The Sandbox is a gaming metaverse, a platform designed to promote creativity and experimentation in the digital world. It allows players to create worlds and characters that can be used to publish a game or virtual goods for users to purchase. The platform provides users with visual tools for creating 3D games, where they can shape the landscape in any way they want, design buildings and characters, and interact with our environment through their own personal objects. The Sandbox Metaverse has been operating since 2012. In the beginning, it was only available on iOS devices, and then first came on Android in February 2013. The Sandbox Game Engine, also known as The Sandbox Game Engine or TGE, is a free and open-source game engine. It is built for the educational and experimental purposes of developers, artists, and modders. The goal of the project is to provide free alternatives for those who want to create a 3D game without having to learn complex programming. The Sandbox Game Engine allows the development of games within a sandbox environment where users can shape any environment they want. In addition, it offers tools to develop various types of virtual items, such as clothes, weapons, and animals that serve as characters in the game. In June 2017, The Sandbox released an update for Game Maker, where players were given the opportunity to make their own games in 3D. All ASSETS and developments can be published on the platform. It is useful for players who are interested in monetizing their own NFTs. This update allowed not only the creation of a game but also the embedding of it in various web platforms: YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, etc. In September 2017, The Sandbox conducted a survey that showed that 42% of the registered users are game developers who want to create and monetize games, while 20% of them are artists who want to become game developers as well. It was officially recognized as a "Sustainable Project" in 2018 by the Stanford Social Innovation Review. The Sandbox has received several grants for its development. These include a grant from Turing Labs, a grant from Samsung NEXT, and a grant from the Ethereum Foundation. In November 2017, the project won the $1.5 million Smart Dubai Award. In July 2017, The Sandbox was certified as an authorized developer of virtual assets by Apple for iOS 10/11 in accordance with Apple's new ARKit platform (Markerless Augmented Reality). In August 2017, The Sandbox was one of the first few companies to receive this certificate. The Sandbox Game Maker uses Unreal Engine 4 and is free to download from the main website. It includes an import/export tool that allows users to export their creations from The Sandbox Game Engine and import them into Unity or Game Maker for the final step of building games. It also includes Blender as a 3D modeling tool, as well as VRML for developing webVR applications. In my opinion, metaverses will become more popular in the coming future than it is now. So, embrace yourself for the changes.
