Held on 9th October, 2020 at t.me/oddgemsfamilia Telegram channel.
It was my pleasure to host The Sandbox Game’s COO Sebastien Borget and their Community Manager Aminata Cisse, for an hour long AMA session. It was divided into two parts, First part being Sebastien and Aminata answering the questions from my side, followed by the second part which was a short live session where everyone was open to ask them anything.
I assure you that this will be worth the read as the answers are well detailed and explained in a very comprehensive manner.
Oddgems: We have Sebastien Borget, COO of The Sandbox here with us.
Sebastien: Hello everyone, I’m with our lead community manager Aminata today!Oddgems: First of all, as a gamer myself, It’s a pleasure to conduct this AMA and to learn more about what SANDBOX is. Before we begin, could you please introduce yourself to our community and give a very brief introduction on what The Sandbox Games is all about?
Sebastien: So my name is Sébastien Borget, I am the COO, co-founder of The Sandbox (http://sandbox.game). I am 35 years old and this is my 4th company, the 3 previous ones have been acquired. I’ve been involved in peer-to-peer technology with bittorrent, one of the first applications of decentralization, cloud media storage for photos, videos and music and a mobile game studio called Pixowl, acquired in 2018 by Animoca Brands. I am also the president of the Blockchain Game Alliance, a non-profit organization with 150+ members from the blockchain & gaming industry.Nice to meet you all!
Oddgems: Nice to meet you too, Lets move ahead with the questions :)
Q To start with, Can you shed light on the functionality of SANDBOX Ecosystem that comprises of voxedit, marketplace and the Game maker?
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.
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.
- 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.
The 4th product is the game client itself. We will be opening the public beta of the game in December 2020.
What can players do?
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.
Q Amazing introduction to your ecosystem :) Now moving on to my second question, What are some of the achievements of the projects and what is next on the roadmap that people should pay attention to?
Great question! We have many achievements and more to be announced.
Here’s an overview:
We have been in the video game industry for 8 years already!
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 are aiming to become one of the leading established key players in the space of virtual worlds with blockchain-based digital LANDS, reaching over 1,000,000 MAUs over the next five years. To achieve this, we will be working on:
Next 6 months:
Game Maker — Official Release 1.0 and major updates with more gaming packages, Behaviors and Visual Scripting.
Partnerships — New IPs and Premium NFTs to be announced.
Foundation — Launch of the Foundation DAO with SAND staking for voting on Creators Fund management.
Next 1 year:
Multi-platforms — Availability of Game on smartphones and tablets devices.
Multiplayer — First user-generated games with multiplayer modes.
Next 3 years:
Game Maker — Co-Building Mode — creating games with Friends, Custom Scripting with programming 3rd layer and major updates with more gaming packages and Behaviors
Games Platform — Over 1,000 Games available by 2022
Game Maker — Major updates with more gaming packages and behaviors added
Events — Additional Seasons with big rewards to earn
And so much more to come :)
Q Coming to my 3rd question, What’s the utility of $SAND token and why is it needed. Also let us know about token unlocks and vesting schedule if there’s any?
$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 tokens have the following utility on The Sandbox platform:
1/ 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.
2/ Governance: $SAND allows holders to participate in governance decisions. SAND owners can vote themselves or delegate voting rights to other players of their choice.
3/ 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 for Staking Rewards.
About regarding the vesting schedule:-
SAND allocated to the Investors in Seed Sale and the Strategic Sale are locked for 3 years vesting with a 12 month cliff and will be distributed every 6 months afterwards (12 months, 18 months, 24 months etc)
For Founders, Team and Advisors SAND tokens are locked for 5 years vesting and 12-month cliff followed by release every 6 months afterwards (12 months, 18 months etc.. until 54 months)
So nobody can sell the tokens for 1 years from the listing and the team and investors have a long term commitment to the success of the project: 3 years and 5 years respectively.
Q What does a piece of LAND represent in the SAND Ecosystem and how valuable it could become in the near future. Also What can be built on top of a land?
LAND is an ERC-721 token that make up our metaverse.
You can buy, sell rent and trade them at will within our metaverse. You can also build game experiences on top of them using our Game Maker. That significantly increases its value in the long run.
Q What makes SANDBOX different from ENJIN and Minecraft?
Each product has its specificities and addresses a different audience.
Starting with Enjin first, it is more focused for professional and business audience = game development studios who are programming games.
It’s a SDK to integrate NFTs in games. We did collaborate with Enjin on the creation of the ERC-1155 standard. Our approach is turn players into makers and allow game creation to anyone, very accessible.
No code or programming knowledge is actually required to get started with the sandbox and you can see artists make their own games with us, for example:
Creators working with us:
https://gamemakersandbox.substack.com/p/game-maker-creations-f6b https://youtu.be/dWa9coxNrK4
https://gamemakersandbox.substack.com/p/game-maker-creations-de6
https://gamemakersandbox.substack.com/p/game-maker-creations-412
https://gamemakersandbox.substack.com/p/game-maker-creations-0b2
Minecraft is a game that has been here for more than 10 years now, they have over 100M monthly active users. However, in the current game market, the centralized ownership and control of user-generated content limits creator rights and ownership. Players and Creators cannot trade the virtual goods and digital assets they purchased or won in games.
Anything you make in Minecraft is NOT yours, you can’t take it out, transfer it or monetize it the way you want.
With The Sandbox, we aim to overcome these limitations by building a decentralized gaming platform where creators are able to craft, play, share, collect, and trade without central control, enjoying secure ownership with the ability to earn cryptocurrency (SAND). This ownership will be established and guaranteed through the use of NFTs, where every in-game item will have a unique and immutable blockchain identifier.
We hope to grow to 10M users within the next 3 to 5 years, then 100M users in 10 years or earlier.
Q What’s your plan to bring awareness and exposure to potentially scale up to millions of users?
We are creating an appealing gaming metaverse that aims at attracting all types of people: young & old players, casual & pro gamers, newbie creators & professional artists. Making a game that is fun, visually appealing and has good mechanics so you want to stay and keep playing it for a long time is our priority.
Players will not come for the technology, but for the fun and the experience. Then they can benefit from the advantages offered by our decentralized model, collecting tokens, earning rewards and being able to trade game items, their creations, lands etc.
Then, besides make a great game — we have a clear growth strategy, based on
- Partnering with content companies to onboard well-known IPs.
- Conducting LAND token sales to promote the generation of user-created content.
- Conducting AMAs to educate the community.
- Constantly engaging with the public on social media channels.
- Marketing and User Acquisition to gamers, which we have experience with since we have been 8. years in the industry of games.
Through the brands and their fans, we can reach mainstream gamers and creators through their favorite brands and bring leading gaming Brands & IPs and leverage on those key brands building great experiences as well as trust.
Here is a bonus video while we wait for the next question :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpM8kT9dUNg
Q Will sandbox platform be only exclusive to voxel assets or could we see potential AAA open-world games built on it?
We invite players to create their voxel assets as that is the identity of our platform and the aesthetic we want to go for. We are preparing 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 so both are possible.
Q I can see some big names in your partnership section (like Square Enix, Atari, Hashed, Maker, Matic etc), Can you talk about some of your partnerships and Is there any plans to integrate SANDBOX with other blockchain gaming platforms like Ultra $UOS that’s building a gaming distribution platform. (Similar to the sandbox games on steam platform)
To date, The Sandbox team has secured over 60 partnerships from major brands such as Atari, Care Bears and Shaun the Sheep and award-winning mobile game studios. Partnerships include top decentralized games such as MyCryptoHeroes, Axie Infinity, and industry partners such as Matic, MakerDao, Klaytn, OpenSea, Bitski, Dapp.com, and DappRadar.
Some of these partners will recreate games from their well acclaimed IPs such as ATARI with their games Roller Coaster Tycoon, Asteroids and Pong that will populate several ESTATEs across the metaverse, they will also create a theme-park like universe based on a variety of their game titles.
Others will create unique ecosystem that our communities could bond over like Sandbox Networks the second largest MCN company in Korea, racing games (Battle Racers, Axie Infinity), or simply work towards improving decentralized exchanges together (MakerDAO, Metamask, Matic, OpenSea, DMarket, Opera, Gitcoin or Status)
And….. last but not least we can also count on partners like Square Enix (with their valuable portfolio of IP, including: FINAL FANTASY, DRAGON QUEST, TOMB RAIDER and many others) that participated in an investment round into The Sandbox last year.
Q Coming to game streaming, Is there a possibility of SANDBOX integrating THETA?
We are already streaming on Theta.tv and Twitch 2x times a week.
Follow us on twitch.tv/thesandboxgame and https://www.theta.tv/thesandbox
Oddgems: Ok, that’s it from my side, Now the channel will be unmuted and it’s the community’s turn to ask any other questions they wish and Sebastien or Aminata will answer them :)
Now we jump into few live questions which were answered by The Sandbox Team.
Question: Is there an instruction or tutorial for beginners who want to play and earn SAND coins?)
Answer: We do have guidelines and tutorials for both VoxEdit and the Game Maker.VoxEdit:
1) https://guidelines.voxedit.io/#/home — written guide & guidelines
2) http://tinyurl.com/VoxEdit — video guidesGame Maker:
1) https://gamemaker.sandbox.game/#/en/userguide/ — Written guide
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSvnGQxSjLc&list=PL_AqeWVYruhqQ6bL09VQqEZ3KcWMYyOei — Video guidesQuestion: There are only Two OS are currently supported by SandBox which are Windows and Mac OS.. When can i expect Linux version?
Answer: We plan on working on a Linux version further down the line on our roadmap. Mobile version will come in 2021.Question: A lot has been mentioned about LAND. How do we go about getting that token?
Answer: You can purchase LAND during our next LAND presale that will be announced soon, follow our announcement channel to be kept in the loop https://t.me/sandboxnewsOddgems: It’s almost 1 hour and we should wrap things up.
Sebastien: We hope you got to learn a lot about The sandbox and are excited about joining us in the metaverse.
Oddgems: Thanks Sebastien Borget and Aminata for joining the AMA with the ODDGEMS community today. Wish you all the best for your future endeavours and ofcourse for THE SANDBOX success!
And with this, we conclude this AMA. It’s been an awesome session to be honest and looking forward to all the great things which are coming our way in 2020 and beyond.
The Sandbox Game Links:
Website — https://www.sandbox.game/
Telegram — https://t.me/sandboxgame
Twitter — https://twitter.com/thesandboxgame
Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/TheSandboxGame/
Medium — https://medium.com/sandbox-game
Twitch — https://www.twitch.tv/thesandboxgame
Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/c/TheSandboxGame/
Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/thesandboxgame/
Oddgems Links:
Twitter — https://twitter.com/oddgems
Medium — https://medium.com/@oddgemsofficial
Telegram Group — https://t.me/oddgemsfamilia
