Servers couldn’t handle the enthusiasm of the The Sandbox community, and as a result the land sale for the virtual world ended in a disappointment for most gamers. Within seconds after the sale launched, the website crashed. A second try one and a half hour later had a similar result.
Despite the negative experience, there are some people very lucky around the globe. According to data from the Ethereum blockchain, hundreds of land parcels have been sold. A live stream by the team of The Sandbox covering the server problems, confirmed that purchases were made. The sales map even indicated these purchases.
Below there’s a map of the pre-sale. All green parcels have been confirmed purchases, the purple ones are bookings that will likely go through.
EDIT – Removed a statement about parcels claimed by one person. M6 is a content partner of The Sandbox and their parcels were reserved.
The majority of the gamers, investors and fans weren’t able to login or obtain anything. The Sandbox has therefore decided to stop the sales, and cancel today’s pre-sale. Looking at the map above, it’s also quite safe to say that they almost sold out despite a gigantic portion of the community having no access to the sale at all.
“Hey everyone, as issues still arise the team has come to the hard decision to cancel today’s sale and postpone it to a later time. Our deepest apologies and we’ll keep you up to date as much as possible.”
Amy from The Sandbox on Discord (12 Nov 2020, 5:40PM)
The Sandbox boss Sebastien Borget has already stated his intention to issue an ‘apology’ in the shape of an NFT that can be used inside the world of The Sandbox. However, nobody knows what will happen to this pre-sale. Will more land be added when it will finally happen? Will they exclude certain people from the sale? Or will people be able to put a bid on land beforehand?
What is The Sandbox?
The Sandbox is one of the blockchain-powered virtual worlds currently in development. The beta test will launch later this year, but before that time there will be one more pre-sale. During this pre-sale gamers, businesses and investors can buy virtual land with a discount. If it works, obviously. And today it definitely didn’t work.
The virtual world of The Sandbox consists out of lands, and voxels fill up each of those lands. Visually it will remind many gamers of Minecraft, as both games have this Lego-inspired look to them. However, players are able to buy virtual land and implement any form of monetization. These virtual lands can become mini-games, adventures, virtual shops, extensions of actual webshops, a space for social gatherings, and so on.
The Sandbox is providing free tools for developers, gamers and content creators. Creators can use VoxEdit to make objects. In addition the Game Maker allows users to create interactivity on their virtual land. The Sandbox will also create a meta gaming experience. Players can for example do daily quests or weekly quests for their guild. This will earn players SAND, which they can sell or use to buy in-game items or virtual land.
