THE SANDBOX (SF, USA 2018)

Concept: The Sandbox is a virtual world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences in the Ethereum blockchain.

The Sandbox metaverse comprises a map made up of 166,464 LANDS. LAND owners can host contests and events, stake SAND to earn and customize assets, monetize assets and experiences, vote in the metaverse governance, play games that you or others create, and more.

The Sandbox is a decentralized gaming ecosystem. It’s community-driven, where artists, gamers, and creators can build, trade, and distribute their assets as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The native asset of the Sandbox virtual economy is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum network. LAND virtual real estate holds 62% of all available metaverse land, making it the largest metaverse platform real estate.

**Value: **

Providing users with true ownership of their creations as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and reward them for their participation in the ecosystem.

There are several things you can do with your LAND. You may host and play games, stake and rent the property, organize contests and giveaways, build DISTRICTs, and participate in the metaverse government.(POWER)

Empowering artists, creators, and players in the blockchain community to develop the platform according to their imagination. Sandbox gives the ideal means for unleashing creativity in the development of the modern gaming ecosystem. Sandbox has plans on bringing the platform to consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox and featuring around 5000 games by the end of 2023. (VARIETY)

How to earn:

After buying a piece of LAND from The Sandbox metaverse, users can host experiences and events, access exclusive content and farming perks, and get premium defi staking and monetization options. (EARN & ENTERTAIN)

• Creating Voxel ASSETS, Building ASSETS on Voxedit, importing and selling them on the Marketplace as NFTs.
• Build Games with the Game Maker (BUILD YOUR OWN)
• Build and monetize games and interactive experiences with the Game Maker using your LANDS.
• Own a LAND/ Buy a LAND during one of our LAND Sales. Rent them or populate them with content to increase their value! (REAL WORLD FEEL)

2.1. Funding Model

The Sandbox has raised a total of $95M in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Dec 9, 2021 from a Venture - Series Unknown round.

The Sandbox is funded by 13 investors. Adrian Cheng and SoftBank are the most recent investors.

2.2. Business Model

Currency: SAND ($0.6959)

total volume: $238,381,523.38

floor price $1260

Highest price for a LAND available now is: $8,487,633.08

The lowest is around $6000

23,012 owners 20% unique owners

The Sandbox has a total of 166,464 LANDs

The public will be able to purchase 123,840 (74%) of the total tokens. The remainder will be offered as rewards to gamers, creators, or partners (16%) or kept by The Sandbox for their use (10%).

2.3. Team Model

500 employees

FIELD Percentage & number Team leader(s) Engineering game level designers, not many SE Management Arthur Madrid, who is the company's CEO, and Sébastien Borget, who is the COO. Product & Design

Sales & Marketing Strong marketing team

2.4. Technical Model

• Demo

  • There are a few demos into how The Sandbox works available on YouTube. Here is a link to one of them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKS40dguyuo
  • They also have a bunch of available tutorials on their website on how to use the game maker and voxeditor https://sandboxgame.gitbook.io/the-sandbox/links-and-resources/tutorials

• FAQ

  • Staking: https://sandboxgame.gitbook.io/the-sandbox/staking/faq
  • Assets: https://sandboxgame.gitbook.io/the-sandbox/assets/general-frequently-asked-asset-questions
  • General questions about the game: https://sandboxgame.gitbook.io/the-sandbox/games/general-frequently-asked-game-questions
  • General about the marketplace: https://sandboxgame.gitbook.io/the-sandbox/marketplace/general-frequently-asked-marketplace-questions
  • Buying and selling on the marketplace: https://sandboxgame.gitbook.io/the-sandbox/marketplace/buying-and-selling-on-the-sandboxs-marketplace
  • Polygon Bridge: https://sandboxgame.gitbook.io/the-sandbox/the-sandbox-polygon-bridge/about-the-polygon-bridge

• Product materials

  • The Sandbox ranks as one of the top metaverses and as a result, numerous product materials can be found online through blogs, articles, and YouTube videos. In contrast, The Sandbox’s documentation provides extensive information for players, and contributors, and it's readily available without requiring extensive searching. This is likely because similar to Decentraland, The Sandbox welcomes contributions to its development and growth. Moreover, they keep a regular medium blog regarding recent project updates, announcements, game-blockchain related news, and game maker news.

• Detail Tech Inspect

  • Blockchain: Ethereum
  • Security: Escrow-less auctions allow the use of cryptographic signatures to sell and buy NFTs, without the need to escrow those tokens (avoiding a costly transaction). The Sandbox’s smart contracts relate to their NFTs, called ASSETS, that support this feature. The process goes as follows:
  • The seller authorizes the smart contract to exchange any amount of specific ASSETS for a specific amount of ETH/SAND by signing a message with their private key.
  • This signed message is stored on the servers, where everyone can see it.
  • A buyer can claim this ASSET by presenting this signed message to the smart contract and paying the specified amount. The smart contract will verify its authenticity and then make the exchange.

• Native Currency: SAND

2.5. Growth Model (SM)

Sandbox Metaverse hosts a lot of A list celebrities and uses them in marketing strategy.

NBA superstar Kevin Durant has invested in The Sandbox, as well as Orlando Bloom, Will Smith, Justin Timberlake and Katy Perry. Snoop Dogg was the first rapper to collaborate with Sandbox (2021). This year, he partnered with a gaming platform to sell The Snoopverse Early Access Pass, which gives customers access to experiences in The Snoopverse, his own branded world within The Sandbox platform. At launch, there were 5,000 Early Access Passes minted using blockchain technology. Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk to build the largest skatepark in the Metaverse — LAND.

Paris Hilton entered The Sandbox metaverse to create an avatar and space dedicated to the socialite. She also has a virtual island built within Roblox called the Paris World, which has a digital copy of her California home. Paris recently created her own Reality show in the Metaverse that users can participate in now.

Adidas, Gucci and Playboy also entered The Sandbox.

The Sandbox ecosystem provides the tools for anyone to create and own the results of their work. It allows brands and celebrities to create more immersive engagement opportunities with their communities and reach new audiences due to the great diversity of partners already within the ecosystem.

Social Media Data:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSandboxGame 1M followers | Very active - multiple posts a day | Video content, news, updates, etc.|
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSandboxGame/ 750k followers | daily posts - announcements, news, videos, team updates etc. | video content dominant, short captions
• Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/vAe4zvY 302k members | highly active general chat | daily posts
• Telegram: https://t.me/sandboxgame 75k members

2.6. Delight Model - what is the main driver of their success with users?

The greatest value in The Sandbox Metaverse is the ability to create your own play-to-earn gaming experience with limitless opportunities and monetize any creation. This is the main diversification factor that attracts users, it directly satisfies the user entertainment need in the best possible way, by providing endless gaming opportunities, while also allowing creators to make profit from their creation. In addition, it offers almost double the number of plots for users to buy than Decentraland. However, Decentraland does much better in the virtual events and arts category.

It’s safe to say a major driver of success in The Sandbox is their partnership with A-list celebrities stated above. Besides spreading the word about this Metaverse on their platforms with millions of followers and all over the world, they are building their communities and ‘fan bases’ in the Metaverse, thus incentivizing their fans to join.

Bringing celebrities and big brands into the Metaverse space can make people ‘feel closer’ to their idols, since in metaverse they can be just one neighborhood or one parcel away from someone that is usually completely ‘out of reach’. This can be a major incentive and can make people feel excited to be in the Metaverse space.

2.7. Volumes of users/money

More than 15,000 users have connected their wallets to the project.

NFT maker VoxEdit has been downloaded more than 80,000 times and the 100 artists part of Creator’s Fund have crafted more than 3,000 assets already.

2.8. Features to Have & conclusions

From this and the previously analized competitor, the aspect of limitless opportunities is pronounced. It is essentially what the concept of Metaverse is growing into - a world whose only difference is that it is digital, instead of physical. Today, even this seemingly crucial difference becomes faded out due to VR, AR and other technologies.

The Sandbox offered the ultimate play-to-earn experience for their users, and therefore it is a high-level competitor.

As mentioned before, different Metaverses can be observed as different planets in the Digital Universe. The Sandbox offers high entertainment value, besides opportunities to earn in different ways.

The main question is:

What can our Metaverse offer that will attract people to ‘live’ on our planet and not on another one? What popular inhabitants and neighbors will our users have that will make them want to ‘join the neighborhood’?

Attracting celebrities, influencers and important people for our niche is a great opportunity for increasing user base. Specialization for E-sports and betting could mean that the right people from those fields might be the catalyst of success.

Both analyzed competitors are developed Metaverses and therefore the prices and cost of participation is higher. Adjusting the pricing strategy to be more attractive to ‘general public’ might be the most direct way to obtain a piece of the Metaverse potential market.

Finding a Metaverse market gap, satisfying a specific need that is not offered in other Metaverses OR not delivered enough in other Metaverses should be the starting point, with plans for future expansion of features, to follow the development of the market and concept.

Pricing strategy: Penetration pricing. Setting a low price to enter a competitive market and raise it later - to reach the customers whose only reason to not joining is the high price of participation/owning a land/entertaining in the Metaverse.

~ SUGGESTIONS & OBSERVATIONS ~

The Sandbox offered the ultimate play-to-earn experience for their users, and therefore it is a high-level competitor.

It provides users with entertainment, economical, social and ‘authority’ value. In addition, it rewards users for participation in the ecosystem.

It’s community-driven, where artists, gamers, and creators can build, trade, and distribute their assets as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). LAND virtual real estate holds 62% of all available metaverse land, making it the largest metaverse platform real estate.

Land owners in The Sandbox can host contests and events, giveaways, stake SAND to earn and customize assets, monetize assets and experiences, vote in the metaverse governance, play games that anyone can create, and more. Users can rent, stake, or create content on your LAND to increase its value, as well as populate it.

Sandbox has plans on bringing the platform to consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox and featuring around 5000 games by the end of 2023. (Variety of platforms and entertainment)

Attracting celebrities, influencers and important people for our niche is a great opportunity for increasing user base. Specialization for E-sports and betting could mean that the right people from those fields might be the catalyst of success.