NFTs are truly one of the greatest inventions of our futuristic world today, and now they pushes the gaming metaverse beyond its limits. Join Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger as they talk with Sébastien Borget of Sandbox. He shares how he turns this million-dollar investment into a platform for producing a wide variety of ideas and celebrating content creators and developers. Sébastien explains how Sandbox changes the virtual land ownership game and what makes it an enticing investment, for ambitious up-and-coming degens and established celebrities alike. For their hot topics, the group discusses how Gen Z favors NFTs for holiday gifts and how one start-up company invested millions in developing NFT jetpacks.
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Sébastien Borget Of Sandbox – The Gaming Metaverse Taking Over The NFT World, Plus Gen Z NFT Holiday Gifts, General Catalyst Invest $7M In Jadu, And More…
All you NFT curious readers, check out this episode to learn how the Sandbox is turning a $93 million investment into a playground for the creative class of the future, how our guest used his childhood interest in programming to get a jumpstart on his career.
Also, find out which world-class hip hop legend is amped about the Sandbox and is part of a cool giveaway for our show. All this and more. Stay tuned.
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This episode features Sebastien Borget, Cofounder and COO of The Sandbox, a unique virtual world where players can build, own and monetize their gaming experiences using Sand, the main utility token of the platform. Besides helping to realize the Sandbox vision, he is an active speaker and evangelist on the opportunity NFTs bring to gaming. He also becomes the President of the Blockchain Game Alliance in 2020, a nonprofit organization of 170 key members of the industry and was named in the top 100 most influential people in crypto by Cointelegraph. Sebastien, welcome to the show.
Thank you for the introduction.
I don’t think there’s a day in the last few months, Sebastien, that Sandbox does not come up in conversation between us and someone. For those that are familiar with all the amazing that you’re doing, it would be great if you could kick off with how this idea and team came about. Let’s hear your genesis story.
The Sandbox story is a long one. It started several years ago originally as a mobile game on iOS and Android. We decided that we wanted to use new technology back then with smartphones and touchscreens to enable anyone to become a creator or player to become creators. By the touch of their finger to share any pixelated world, playing over with physical elements, some like a Mario maker, and then sharing those creations online where older could play it.
It became a large success quickly with more than 40 million installed, 70 million player-made creations, and users were spending hours or days to create amazing content. Yet, that content contributed to bringing more downloads, players and revenue, and led to our company being acquired in 2018 by any cabaret. Yet we had no way to reward those creators for the contribution they brought in and making it a success.
There was this frustration that we had after being so successful with UGC and at the same time, not being able to reward creators fairly, giving them back for the value of the app. I was back then still playing with technology and discovering blockchain Bitcoin. At the end of 2017, for the first time, there’s a game that used blockchain. Let’s try it out.
I bought my first CryptoKitties by then, and immediately I saw the potential of combining that technology, the NFT, that allowed those virtual cats to be stored in a wallet that can be transferred to any user and solo marketplace, back then OpenSea. Instead of having developers and professional companies that make that, let’s open it to everyone. Let’s combine user-generated content and NFTs to empower creators to let them own and monetize their creations. We started to work from the ground up on a new version of Sandbox, 3D platform using NFTs and Sand token at the center, giving back value to those players and creators. That essentially is the genesis of building with decentralized web free gaming virtual world that you see now as Sandbox.
This is a great vision. We’re all getting excited about this idea of rewarding creators. We see the growth of the creator economy being a huge part of the future as robots take our normal jobs and such. It’s refreshing to hear that. Not everybody is going to be frustrated that creators aren’t getting rewarded.
There are other businesses out there we don’t have to mention that don’t necessarily care how much the creators get rewarded. This is beautiful. Can you dive a little bit deeper into the experience that people have with the Sand token and how people end up getting rewarded through engaging with the Sandbox?
The Sandbox is like this platform with multiple tools, creation tools, marketplace, and map. It looks at it for the 3D Editor, a GameMaker, which is no code for making games. Even the player side now, Wizard Alpha, that we launch around the end of November 2021. We touched down with many different audiences and communities.
What that means is that it’s shaping to become that open metaverse that allows all sorts of audiences to interact with them and to earn. I’m talking about new digital jobs, new revenue stream for people who contribute either as a player or as creator into Sandbox. We’re touching both the creator economy and the play-to-earn. We have already hundreds of artists making 3D assets that are like game items, animated that can be used with the no-code GameMaker.
We have dozens of metaverse architect deals, virtual fashion designers, game designers, development designers and many more, community managers, host, virtual show designers, people who are essentially creating all the content that’s going to populate the land and experiences. I do believe like 99% of the metaverse will be user-made. It’s important to empower and provide them with the tools to do so.
Those are opportunities that are offering real revenue. We’re talking revenue that goes beyond the minimum wage in many countries, not just third-world countries, but like talking about the US, Canada, France, Japan, Korea, Taiwan. Those creators who, some of them and I talk with them quite often, they move from being a single individual discovering Sandbox and building for themselves, sharing over social media, becoming popular now as they became studios of hiring 10, 20, 40, the largest one is 80 people.
Those are all large companies, businesses now that can become profitable by servicing and creating an experience for all our 17,000 landowners, IT brands and more. It’s also enabling players now to earn, since we introduced Alpha. There have been 5,000 Alpha Pass distributed either to landowner or to users who came in and engaged with 1 of the 4 public.
Users participate in eighteen experience that gets released and unveil progressively until December 20, 2021. If they complete the nine simple quests, basically taking 5, 20 or 30 minutes a day, they will be able to claim a thousand Sand and free exclusive NFT. Effectively, we’re creating engagement and fun. We’re showcasing some of the possibilities of what it is completely the metaverse for any user. We are wanting engagement and those rewards in the form of NFTs and Sand tokens.
To give you a rough idea of 1,000 Sand tokens, it is about $5,000. For many countries, it’s more than one month’s salary, sometimes your salary depends. It’s a great example of what will happen once 166, 464 lands will be opening, and anyone can launch its own play-to-earn season in Sandbox. There will be a huge scale of network effects and there will be a great diversity for anyone entering, which is an avatar to choose from how they want to have fun, how they want to spend time, how they want to potentially earn revenue from those activities and older experiences.
It’s so exciting. As a landowner, let’s view it from that perspective for a moment. How are those opportunities going to evolve here over time? It seems like there is some real potential there.
That’s a great transition because that’s the last opportunity I didn’t talk about, like lands are becoming infrastructure. People understand well the concept of virtual real estate around the world. Land in Sandbox has become one of the highest ranked NFT collections over OpenSea. Over several days, we’ve generated more than $85 million GMV. Over a lifetime, more than $300 million of GMV. It’s easy to understand essentially owning the land. You can either rent it to someone else or you can use it, build an experience and through that, access monetization. Why it’s so exciting and potentially a great revenue generator is because, like building into the metaverse or the virtual world, it’s so much easier and faster than building in the real world. We’re talking about hours, days, maybe weeks at worst, create concerns in the metaverse.
You’re touching a global audience. We have ITs from Korea, US and Europe, meaning we have users from all around the world that can come and discover your land. Whereas in the physical world, location matters, but you have to choose a town or a country. You’re limited on your invite, and it takes not just days, hours or weeks. It takes months, if not years, to start operating something.
Gaming Metaverse: Sandbox is open to everyone, combining user-generated content and NFTs to empower creators.
With this magnitude acceleration of time plus also not being bounded by any physical load limitation, like the only limit becomes your imagination. You want to create a light effect. You want to have a flying creator. You want to make floating islands or also all the cool stuff that come out of somebody’s imagination. You can do that in the metaverse. That makes it also fun and entertaining. The people want to discover those kinds of things.
I’ve always wanted my own blimp. I’m going to have to figure that out. This is the Web3 economy. This is the convergence that we’ve all been talking about. It’s amazing to hear what you’re doing. You’re literally changing the world. You’re co-creating the future and you’re inviting everyone to the table. I’m so excited about the journey that is ahead for Sandbox. You transitioned from your early testing to the Alpha launch. We’re excited to learn about what these adventures are going to be like and what this experience is going to be. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Everyone now is wondering what the metaverse is since Facebook started to rebrand itself as Meta. Almost every day, everywhere, people talk about that. To simplify it, I would describe it as a place, a digital universe or virtual world where we’re all going to be more socially connected and live a more immersive experience.
It’s some kind that we cannot do into the physical world and we’re going to do that not necessarily through VR or complex interface, but 3D characters that represent ourselves, our new digital identity with the virtual world. We hope that we were building these open metaverse where users are self-sovereign. They own their identify, currency, and digital asset in the form of NFTs. They can transfer their assets from one place to another. They can reuse it from one virtual world to another. They can engage in things that are more than games or socializing. These are very little examples of what’s possible in the metaverse. They are going to see virtual shows, concert, art galleries, museum and games. Games are essential, but it’s not the only thing you’re going to see, and that’s the great variety of experiences that makes the metaverse exciting for many.
It seems like the sky is the limit. Everything is accelerating so quickly in terms of development and how these worlds are forming over time. We know it takes resources though to do that. We have time and knowledge, but also money to help bring in talent and continue to work and explore these things. We know you raised $93 million. Congratulations. It’s a big chunk of change. How does that impact your roadmap, and what should we expect from here?
On November 2nd, 2021, we announced raising our Series B round led by Softbank Vision Fund too, as well as Liberty City Venture, Get Axed Interactive, Animal Care Brands, Samsung Next, LG Tech Venture and a few other strategic investors. First of all, it’s a great endorsement validation of strategic funds. I’ve been supporting some of the most innovative companies in the world and shaping technology, internet and the way we’re using and interacting with technology for the past many years, endorsing the idea that we need to build a Web3 decentralized metaverse, not keep supporting those Web2 platforms.
With these funds, we’re going to be able to hire more to keep building our platform, improving our tools and let the creators boost the limits of their imagination and feel more experienced. We’re going to be able to bring more ITs and brands. Metaverse is going to be a place which should be fun, should be almost like non-stop entertainment because you have a great variety of artists, virtual shows or concerts, and celebrities and things that bring you closer to your favorite brand. After the less fun things, a server calls to sit there up and then abusively continue to evangelize and through marketing action bring more users towards Web3, NFTs and metaverse.
It’s exciting, all of that stuff coming together. Some of the less sexy stuff that you mentioned, servers and infrastructure, that’s required to make this thing go in. A lot of people don’t realize everything that goes into the back end of this thing, of projects of companies such as yours and others. We don’t talk about a lot in it because it’s not as sexy as talking about Josh’s blimp that he’s going to be getting. It’s so important. It’s good to elevate that because it costs money and requires talent, effort, knowledge and resources that the public eye doesn’t necessarily see very frequently.
Going back to that theme of creator economy, part of why we get so amped about tech and blockchain in general is because when you’re investing in this domain, you’re investing in creating the future. What is the future going to be like? What is the metaverse going to be like? What is a platform that allows creators to be creators look like? That’s exciting too that that’s where these funds get applied, and that as a society and that there are so many enthusiastic investors out there to help participate in this. You’ve also partnered with some influencers and very special folks out there. This first one, I’m not familiar, Snoop Dogg, but anyway, you’ve got Hell’s Kitchen, The Walking Dead, Smurfs. It runs the gamut. Adidas is one of your major partners. How has all of this brought forth a new wave of business opportunities? Can you expand upon that a little bit?
Like almost everything, it started pretty slow. It used to take us almost a year to convince the first brand to enter and believe the vision of true ownership and let the community of NFTs and use that as a medium to bring them closer. The one thing that Sandbox does very well is all the NFTs in Sandbox have. You can build your own game experience that combines all those NFTs from your favorite brand, and you can publish it online and monetize it. We have exciting features that are accessible by anyone and starting to launch our own NFT ticket to restrict potentially access only to the owner of that land and make it more a space for the holders of it. As a community, that’s also very interesting.
Now, the situation is very different. As you said, we have The Walking Dead, Snoop Dogg, Adidas announced entering Sandbox. Steve Aoki was announced, and then we have family-friendly entertainment, Care Bears, Smurf. It’s going to keep accelerating like this and probably snowball by network effects. More brands and celebrities, they will feel like it will be harder for them not to have a presence in the metaverse. Not to be able to engage with the community in a more meaningful manner. It’s something that true fans will bring value to the true collectors or they will be delivering. In a way, like what we are seeing with Bored Ape for example, it’s turning into this special social statute with access to both online and physical world events. They’re doing a great job here at leveraging this community aspect.
We are helping those brands to think and define themselves, like what does that mean we’re entering a metaverse? Is it about user-generated content? Is it about making sure that the next generation and after they will keep enjoying our brands and in a new manner like having gamified item, equipment, new powers?
It’s great to have that balance between user-generated content on one side, a lot of creativity, and brands on the other side. Not just brands, and make it purely commercial. We don’t want the metaverse to become a Times Square full of billboards. We want it to be like a place where culture will express itself in so many different ways. That’s not just focused on commerce and transaction, but more focused on community value and social relationships between humans.
I’m excited that you mentioned the Care Bears there. I was not aware of that. I’m imagining you’ve got somebody being me in the metaverse, and you could have a literal Care Bear stare.
Unfortunately, I have to step away from this very engaging conversation to co-create the future of Edge of NFT in another call, but I’ve got to ask, we were there at Art Basel. Let’s call it NFT Basel because that’s what it was. You announced the big partnership with Snoop. Give our readers a little glimpse into that relationship. What was it like to talk to Snoop about his involvement in the Sandbox and what was that launch experience like? You don’t have to get into exact specifics on what may or may not have been inhaled by at least one of the parties in the room. What was it like working with Snoop, and what is he excited about when it comes to collaborating?
Gaming Metaverse: Building in the virtual world is easier and faster than building in the real world. It would only take around a few hours or weeks at most to create content.
It’s very exciting. What Snoop represents for many people is like he’s this hip-hop legend. He’s global. He’s known. He’s representing success for many people, and he keeps pushing and reinventing himself. If you look at the top celebrity, who is the most present and involved into NFTs, owning NTFs himself, launching new experience.
AR skateboard. We have the first concert into the metaverse. He’s at our top collection coming up in Sandbox. He and his team have been doing a fantastic job. He was not the first, but he’s catching up, and now I believe, based on a top runner report, he’s the one who own the largest connection and more. He gets it. He’s always thinking like, “How do I create something new and engaging for my fan?”
The one thing that came up when we brainstormed what we can do is to bring his mansion. Make it accessible to anyone or make his first concert accessible to the pass holders and create maybe easy early access pass, which if you hone it, you will receive new drops, access to different kinds of perks. He gets community and he’s reeling to boost the way people will see him. That is great because it’s inspiring more people. That was before and after Snoop entered NFTs in general. Everyone who saw his first teaser was saying, “That’s cool the way he did it in Sandbox.” People could project that.
We’re going to have to start defining time now before Snoop.
In the same way, like Travis Scott. It should be a virtual concert, and it helped push Fortnite and everyone will always refer to that moment. I hope that we’ll be like the Snoop moments, that was it.
Back in the day, nobody had a website for their company. It’s not too long ago that that was the case, and it’s crazy to think that somebody wouldn’t have a web presence now. The same is true of the metaverse. It’s so obvious that that’s coming, but so many people don’t know yet that that is. That’s the track that everybody in the world is on right now. Individuals, companies, celebrities, brands, it’s all coming, and it’s amazing how early we are in that awareness cycle at this stage. One of the other things that we always like to talk to folks about, and we’re curious about, is what are other projects you look to or have seen out there right now that inspire you? What are you getting excited about beyond the things in your immediate orbit?
Many things. I’ve always been supporting building that ecosystem around blockchain gaming. That’s why I decided to become the President of the Blockchain Game Alliance. Every month, when new members join, I see the presentation of what they are building. I see demos where they are showing the real product as it is that they have built.
It’s great to see how it’s been evolving. Guilds in 2021 are playing a larger path. Sub-DAOs, we are now talking about. They are creating smaller organizations around specific games. The fact that so many games are now available and yet it’s still early. By 2022, I’m sure they will no longer talk about dozen or hundreds of games, but thousands, tens of thousands of games available. How DeFi in 2020 took off and start to let us rethink the way that we interact with tokens.
We stake tokens. We create values and protocols to optimize yield around values token holdings while governance comes in place. How Retro drops as well. I’ve seen that product. I’ve seen the ENS one. I enjoy that rewarding community event for fast action, fast engagement across the products. I found that very powerful. Blockchain games. From everything like Axie Infinity, Alien Worlds and many more. It’s pretty exciting already the possibilities and instilled very early on.
True to the nature of crypto, blockchain and in particular, as we’ve seen in the realm of NFTs community in collaboration and gaining inspiration from everybody in the space and supporting each other and lifting each other up. That’s what’s making this all so powerful now. It’s exciting to hear that from you.
I’m realistic too. We got to get in the Blockchain Game Alliance. It would be a great org to be a part of. We don’t have a game per se, but I feel like it’s such a good fit with the topics that we cover and the people that we talk with be a good fit.
You don’t need to be producing games. The Blockchain Game Alliance regroups members from all corners of the industry, like investors, media, marketplaces and developer solutions. Anyone who has an interest to facilitate the development, the discovery, the interaction, the community management and other aspects are welcome. This is part of that whole ecosystem. It’s different from traditional gaming and that’s what we want to show.
We’d love to help contribute and participate. That would be amazing. That’s a great idea. Sebastien, I appreciate your thoughts on everything that you’re working on. It’s a rocket ship, and we’re excited to have this opportunity to speak with you about it. We wanted to shift gears a little bit and hear your personal perspective on some things to let our readers get to know you a little bit better from that perspective. It’s a section that we call Edge Quick Hitters. It’s a fun and quick way to get to know you. There are ten questions and we’re looking for short, single word or few word answers, but we can expand if we get the urge. Let’s do it. Question number one. What is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?
Kids magazine or Weekend magazine it’s called in French. It’s a weekly comic book or magazine with only these weekend announced stories.
There are lot of ties to the realm of NFTs there. Do you still have those comics or do you have any of those old ones you got when you were a kid?
Some of them are pretty valuable. Yes, somewhere in the box. They are dearly kept.
Question number two, what is the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?
My skills basically. The one thing I’ve done pretty well when I was already a teenager, I learned development, and I was starting to sell open source scripts for values, ROMs and other software that I was improving. It attracted many customers like building a large community and provides support.
How young were you when you started coding?
Around thirteen by then.
Question number three, what is the most recent thing you purchased?
We bought some NFTs. There was a great drop from Blaze game, which is one of this fantastic success story. The guy from Australia lost his job during the pandemic. He found Sandbox. He won at several short, time-limited competitions and then funded his studio. Now he’s making seven-figure a year term of revenue and works with the best communities like Gutter Cat Gang. He sold out so fast. I was amazed.
We got a chance to talk to Blaze games when we were in Miami. That will be on an episode at some point.
Number four, what is the most recent thing you sold?
I’m a holder. If you look at my wallet, you will see I haven’t sold anything from my wallet. It’s pretty boring. We collect things and we’ll use it for Sandbox or keep.
The best to the best can move on.
Maybe not personally, but the last thing we sold, we sold lands that was a Steve Aoki land sale, and it sold out pretty fast as usual.
High-quality drops there. That’s amazing. That counts. Question number five, what is your most prized possession?
Loan has no price. I wouldn’t call a family a position, but I feel lucky to have a dear, lovely family around me supporting me.
Question number six, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, or service and experience that’s for sale, what would that be?
I don’t have an answer.
Anything you got your eye on. Anything out there? I don’t know if you’re a traveler or a collector of anything beyond the digital realm.
Maybe a signed Japanese comics from one of my favorite series or one of the very first Magic: The Gathering cards. It’s something I’ve still been hiring for, and then I wonder like, “No, I can’t.”
Gaming Metaverse: Anyone interested in facilitating the development, discovery, interaction, and community management are welcome in the metaverse. It’s far more different from traditional gaming.
Let’s shift gears a little bit. If you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would that be?
To be always thankful for what you have now no matter how it already was to get there in a way. Don’t look at how it already was. Look at that situation. We’re all the way up and usually yes, it’s always worth all the banks.
The flip side of that. If you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?
Don’t try to solve all the matters or go through this. Be more passionate in the way you want to try to solve some of the things or grow
I understood. It’s hard. I have to imagine especially in your position, being around so much opportunities and so many problems in need of solving. Big problems in some cases to be able to filter that and to choose the ones to work on. Question number nine, what did you do before joining us on the show?
Another call. It was quite an interesting call around virtual real estate from traditional brick and mortar shopping malls and the internet eCommerce website. Discussing how they could leverage this and create various ways to engage with their customer in a new manner, gamified and more.
We’ll keep an eye out for some announcements there soon. Question number ten, what are you going to do next after the show?
I’m going to go back to production as we have planned for distribution of the Alpha Pass, the last one for the week and the last one overall until December 20, 2021 when everyone who participated through the Alpha will be able to claim their free exclusive NFTs and tokens.
We do appreciate you helping us out and answering some fun questions for Edge Quick Hitters. That’s a wrap on that. We have a little time for a couple of hot topics. What do you think, Eathan?
We’re going to skip it up. Let’s go for it. Millennials and Gen Zs are planning to spend thousands on cryptocurrency NFTs and metaverse land as holiday gifts. Interesting. I’ve heard it said that if you were to go pick what’s on people’s Amazon wishlist that those are the best gifts to give. Don’t get creative. Pick what people want. I can see that if somebody wants cryptocurrency NFTs and metaverse land as a holiday gift, go for it. If you’re the person who’s obsessed with it and they’re going to be obsessed with that, but not for a year or two, I don’t know. You might get some funny looks.
Have you heard of folks doing that within the Sandbox, Sebastien?
I heard a few stories, buying for other kids. Some are already preparing saving property, and you can leverage that in the future. Training the younger generation. Wedding, yes. We have some here and there. People who want to do these kinds of things too in the metaverse that’s interesting.
What it tells essentially, we’re becoming a place where those social interactions can happen. At the end of the day, NFT is helping to bring people together through ownership and the fact that it creates a community of owners. That’s great. That’s what we’re looking for. What’s interesting with this new generation, and we’re less, we’re all 30 and above here. We’re still grown with a culture of like, “I need to own that book, that marble, those trading cards physically,” but they don’t. They were born with iTunes, Netflix. They don’t care about owning the DVD anymore or the special collectors.
They only care about digital content. It’s going to be a big shift in the next decade and more when the majority of the population is more attached to digital goods, and they will have the same kind of feeling and joy attached to those than the physical one. It’s cool because of what you see as they are more fun than my car that did nothing. It was flat and I could just, “I own it but it doesn’t move,” versus all the things they can play around.
The value system between the different generations is interesting, and we’re going to another world where the digital economy will represent them overbalance, the physical world economy, which might be great for the future. Technology could help for an even more sustainable future will produce less goods that become perishable. We are developing content that creates opportunities for people to connect specifically in a hard time.
I cannot imagine that generation of students that went through two years of COVID and put in connect socially. Those very first connections that’s so important as they begin their job life. Their job life like they meet nobody in social life. All of that will have a profound impact on society as well, and that can be a long topic debate, but I do think we have a role to play in this, and NFTs and metaverse can do that.
Maybe one for us to talk about at a NFTLA in February 2022 during your keynote, Sebastien.
One more thing on this topic, which I’m thinking of maybe foreseeing an evolution of digital souvenirs. I’ve been getting souvenirs for my child when we go to these conferences in Miami, New York, and things like that. It’s interesting, the process of it because they’re kids and you give it to them. The most exciting thing is opening it, and then they lose it or something.
There’s that aspect of things like a digital item is interesting. You can have the opening process be even more exciting, but also that interesting concept of maybe an item that you can only purchase like an augmented reality type of experience, where you can only purchase it by being in a location. It’s affiliated with the location and the culture there, but you are able to export it and bring it home and share it with somebody. We’ll see if tech goes that way, but that could be cool.
You should talk with Pierina from FlickPlay. I believe that she’s building something very cool around a digital asset that gets unlocked on a special area, or NFT could be purchased from secondary market.
Did you want to do another hot topic, Jeff?
Let’s do the next one.
The next one is the general catalyst has led a $7 million investment in AR startup selling and NFT Jetpacks. After months of NFT Mania and Facebook’s name change to Meta, it’s fair to say the metaverse shatter has reached a fever pitch while crypto investors are buying up avatars and digital swaths of land and hope that the digital universe will spring up around these projects. It’s unclear which projects, if any, will stand the test of time. This story is also about Jadu, who we’ve had on the show, and so they’ve taken a leap here and made some big investment in that. We met the founder of Jadu, a super smart guy. There are clearly a lot of potentials there, but it’s also a big investment of $7 million.
They also had their hoverboards sale, and that did very well. They sold that out, so they did very well with that. It’s awesome to see. Also, Malik, who’s the CEO, was telling us all about the interactions here and it’s fun. It reminded us a lot of what Pokemon Go was but at a whole new level. When you see some of the demos and how this can be a lot of fun, what it can become in terms of an entertainment experience is pretty awesome.
When you take it to the next level and you think about the opportunity for people to earn, find or win valuable NFTs in places where the value of that NFT moves the needle for them, then you realize there’s another layer to this thing. There’s a socio-economic impact of what their vision is as well. This is super cool. It harkens back to a lot of what you were saying before, Sebastien, of the impact of what is happening in the space on the world in a meaningful way.
Gaming Metaverse: There could be a big shift in the next decade as the majority of the population becomes more attached to digital goods that provide the same feeling attached to physical ones.
Sebastien, do you have familiarity with the Jadu Jetpack brand? Have you had any interaction with that?
Yes. The main reason is those Jetpacks, the first free Jetpack built, and they will have utility in Sandbox as well like showing true NFTs. They created a hoverboard for Snoop Dogg, and you can see Snoop Dogg avatar and the hoverboard both in Sandbox in AR. It’s a great way already to make NFT fun to see and to interact with from a mobile phone. That’s one utility among many others. This is one of the first based on the roadmap and planner I’m aware of. I cannot say more of them, but it’s one way to get people into NFT. From there, they will have many more interesting things to offer those users.
Fun stuff. We’re looking forward to it. We may have a couple of jetpacks and hoverboards ourselves. You may see us out there floating around in the world of Jadu soon and Sandbox.
This is also something that was inspiring earlier when we talked about making a place for people to create things. There is some level of disappointment when you say, “Wouldn’t jetpacks and hoverboards be cool?” In the real world, and then we’re just making them in a digital world, and that’s how we manifest our dreams about what’s possible in the real world.
There are projects like flying cars and all kinds of cool things going on in the real world as well. On the counter side of that, what’s interesting is people using the metaverse as a way to let their imagination run wild and then translating that into the real world. We saw that when we did interview folks from Blaze Games and the Gutter Cat Gang, when we were in Miami. They took the virtual experience of Gutter Cats that they had imagined and they took this warehouse and converted into a Gutter Cat World. That’s clearly going to be a cool way that metaverse allows for things to happen in the real world. They are literally unimagined. I’m excited about that.
Most exciting times. That’s a wrap on hot topics and a wrap on the core content of the show. Sebastien, it’s been great having you. I love to learn about the Sandbox and more about what your roadmap is, about you personally, your perspective on these amazing things happening in this space. Where can readers go to learn more about you and the projects that you’re working on every single day?
Twitter is a great source of information. Our Discord channel is following them. Telegram group. Let me share a single URL where you can connect with Sandbox and all its social, that’s Linktr.ee/sandbox. Following us give you access to all the different things that are happening within our ecosystem. We retweet creators. We show them. You get notified of our dates and new celebrities coming in and more. We have something to announce maybe as a closing.
Word on the street is we have a little giveaway. Would you love to share with our readers what that’s going to be?
That’s a hint. That’s the key, the hip-hop legend. We’re giving away one of the early access pass NFTs from Snoop Dogg. That pass will give you access to values perks, including future NFT drop from Snoop. It’s a cool one, and that will be one giveaway to the metaverse.
Linktr.ee/sandbox, check that out there and keep an eye on our socials because we’ll be giving you all the details of how to win that amazing NFT. Thank you so much for your generosity on that, Sebastien. We’ve reached the outer limit of the episode. Thanks for exploring with us. We’ve got space for more adventures on the starship. Invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey also much better. How? Go to iTunes right now. Rate us and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole.
Don’t forget, as a member of the show’s ecosystem, you’re part of a community defined by collaboration and co-creation. Right now, we’re giving you a literal opportunity to plant seeds with us, grow deep roots and broad branches together through NFTs. We’re breaking ground in our own special NFT collections.
Please head over to SpiritSeeds.xyz to find out more about our collection of only 100 Spirits Seeds that will ever be minted. That’s being created in collaboration with NFT influencer and one of our favorite human beings on the planet, Nicole Buffet. Stay tuned to our Discord and fun at EdgeOfNFT.com/discord to get the inside scoop on our upcoming Living Tree NFT drop.
Between these projects, we aim to plant tens of thousands of trees with you and offset thousands of metric tons of carbon emissions. At the same time, you’ll get special access to giveaways and events as well as even more opportunities to co-create and collaborate with us here at the show. Check out EdgeOfNFT.com/discord to join our Discord and plant your roots within our community now. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.
Important Links:
- The Sandbox
- Blockchain Game Alliance
- Pierina
- Jadu – Past episode
- Twitter – Sebastien
- Linktr.ee/sandbox
- EdgeOfNFT.com
- SpiritSeeds.xyz
- EdgeOfNFT.com/discord
About Sébastien Borget
Entrepreneur & Dad with 12 years experience in growing startups. 2 years in Blockchain and 8 years in Mobile Gaming. Worked for numerous startups with diverse business models.
Sébastien manages the operations of Pixowl’s 45 people international team. Together, we are building a Family Mobile Network of social mobile games based on popular Characters IP.
Currently working on the production of the following titles for iOS & Android: The Sandbox, The Sandbox 2, Garfield: Survival of the Fattest, Peanuts and one more secret cartoon IP game!
He has supervised the production and marketing of the studio’s most popular titles: Doodle Grub and The Sandbox (40+ million players in total). His work was awarded by the nomination for 2 consecutive years of The Sandbox in App Store Best Games of 2012 and 2013!
Sebastien holds a Computer Science Engineer Degree from Telecom SudParis, one of France’s leading graduate school of engineering in Information and Communication Technology.
Prior to co-founding Pixowl, I worked from 2007 — 2011 as Chief Operations Officer at Wixi. Before Wixi, I was employed as a Web Project Manager at Ipercast executing projects for customers such as Universal Music, AB Video, and FilmoTV.
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