $1,500,000 worth of #NFTs, our LANDS (ERC-721) over 4 presales, some of them finishing within minutes to a few hours with high demand. The last Presale 4 Round 1 introduced premium lands and assets and sold out 75% in 1 hour for reference on August 4th.
We‘ve launched in October 2019 a $2,000,000 usd Game Makers Fund. This Fund will soon be in $SAND and managed by the Foundation, which supports the ecosystem of The Sandbox, offering grants to incentivize high quality content and game production on the platform.
As of today the Foundation has funded over 15 game projects and granted 100 artists to produce NFTs.
We have a large community of over 750,000 members over Discord, Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. And 50 ambassadors actively engaged in supporting our community and promoting our vision — that is really exciting!
And you’re invited to join as well https://t.me/sandboxgame & As well as https://t.me/sandboxgameindonesia
VoxEdit, launched in December 2018 has been downloaded more than 100,000.
Hundreds of artists use it to produce thousands of assets published on our marketplace.
And also 50 partnerships with award-winning game companies such as Atari, top decentralized games such as Crypto Kitties, major brands such as Shaun the Sheep to build a fun, creative “play-to-earn” Gaming platform, owned and made by players.
Q6: DeFi is very hype right now. Are there any plans for The Sandbox going to DeFi?
We live in a world of creators with Roblox, Minecraft or Fortnite Game
Let’s begin giving VALUE and POWER to Players.
The revolution begins now. #NFTs #DAO #DeFi
Imagine a virtual world where you can you play, build, own and monetize games, next to gaming giants Atari, Square Enix and more!
This is our vision, to bring mainstream gaming companies and IPs into using blockchain gaming and NFTS
The Sandbox uses several tokens on its platform
The tokens collected by the players are ERC-20 and can be exchanged as valuable resources between the different type of users (hence a circular economy).
We hope to create liquidity pools and DEX like Uniswap for these ERC-20 resources, like GEMS and Catalysts for example
There are many ways in which users can monetize their time on the platform
- Selling ASSETS: Users can create and sell ASSETS as NFTs on the marketplace
- Owning a LAND: Buy a LAND in one of the LAND sales. Players can then either rent them or populate them with content to increase the LAND’s value.
- Building Games on the Game Maker: Creators can build and monetize games using the Game Maker on the LANDs that are owned by players.
- Playing and participating in the game: In the Game, not only can creators profit from their creations, players can play-to-earn by collecting resources, rewards, and tokens.
Twitter Session
Q1: Does the Sandbox community participate in the creation of the game? Are there any plans to host a sandbox game mock where the community will create rules for a new Sandbox game?
That’s a good question, we have already released the first tools of our platform.
VoxEdit to make models. We have a Creators Fund at http://fund.sandbox.game for Artists and regular Contests
https://forum.sandbox.game/forum/11-contests-giveaways/
We also have launched the alpha version of our game maker at http://gamemaker.sandbox.game users can pre-register and apply to donwload it, as well as participate into our game makers fund
http://gamefund.sandbox.game
Finally, we also have an Ambassador program
https://medium.com/sandbox-game/the-sandbox-ambassador-program-4f00bb5c9c24
Q2: What is the strategy of the SandBox Team in dealing with current DeFi developments? Is there any wind that the Team will open DeFi for NFT?
We will soon announce our Liquidity Mining Rewards pool & we now have already a Uniswap pool here
https://uniswap.info/pair/0x3dd49f67E9d5Bc4C5E6634b3F70BfD9dc1b6BD74
We’re working to bring in DeFi into Gaming through fun and engaging gameplay
Q3: If we see about security, then how much secure SandBox platform is for securing Copyright Ownership? Also, is all of my Details kept private when I apply online in SandBox?
The Sandbox is built upon Ethereum blockchain
we are 100% driven by user-generated content, which means taht all the content is being made by users
Q4: SandBox currently has 3 products such as VoxEdit, Marketplace and Game Maker. What new product can we expect from the SandBox platform anytime soon, maybe VR?
The Game Player of course 🙂
We will be opening the public beta of the game in December 2020. Players will be able to pre-register, create their avatar and customize it. The first experience is for players to socialize, talk, walk and interact with each other.
They can explore the lands, use the transport system to travel quickly between lands or move from one land to an adjacent one using the edges.
Q5: Is knowledge of writing codes required for developers to integrate cryptocurrencies into their games and applications? What tools does the Sandbox Platform offer to the developers of new games?
No knowledge of programming is required
The edge of The Sandbox over Blockchain based Metaverse is our focus on gaming and our “no-code” approach
we think that no-code game development is primed for growth as it has become increasingly easy for anyone to become a Content Producer — thanks to Tik Tok and Instagram.
This has set the new benchmark for how simple and accessible Game Creation should also be, tap or drag and drop and that’s it! Having to learn a scripting language to make games will always be a barrier for some Creators.
It is in The Sandbox franchise core design that you can make things “come to life” with just a tap of a finger for the past 8 years, no programming involved and we will perpetuate this vision with the new 3D version
We’re turning Players into Makers! In the future (2021-2022) we will be adding Visual Scripting and even custom programming
but the main intention is still to make creation accessible to as many useres as possible, unlike Roblox where you need programming knowledge
Also wanted to add to this:
- we have Terms of Use for Creators to not upload inappropriate contents
- we have in place a Curation system, where anyone can report inappropriate or copy content, by staking $SAND
and if the report is correct, the infringing creator will be losing his stake, the curator earning tokens
So there is an economic incentive by crowdsourcing to the community, Users can earn by doing good, Creators can lose by doing bad.
Live AMA
Q1: Can players, through their actions, add value and value to the assets they have in the game? What is the mechanism for evaluating game assets and can the player influence them?
This is a very good question !
Yes, please can collect Experience Points through their actions and earn Gems as well, which they can equip to assets to improve them, We also have defined a value system so that not everyone can make the most powerful assets: https://medium.com/sandbox-game/presenting-the-sandbox-gems-catalysts-f017a18ff5fb?source=collection_home—4——0———————–
Q2: Why do You need to create Nfts in blockchain if game makers can create their items and sell it without relying on blockchain?
Well, the content made by the Game Makers are NFts :0)
Here are some key benefits of using NFTs and blockchain in gaming
Q3: Just curious, why name the project THE SANDBOX? Thank you.
The name came in 2012, there is a category of games called Sandbox games where players can play with physical elements to do what they want, like powder toys and we just felt naturally about THE Sandbox as the name.
Q4: Can you list 2-3 killer feature of SAND that attract any user toward SAND ? What are your marketing strategy for global expantion?
Earning SAND from the ownership of LANDS
- DeFi / Staking
- Governance and DAO
We live in a world of creators @roblox @minecraft @FortniteGame
Let’s begin giving VALUE and POWER to Players.
The revolution begins now. #NFTs #DAO #DeFi
Join https:t.me/TheSandboxGame – Own a piece of our UGC Metaverse $SAND
Q5: Can I stake SAND tokens and What kind benefits do I get as a stake holder?
Yes you will be able to stake $SAND tokens and receive various rewards
including $SAND tokens and other tokens like Gems and Catalysts, that you will be able to trade with the users of the platform
users can earn $SAND by participating in the platform. Every user contributes to value of our ecosystem
thank you everyone !
Social Media The Sandbox
Telegram: https://t.me/sandboxgame
Telegram announcements: https://t.me/sandboxnews
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSandboxGame
Medium: https://medium.com/@sandboxgame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSandboxGame/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesandboxgame/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzv1t7voB-bxMmXLysT4h0w
Github: https://github.com/thesandboxgame
Website: https://www.sandbox.game/
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