What a fantastic year 2022 was for The Sandbox! Not only for our team, but for all the partners, talented creators, studios, and agencies who built their businesses with us. Thank you for making this year’s favorite moments a reality and for being a part of this incredible community. Together, we are building a decentralized virtual world with $SAND, LAND and NFTs owned by YOU!

Over the past 12 months the number of partners joining The Sandbox ecosystem has doubled, building a 700+ diverse partners ecosystem around the world with global brands bringing their community to the metaverse, agencies and studios building experiences, and tech platform and EDU actors accelerating the democratization of Web3.

“We’ll remain dedicated to our mission: empower the creator generation to build the open metaverse, based on true digital ownership. We will only succeed with a diverse and thriving ecosystem.”

Mathieu CERVETY, Ecosystem Partnerships Director

In 2022, The Sandbox has supported the ecosystem’s global growth:

• Launched The Sandbox Partners Program to help 300+ agencies and studios globally develop their business with dedicated resources, team and support.
• Supported 100+ independent studios with over $12M Game Maker Fund to push the boundaries of creativity and entertainment in The Sandbox.
• Localized the creator tools (VoxEdit, Game Maker), now available in 10 languages — including Mandarin, Portuguese, Korean — to make the creation of assets and experiences even more accessible.
• Launched 7 LAND sales including 3 regional neighborhoods (California dreamin’, K-verse, Megacity) to drive even more diverse communities and content in The Sandbox.
• Opened new offices in 5 countries (United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore, Thailand, Uruguay) to foster The Sandbox’s global DNA — now in 10 countries — while ensuring stronger local relevance.
• Moving forward, we’ll remain dedicated to our mission: empowering the creator generation to build the open metaverse, based on true digital ownership of their assets, LANDS, Avatars, others NFTs and SAND We will only succeed with a diverse and thriving ecosystem. The growth of this Ecosystem will drive more adoption and usage of digital assets and benefit the creators and users who contribute to the making of this virtual world.

In 2023, we’ll continue to strongly support the Partners Ecosystem :

• Help drive more business through the launch of the Partners resources HUB to help agencies & studio get all the information they need, the launch of the Partners Directory to match brands’ needs with agencies’ expertise
• Provide more fun, social and immersive experiences possibilities for builders through the Game Marker V0.8 while making the creation more accessible with tools localization in new languages
• Help onboard new Partners into The Sandbox ecosystem though the launches of a new content series to inspire brands & IPs join The Sandbox, new vertical and regional LAND Sales, with even more flagship neighborhoods based around cultural and geographical affinities and a new onboarding process for agencies & studios
• … and more

To support this, we’ll continue to hire talented and like-minded people across our 10 locations across the globe, starting with new 3 positions dedicated to The Partners Program, completing the 70+ open positions.

300+ agencies and studios are now onboarding brands in The Sandbox (x4 over the past 12 months) through Web3 strategy, asset and experience creation, and marketing activations. Content is what will continue to drive users into the metaverse; this content is now in the making with a diversity of builders across 20+ countries, bringing incredible value to the ecosystem: from large creative agencies like Wunderman Thompson (WPP Group) which recently announced its partnership with The Sandbox, to talented founders like Dr Loretta Chen — best-selling author, award-winning creative — founder of Smobler (Singapore) behind the “Tools of Rock” experience (AS3), Web3 OGs like Sam Huber founder and CEO at LandVault (UK) behind the “World of Women Galaxy” (AS3) or John G. Fields CEO of GrowYourBase (US) behind “GreenPark Sports” (AS3) to metaverse believers and entrepreneurs like Bryan Owens who quit his job as a hospital nurse to found Arqonix with Pavlo Vinnyk, a studio with 40+ people in Ukraine, Poland, and US. Discover more Voices of the Metaverse.

400+ Brands have now joined The Sandbox (x2 vs 2021), leveraging the new digital paradigm to meet their goals:

• Build brands relevant to Web3 culture. From Ubisoft to Atari, Warner Music Group to SnoopDog, Adidas to Tony Hawk, Gucci to Balenciaga, brands are adopting the web3 codes, a community approach with a more authentic and direct 2-way communication, encouraging the co-creation for assets and experiences, for examples with Game Jams like those for The Walking Dead, The Smurfs, and the Care Bears.
• Drive engagement like never before. Is there anything else more engaging than an immersive experience ? Brands understand the creativity is core to the 80 minutes daily average playtime per user (Alpha Season 3). Brands leverage the new form of storytelling and strong scriptwriting to drive unmatched engagement, like Ledger echoing their “School of Block” educational content approach with a “play and learn” experience or Gucci Vault nurturing Gucci’s “unconventional approach to luxury fashion” through an experience where past, present, and future co-exist.
• Activating the high value NFTs communities. Brands are taking back control of their most loyal audience, shifting from a CRM to an ORM approach (Ownership Relationship Management) centered around high value NFTs. They activate their community by bringing utility, for examples with gated events and contests like Forbes, specific reward pools for Kun Agüero or Care Bears avatar holders, along with IRL activations such as artist BLONDI:SH inviting The Sandbox NFT holders to join her Abracadabra party during last November’s Art Basel Miami.

Once again, thank you for sharing your insights, challenges and ideas nurturing everything we do.

Let’s keep building a more fun, open and diverse world, together!

What’s coming for The Sandbox Ecosystem in 2023? was originally published in The Sandbox on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.