The Sandbox roundup: South Korean pop, village and NFTs enter the metaverse
Owned by Cube Entertainment, one of the top entertainment companies in South Korea, K-Village is a space in The Sandbox where Korean culture gets represented, with several landmarks from
Seoul, IPs and much more.
Holders of one of the new K-Village NFTs can enter a draw and have a chance to win an
Anibear T-shirt. Holders who have all of the 20 K-village NFTs will get an Anibear NFT as a reward.
Anicube, a joint venture between Cube Entertainment and Animoca Brands, has further announced K-pop performances for their Music Metaverse theme. All of these events are set to take place on the musician planet and mainstage. Additionally, the Anicube NFT collection has dropped and it includes collectibles like music drone, music bot, Anibear hologram, and more.
As in the case of the K-Village NFT collection, if players own an Anicube NFT they can win an Anibear T-shirt, and those who own all 20 Anicube NFTs will be rewared with an Anibear NFT.
Both the K-Village NFT collection and the Anicube collection will be available for purchase through TheSandbox marketplace from May 11th, 2023.
Interoperability in focus with Affyn partnership
“We couldn’t be more excited to unveil our partnership with The Sandbox. Our shared belief and
vision of an open metaverse is the driving force behind this collaboration,” commented Lucaz
Lee, the CEO and co-founder of Affyn.
Singaporean web3 game developer Affyn has partnered with The Sandbox to create interoperable metaverse experiences. Affyn is focused on creating Nexus World, a mobile free-to-play, play-and-earn, geolocation-based metaverse.
“We’re excited to see more platforms embracing interoperability as a choice rather than working in
independent silos and we hope that this brings forth more creative opportunities and exciting
use-cases to collaboratively grow the metaverse experience,” said the Head of Singapore Sandbox, George Wong.
In the upcoming keynote event Evolution on May 10th, Affyn will share glimpses of its metaverse Nexus World. More details about their projects, where The Sandbox is one of the main partners, are also set to be revealed.
Get creative in the Steve Aoki Game Jam
Steve Aoki has teamed up with The Sandbox for Steve Aoki Game Jam. Starting from May 8th,
players can submit their entries inspired by the music artist, with the goal to explore Aoki’s
perspective and create a game experience around it.
The best games will receive a reward from the 50,000 SAND prize pool, and 100 participants
will be rewarded 100 SAND each. Apart from this, there are awards for best idea and best
design.
The deadline for the submission is May 21st, at 3pm UTC. Following the voting, which will take place May 22nd till June 4th, the results will be announced on June 10th, 2023. For more details, rules, and T&Cs, check out the competition post.
Gamer Arena partnership events launched
The Sandbox and Gamer Arena, one of Turkey’s leading gaming platforms, partner up to bring unique, interactive experiences to the metaverse.
Through this collaboration Gamer Arena’s “Challenge & Earn” model will be integrated with The Sandbox’s model of “Play, Create, Earn”. Gamer Arena is looking to leverage blockchain technology and deliver immersive, interactive experiences through The Sandbox. Users will be able to participate in various virtual events, compete against each other, showcase their skills and earn rewards in SAND and GAU.
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with The Sandbox, as it represents a new frontier in gaming and offers us the opportunity to create cutting-edge experiences for our users,” commented Gamer Arena’s CEO Kerim Yılmaz.
The events will go live on May 2nd, and be available for 14 days. Users can experience various tournaments sponsored by The Sandbox in the Gamer’s Arena.
For more details about the events, visit the Gamer Arena platform.
The Mega City 3 LAND sale raffle is live
With 17 various partnerships, the cultural hub of Greater China Mega City 3, is hosting the third phase of its LAND sale in The Sandbox. The raffle started on April 26th, while the LAND sale and auction will go live on May 11th.
To be a part of the raffle, users are required to have at least 1,011 SAND, bridged to Polygon, in their wallets. Starting on April 26th at 3PM UTC, the raffle will conclude on May 11th at 11AM UTC. Users can grab from 222 regular LANDs and 12 premium LANDs. Both raffles will run simultaneously.
The premium LANDs are themed closely with the IPs like Angela Ho, Macau EC, Meet48, and
more. Premium NFTs are bundled with the premium LANDs, so owner will receive NFTs as well.
As a part of this sale, players can purchase
- 222 Regular LANDs
- 12 Premium LANDs
- 6 Estates
- 12 1×1 LANDs
The winners of the raffle will then be able to buy their LAND from May 11th to May 15th. The
Mega City 3 LAND sale second chance auctions are scheduled for May 15th to May 17th.
Further, the Estate and 1×1 LAND auctions will run from May 11th to May 15th on OpenSea.
With the raffle and the sale, users have an opportunity to get LAND besides HKUST, Nouns,
Softstar and other popular Chinese industry leaders.
Find out more about the LAND sale in The Sandbox’s detailed blogpost.
Liberty Legends coming to The Sandbox May 3rd
Liberty Gaming, the guild turned web3 gaming platform, has partnered with The Sandbox to
introduce a new experience in the metaverse.
Titled Liberty Legends, the new experience will go live on Wednesday 3rd May and contain football,
basketball, races, and other quests for players to participate in.
Liberty’s experience will also be supported by its partners, which include Galaxy Blitz
Game, Supa Foundation, Meta Strike, Dragon Master, Nemesis Downfall, Swords of Blood, Surf
Guild, and more
With these 12 partners, Liberty Gaming has created a contest for players to find the 12
logos hidden in the metaverse city. Players who successfully find the logos will be rewarded with
prizes.
Q1 project update
The Sandbox has released a project update of its completed progress during Q1 2023. We’ve summarized some of the development team’s key work.
The Game Maker continues to be a primary focus. The 0.8 version saw nearly 30,000 downloads and over 10,000 experiences created. Users can look forward to new Game Maker updates which will have a multiplayer-first focus and include features such as enhanced visual FX, timed events, and performance enhancements.
VoxEdit added multi-selection features, improved hotkeys and contextual menus. The Marketplace also had a strong start with over 34,000 assets created with VoxEdit and 4,119 NFTs sold.
LAND ownership grew by 2%, with over 23,500 LAND owners globally, and Voxel Madness LAND Sale generated over $1 million worth of SAND sales. The team highlights its commitment to assets and will incorporate new utility features to increase holder benefits.
In terms of players, over 100,000 unique players entered the metaverse this quarter, generating 1.73 million experience visits across 25 events. Additionally, over 150,000 avatars were customized and over 20,000 avatars were equipped.
The Sandbox has also made a key update for new users, who can now create an account using just their email and password, without the need of a web3 wallet.
New partnerships have been added, virtual AMAs hosted, and German game development studio Sviper Gmbh has been acquired by The Sandbox.
“As we continue to work towards fully opening The Sandbox, our team is more energized than ever to build the platform that our incredible community deserves – one that shines as a world-leading virtual space for limitless creativity, innovation, and gaming.” Read the full Q1 project update here.
Collaboration with Open Campus
The Sandbox has collaborated with Open Campus to bring immersive education to web3. Both entities share the goal of bringing global communities together to support, inform, educate, and entertain.
Open Campus is all set to acquire land in The Sandbox and build educational experiences. Users will be able to visit this part and interact with fun learning experiences, complete missions, and take courses by TinyTap, and other partners.
To mark this collaboration, Open Campus has also announced a special giveaway. About 500 eligible land holders will receive a Silver Notebook NFT, which will give them early access and some other perks.
To be eligible for this giveaway, the criteria is
- Hold Land
- Follow The Sandbox and Open Campus on Twitter
- Join Open Campus’ Discord server
- Sign up via Premint
The Wild Ones mint in partnership with The Sandbox
‘Dance your way through the metaverse’ with DanceFight’s The Wild Ones street dancer NFT avatars minting in collaboration with The Sandbox.
10 of the world’s top street dancers will be represented by 3,130 unique avatars, which have been co-created with the dancers themselves. Each dancer is also set up to receive the majority of sales from each avatar purchase.
Mint date is 18th April, where allowlist users can mint up to two NFT avatars per wallet. The public sale starts 19th April, and will allow users to mint up to four avatars per wallet.
The Marathon City bringing Los Angeles landmarks to the metaverse
In collaboration with The Marathon, The Sandbox metaverse will be enriched by remade landmarks of Los Angeles in the project The Marathon City. In legacy of west coast rapper Nipsey Hussle, the founder of The Marathon brand, the experience will give players a chance to interact, compete, and visit reimagined key locations throughout Los Angeles.
The Marathon City LAND aims to be “a positive space that embraces creativity and celebrates the legacy and values of Nipsey Hussle.”
The Sandbox is collaborating with the Playground Studios to create a unique metaverse world for fans of NBA star and trendsetter LaMelo Ball. Aiming to create a digital playground for creators, collectors and fans, the initiative will also focus on educating users on how to leverage blockchain in a safe manner.
The first event is set to start 17th April and run to 1st May.
Players can experience OliveX’s Fitness City in The Sandbox from Tuesday 11th to Monday 17th of April. In an attempt to complete various quests players will have to overcome challenges such as labyrinths, obstacles, ladders and find hidden corners.
As part of the event, players can also experience Polygon’s leading move-and-own game Dustland Runner, by starting in The Sandbox from the iconic New Alice Springs.
The launch also marks the debut of playable avatars for Gym A Club holders.
The Sandbox introducing Netmarble world
South Korean mobile gaming giant Netmarble has joined hands with The Sandbox. Initially, The Sandbox will introduce a ‘Netmarble IP LAND’ within its Korean-focused K-Verse, a 6×6-sized plot where players can immerse themselves in a Netmarble-inspired experience.
The Sandbox has published its highly anticipated roadmap updates.
Some of the features included will see LAND owners able to further personalise their LANDs and publish them for everyone to enjoy, and creators to sell their creations in the marketplace, as well as new $SAND staking pools.
For more details, read the LAND owner roadmap update in full.
The Sandbox kicks off its April Festival. This meta-event is accessible to all and will run from April 5th to May 2ndm, with mystery boxes, exclusive events, and new prize pools including 1.15 million $SAND in rewards.
The Sandbox join forces with Ledger. To offer a higher level of security integration to its brand partners, The Sandbox has announced a new partnership with Ledger Enterprise, the enterprise arm of hardware wallet company Ledger.
The Sandbox has announced a new partnership with Havas Play, Vivendi’s new global comms brand. In particular, the partnership will help empower the already strong client brands and communities active within Havas, while expanding its offerings in highly-immersive, interactive experiences.
The Sandbox announces new IPs coming to the metaverse. deadmau5, the popular electronic music producer and DJ, has made several appearances in The Sandbox. Along with Smearballs, the director, animator, and visual artist, deadmau5 has created ‘Head5′, a collection of 5,555 generative avatars.
The Sandbox partners with AIMC (a subsidiary of Astory), a global entertainment company. With this collab, one of the most-watched K-dramas on Netflix, ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ will enter The Sandbox.
The show’s story revolves around Woo Young Woo, a witty, high-functioning female rookie attorney on the autism spectrum, who gets fixated on a whale that acts as a visual cue for Woo.
Together, AIMC and The Sandbox will recreate some of the popular locations like the courtroom, Woo Young Woo kimbap restaurant, Hanbada office, and more along with the floating blue whale.
In addition to this, AIMC has also launched ‘Extraordinary Whale Club’ – an NFT project to spread awareness about autism.
Charles & Keith, the Singapore-based global fashion brand has opened up their first CHARLESKEITHHAUS in The Sandbox. The virtual shops will have an opening event from March 13th to March 27th. The playhouse will display the 2023 Spring Collection – A State of Play.
To top it all off, the K-pop artist APOKI will be hosting a rooftop party. This party will also feature a virtual runway that will display the latest collection. The 2023 spring collection will be made available in the shops for purchase later.
Madballs, the foam and rubber bouncing balls that became popular during the 1980s, will now have a digital form as The Sandbox is all set to take it to the metaverse. The iconic toys had an icky appearance, odd names, and a weird character synopsis for each Madball.
In The Sandbox, Madballs will take on a digital form. The original Madball characters will be revived as collectible avatars. The metaverse project promises that “Each Avatar will be based on the original, outrageously disgusting Madballs characters, plus never-before-seen designs from the ’80s, featuring ghastly faces, grotesque names, and disruptively funny attitudes to match.”
The Sandbox, the virtual world and Animoca Brands subsidiary, has announced its newest acquisition, this time of the German game developer Sviper GmbH. Founded in 2016 and known for its creative excellence working with major brand partners and its senior-level talent, Sviper has been a growing player ever since. (1st March)
‘Parisland’ is coming to The Sandbox. As a special Valentine’s Day celebration, this new collaborative experience is built as a romantic adventure on a tropical island and features Paris Hilton. In the new experience, which will be available exclusively in The Sandbox, players will participate in an in-game dating reality show hosted by Paris Hilton, where they will interact with five potential romantic partners.
The Sandbox has announced a partnership with ZeptoLab, the development studio behind Cut the Rope, among others. The partnership will bring new experiences to the metaverse through the creation of a new space and web3 engagement with the ZeptoLab community.
ZeptoLab will have its own special LAND, enabling players to manage the Om Nom Cafe within Nomville, while serving customers as part of an exciting arcade management game based on the developer’s popular game.
