As we look back on 2022, we are celebrating a year of milestones for our open gaming metaverse.In many ways, 2022 has brought us closer to our vision of an open, decentralized metaverse that empowers creators through true digital ownership. More LAND got in the hands of our community, millions of people connected through our platform, and over two million people joined the metaverse, more than doubling our community. Still, in a way, it is still early. While we roll out our vision for 2023, we felt it was important to look back at what we have achieved together with our community.

As a community, we welcomed 1 million unique players over 2 gaming seasons and began partnerships with celebrities and brands that defined the metaverse as a place of pop culture. We created 35+ collections of interoperable Avatars for anyone to play as they are, and unveiled multiple iconic neighborhoods through sold-out LAND sales.

Thanks to the players, builders, and creators building the metaverse everyday, The Sandbox and its community made significant headway in 2022, taking us closer to a more inclusive and open metaverse for all. Here are a few of the milestones we hit, and a hint about what’s coming in 2023.

See here for full infographic of all our 2022 milestones.

1 million unique users played The Sandbox in 2022

The Sandbox Game Client was installed over 1.3 million times in 2022, and in 2023 it is set to receive exciting updates that should make it even more popular through socialization, fun, and new means of digital expression!

These updates will include more seasonal events from our partners and brand new gaming mechanics, along with the ability to bring your favorite NFTs to life with bridged avatar collections. The Sandbox platform continues to evolve and improve, providing endless entertainment and creative opportunities for players. Keep an eye on our socials for these exciting updates coming in 2023!

Game Maker

In 2022, the Game Maker made significant headway in bringing more gamification mechanics to the metaverse, with a major upgrade to v0.7 in May, unlocking, among others, the following features:

In total, the Game Maker was downloaded close to a million times in 2022, with:

Now, in 2023, the launch of version 0.8 will bring even more features for anyone to express themselves in the metaverse. These include:

We are also working on productivity and tool upgrades to make building the metaverse easier than ever. With these new features, the possibilities for creativity and player interaction are endless. More details about the latest upgrade can be found here.

VoxEdit

VoxEdit, our 3D modeling and animating software, was installed 375K times in 2022. Over the past year, we also introduced new features, and 2023 will see even more:

With the addition of these new features, creators will have an even greater ability to unleash their imagination in 2023.

An ever-growing marketplace

In 2022, we developed our marketplace further, giving opportunities for many creators around the world:

Interacting and engaging with our community

2022 welcomed many newcomers to The Sandbox’s social platforms:

Onboarding more LAND owners than ever

By the end of 2022, The Sandbox counted more than 23,000 LAND owners! To date, 114,835 plots are in the hands of our community, including 101,000 regular and 13,000 premium. This means that 69% of the land in our metaverse is already in the hands of owners eager to build and create within our platform. In 2022, 10,484 new LANDs were minted, and more opportunities are coming soon in 2023.

Stay tuned for more LAND sales in 2023, coming soon!

More diversity and freedom of expression through Avatars

2022 was the year of the avatar! We released our first avatar collections over the last year, giving our users the opportunity to reinvent themselves, through original collection avatars or by bringing their favorite NFT collections to life through interoperability.

Here are some of the original collections we developed:

Collections we bridged from some of Web3’s best projects:

Voxies, BAYC, Moonbirds, CoolCats, Gutter Clones, Gutter Cats, Gutter Dogs, Gutter Rats, Gutter Pigeons, Gods & Demi-Gods of Rock, Olivex Gym A Club, Clone X, Rumble Kong League, Rabbitars, and many more!

42 collections now populate The Sandbox. As we enter 2023, many more are to come to keep bridging with Web3 projects and making the open metaverse more interoperable!

New animations to dance and socialize in the metaverse

Animation is key to expressing yourself in The Sandbox. In 2022 more features were developed to engage our community and empower them to socialize in the metaverse:

Avatar animations:

Brands and Collections:

More templates animation templates:

We unveiled many new dances and animations in 2022, but there’s a lot more coming in 2023!

With a brand new emoji wheel and on-the-fly wearables, get ready to dance to the beat of all the metaverse concerts we have in store!

Move to Polygon, staking features, and more blockchain milestones!

In a constant effort to preserve the environment, we also developed we opened new features, migrated contracts to Polygon for faster transactions and cheaper gas prices, and reinforced security with our partners. Here are several notable highlights:

2 new staking pools were launched, resulting in over 30 million SAND distributed in rewards. Additionally, we deployed LAND on L2 Polygon with 40,000 LANDs bridged and released our first LAND sale on Polygon, with over 1,000 LANDs minted directly. To enhance the user experience, we also implemented a program that offered 10 free transactions per month for every single user, resulting in over 670,000 transactions provided over the year. We also placed a strong emphasis on security, conducting 23 audits on our smart contracts and receiving over 100 reports through our bounty program.

Bringing more fun in the metaverse with events and seasons

2022 was the year where our creators and partners started sharing their experiences with the world, with 2 Alpha Seasons open to all, and many metaverse events from major brands and artists, including Gucci, Blond:ish, Playboy, CFDA, One Football, Paris Hilton, and Care Bears. Spanning over ten years from August to early November, Alpha Season 3 also quickly became the biggest showcase yet of what our partners and community are building in the metaverse.

Alpha Season 3 drew in 17 million visits in total, more than triple the number of visits in Alpha Season 2. The Alpha Lobby was the most visited experience, passing the 1-million player mark for the first time on our platform, followed by brand experiences that saw over 500,000 visits each. A total of 360,000 users around the world played and socialized in the various experiences, which drove engagement to a record 2.4 million hours played in total, with an average play time of 1 hour 20 minutes per day. A diverse range of experiences contributed to this success, with 85.7 million quests achieved across 98 different experiences. The most popular experiences included Avenged Sevenfold: Deathbats Club, The Walking Dead: A Day in Alexandria, WMG Land, and Ledger School of Block. Stay tuned for more details on Alpha Season 4, which will include exciting experiences and brand new features for players to enjoy.

Empowering creators with the Game Maker Fund

In 2022, we were proud to support over 130 independent studios through our Game Maker fund, providing over $12 million in funding to help creators push the boundaries of creativity and entertainment in The Sandbox. We will continue onboarding more studios in 2023 and empowering them to create amazing experiences in the metaverse. If you are interested in applying for the Game Maker Fund, visit this link to find out more and register!

Overall, our ecosystem now comprises over 700+ individual creators, studios and agencies, some of which have developed significantly in the last year through our partner program. This allowed over 300 amazing creators and studios to develop and grow faster all around the world, from Singapore with Smobler Studios to Europe with Nabiya and Landvault, to Hong Kong with Index Game, to the US with GrowYourBase.