If you’ve spent any time paying attention to the developing metaverse space, there’s one name you’ve surely come across at some point: Sandbox. Creators from across the NFT space have been brought into the game, featuring projects and (sometimes) full-blown concert productions within the game.

But what it is The Sandbox, exactly? Is it a play to win (P2E) game? A virtual world? A literal digital sandbox? Try all of the above. And several major IPs and labels have made a bet on his world, including The Walking Dead, Warner Music Group, and surprisingly, even Shaun The Sheep.

So it’s time to find out: why Sandbox?

The Sandbox and the joy of creation

After acquiring the naming rights to a 2D sandbox game of the same name in 2018, Animoca Brands began work on developing one of the most ambitious projects in the then-fledgling blockchain gaming space. In November 2021, the Web3-enhanced version of The Sandbox was released, giving blockchain gamers a whole new world in which to explore, build, and create. If that premise sounds familiar, it’s because The Sandbox squarely positioned itself as a Web3 update to Minecraft, even sporting similar-looking voxel-based graphics.

When Minecraft banned all blockchain technology, especially NFTs, from its platform in July 2022, several projects like NFT Worlds found themselves facing an impossible mission: to develop a Web3-compatible competitor to one of the most successful video games ever made. Given how successful The Sandbox has been, Minecraft should have been the least of your worries.

So what makes The Sandbox so special? For starters, its flashy voxel-based graphics aren’t just for show. They also help facilitate the set of creative tools available to players looking to turn the hours they spend playing into profit. The leading Sandbox toolset is VoxEdit, which gives players the ability to create voxel-based animated models that they can use as assets for the main Sandbox game or their own games hosted in the virtual Sandbox world. If all of that sounds too good to be true, you may be expecting a hefty price of admission to The Sandbox. Well, we are happy to inform you that The Sandbox is very low cost and absolutely free. But the money you spend within the game is completely up to you.

Game within a game

Users can create completely unique games within the confines of The Sandbox. Through its powerful and easy-to-use Game Maker utility, budding game developers can get their first representatives into the space in an intuitive, code-free environment.

This tool is not only available to the Sandbox user base, but The Sandbox also encourages users to continue making games, even setting up The Game Maker Fund to help subsidize full-time game development on the Sandbox platform. At the time of writing, nearly $1 billion worth of $SAND has been allocated to provide the recipients of this fund with everything they need to make the Sandbox game of their dreams a reality.

Since its launch in November 2021, monetization has been a clear focus for The Sandbox development team. Almost all in-game commitment points have a commensurate in-game reward. Most of the time, this comes in the form of $SAND, the official currency and cryptocurrency of The Sandbox. Players can earn more SAND by trading or selling the in-game assets they own, which are indicated in-game as ASSETS (in-game items created in VoxelEdit) or LANDS, the in-game term for virtual land. in the sandbox. These specific terms aren’t just a gimmick either. Given The Sandbox’s status as a blockchain game, these terms are hardcoded into the game’s user interface to make it clear to players that these items are complete tradable NFTs.

Exploring the virtual world

Like most other metaverse experiences built within the blockchain playground, Sandbox offers players the opportunity to own digital plots of land within the game. If you’re wondering how to buy land in The Sandbox, the process is pretty straightforward.

First, you’ll need to make sure you have enough $SAND to make the purchase you have in mind. Every transaction within the Sandbox uses $SAND, either LAND or ASSETS. With your $SAND ready, the next step is to keep an eye on LAND sales, which can be found on The Sandbox map on their official website. These LAND sales are usually announced weeks in advance, which should give you plenty of time to prepare. However, if you don’t like anything on the official website, you can also choose to purchase virtual land parcels on NFT secondary markets like OpenSea.

So what exactly can you expect to do once you’ve secured virtual land in The Sandbox? Well, almost anything.

Once you finally sit down and play The Sandbox after diving into its vast set of creative tools, you’ll finally begin to understand how and why the future of gaming may be driven by user-generated content above anything else. When setting foot in The Sandbox for the first time, chances are good that almost everything you see is resources, worlds, and characters, all hand-built by members of its player base. As its name suggests, anything goes, and the only limit to a player’s enjoyment is their creativity.