The Sandbox acquires Germany’s Sviper to add metaverse gaming talent

The Sandbox has acquired Sviper.

Image Credit: The Sandbox

The Sandbox has expanded to Germany with the acquisition of game development studio Sviper.

Sviper will add senior-level development, engineering and creative talent based in Hamburg, Germany, to The Sandbox, a blockchain gaming company which is owned by Animoca Brands.

The idea is to expand metaverse social and gameplay features for The Sandbox metaverse platform.

“The Sandbox’s German team is a creative powerhouse that is already advancing the gameplay possibilities available to our internal teams and The Sandbox creators at large,” said Sebastien Borget, COO of The Sandbox, in a statement. “From adding social features to designing rules creators can use to prototype game logic to implementing powerful multiplayer features, our Hamburg team is supercharging the metaverse’s creative potential.”

Sebastien Borget (center) with members of Sviper team.

Sviper was founded in 2016 and known for its creative work with major brand partners and its senior-level talent. Sviper will work on adding new social features, new multiplayer gameplay options, and new Game Maker possibilities for creators at The Sandbox. Agnitio Capital acted as M&A adviser to Sviper in connection with the transaction.

“We’ve built a high level of trust with The Sandbox Germany team as they’ve demonstrated tremendous innovation and quality by both working with major partners and ideating on new gameplay concepts,” said Arthur Madrid, CEO of The Sandbox, in a statement.

Led by CEO Ole Schaper and chief product officer Mark Buchholz, the leadership team of Sviper has over 25 years of experience working with well-known brands in mobile, PC, and multiplayer gaming. Sviper has been collaborating with The Sandbox for over a year and is fully integrated into the platform’s ecosystem.

“We are thrilled to join The Sandbox and contribute to the creation of a cutting-edge virtual world that combines gaming, creativity, and community,” said Schaper, CEO of Sviper, in a statement. “We believe that The Sandbox has enormous potential and we look forward to working with the team to bring this vision to life.”

Sviper’s team currently has 40 members, based in the gaming tech hub in Hamburg, and it is now hiring for The Sandbox in Germany. Interested talent can apply here.

“The Sandbox is a visionary enterprise with countless fascinating aspects beyond traditional game development,” said Bucholz, in a statement. “The ability to create innovative, social user-generated gaming experiences, the growing social platform, and the revolutionary aspects of Web3 are just some of the key features.”

The Sviper team in Hamburg, Germany.

Part virtual real estate, part amusement park, the blockchain-based world of The Sandbox fully embraces the idea of the metaverse as a continuous shared digital space.

Over 400 partners have joined The Sandbox, including Warner Music Group, Ubisoft’s Rabbids, Cut The Rope, Tony Hawk, Gucci Vault, The Walking Dead, Invincible, Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5, Steve Aoki, SM Entertainment, The Smurfs, Care Bears, and Atari, all following The Sandbox team’s vision of empowering players to create their own experiences using both original and well-known characters and worlds.