Sandbox games are one of the fast-growing segments, with revenues in the overall business model rising three times over the past few years. Sandbox games have a universal appeal and are one of the most flexible categories. For play to earn and crypto games, sandbox models allow the integration of digital land sales and item ownership.
Play to earn uses the sandbox model to create a new type of asset – the digital land plot. For most projects, the plan is to allow builders to create parts of the metaverse, decorating them with unique digital items. Sandbox games also introduce structures and items as NFTs, with the potential for a secondary market within the game.
Top Sandbox Play to Earn Games
The Sandbox – this game is the bellwether in play to earn sandbox-type games. As of early 2022, the game is in limited Alpha launch, with land purchases completed for earlier investors. The Sandbox NFTs based on items are also limited to selected creators.
The Sandbox is highly active on social media. Official communication, NFT mints or other developments can be accessed through:
The Sandbox is an Ethereum-based token that will also migrate to Polygon (MATIC). The native SAND token launched in August 2020, and accrued a market cap above $17B in early 2022. SAND has a supply of only 3B tokens to be distributed as awards in the future, and 919M tokens in circulation.
What Made The Sandbox Popular
The Sandbox was one of the projects picked by Binance Launchpad, with a significant potential to build one of the most influential play to earn games. The SAND token also lined up among price leaders in that sector.
The Sandbox game has appealing voxel graphics and a rich environment of items and land plots. When opened for a wider community, The Sandbox will become one of the most advanced metaverse worlds with crypto asset functionalities.
What are the Pros of The Sandbox
The Sandbox has an almost complete ecosystem and possibly a beta launch upcoming in 2022. The project is well-financed and has a full team to deliver results. The Sandbox also introduces the concept of user-made items to be sold as NFTs.
What are the Cons of The Sandbox
The Sandbox is opening up slowly, giving way to early land token buyers. The NFT marketplace also limits item creation to vetted artists, with community sales still far in the future.
Decentraland Virtual World
The Decentraland project is one of the oldest virtual worlds. Decentraland does not offer a game per se, but a metaverse experience. It is possible Decentraland may host sub-worlds with game-like features.
Decentraland (MANA) is one of the most active metaverse projects on social media. More information can be found at:
The MANA native token is based on Ethereum, with a total supply of 2.19B tokens and 1.83B tokens in circulation. MANA has traded since late 2017, rising from $0.01 to above $4 and a market cap around $7.26B as of early 2022.
What Made Decentraland Popular
Decentraland offers the most direct experience of digital land investment. Decentraland also aims to offer monetization experiences to creators, with multiple games on a single platform. The project will bring together crypto assets and metaverse content to create an entire ecosystem.
What are the Pros of Decentraland
Decentraland has finally revealed its use case years after the initial token sale. Following a slow start, MANA is one of the most liquid and widely accepted play to earn tokens. Decentraland can already host virtual gatherings and parties.
What are the Cons of Decentraland
The Decentraland multiverse still has a long way to go in terms of acceptance. The Decentraland marketplace also has 53 registered users per day. Despite the promises of a highly active land marketplace, the Decentraland terrain has a handful of large whales, as well as prohibitive prices for some of the land plots.
Voxies (VOXEL)
Voxies (VOXEL) is an upcoming sandbox-type game with voxel avatars. First trading in December 2021, this game was one of the most awaited and was given special attention through Binance Launchpad.
You can reach the Voxies project through:
What Makes Voxies Stand Out
Voxies is still in the initial stages of its creation. The simple, appealing voxel art and avatars are already starting the marketing hype for this project. The liquidity of the VOXEL token also adds to the potential for game earnings.
What are the Pros of Voxies
VOXEL is a token entering its price discovery stage and promises a potential upside. The solid team, art and game mechanics are already in an advanced stage. The game team is also giving away NFTs and characters as collections.
What are the Cons of Voxies
The token was launched while the game only offered a demo version of game mechanics. In its early months, Voxies may see some NFT speculation and token volatility.
Town Star
Town Star extends the sandbox model with a special emphasis on farming activities. Town Stars is part of the Gala Games portfolio, and the most well-developed metaverse game.
To reach the Town Star community, use only the official channels for Gala Games:
What Makes Town Star Stand Out
Town Star is one of the games with significant marketing and a tie to the Gala Games brand. The game shares the success of both the GALA token and its native reward token, TOWN.
What are the Pros of Town Star
Town Star enjoys constant maintenance, exquisite design talent and strong community engagement from Gala Games. Town Star is a simple, accessible way to start with play to earn.
What are the Cons of Town Star
The TOWN token fluctuates and still has to settle its pricing mechanism in relation to game interest. Town Star is the first Gala Games ecosystem, with what looks like more appealing games in development, so there is no guarantee user interest will be held for this game.
NFT Worlds
NFT Worlds is the attempt to make a basic metaverse, similar to Decentraland, and have builders produce true decentralized metaverse imagery and content. NFT Worlds offers virtual space to generate a total of 10,000 separate multiverse locations.
The best tools to track NFT Worlds developments are:
What Makes NFT Worlds Stand Out
The virtual worlds of NFT Worlds are limited in number, but very broad in creation capacity. The worlds are also Minecraft-compatible, while being secured on the Ethereum blockchain.
This sandbox game offers the most complete experience available for metaverse content. NFT Worlds will have multi-player mode and NFT items enabled.
What is the WRLD Token
WRLD token enables the play to earn features on NFT Worlds.
WRLD has no announced supply as of January 2021, due to its very recent launch after December 30, 2021. WRLD started its trading around $0.05, rising to $0.43 and correcting to $0.28.
What are the Pros of NFT Worlds
The game offers a complete virtual world experience. The WRLD token has been added only recently and may offer significant upside for passive appreciation. The worlds are already explorable in a dedicated app.
What are the Cons of NFT Worlds
Currently, about 4,600 out of 10,000 worlds have been bought, though tokenomics and player options are still in development. The WRLD token has yet to prove its liquidity and price potential. NFT Worlds has yet to prove its appeal and competitive advantage against simply playing Minecraft.
Vulcan Forged
Vulcan Forged is a metaverse game with NFT collectibles, powered by the PYR token. The Vulcan Verse is aiming to build a grade-AAA adventure game, with land ownership and NFT item collections.
Reaching Vulcan Forged is possible through:
What is the PYR Token
The PYR token is based on the Ethereum network, but expects a migration and a token swap. The new PYR token will use Polygon to diminish fees.
The PYR token has a relatively low supply for a play to earn token at only 50M. The low supply allowed PYR to reach valuations of $45 and even after a slide hover around $14.
What Makes Vulcan Forged Stand Out
Vulcan Forged aims to build a complete metaverse with a top-grade fantasy theme. The Vulcan Forged game environment also works together with game books, featuring appealing metaverse art.
What are the Pros of Vulcan Forged
Vulcan Forged brings together a fantasy game experience with sandbox-type worldbuilding. The PYR token is already well-established, though volatile. The project team is aware of Ethereum fee issues and has been ready with a token migration.
What are the Cons of Vulcan Forged
Vulcan Forged is yet to attract a more significant number of players. Currently, the Vulcan Forged NFT ecosystem is the most active dApp, with games only having a few dozens of players, based on DappRadar data.
Vulcan Forged also had a recent problem with its wallet generation service, exposing the private keys of its ecosystem users.
Nakamoto Games Metaverse
Nakamoto Games Metaverse was built around the idea of a blockchain-based metaverse game. Nakamoto Games has planned its most prominent game launches for the start of 2022.
Reaching Nakamoto Games Metaverse is possible through:
What Makes Nakamoto Games Stand Out
Nakamoto games is yet to launch its biggest hits. But the project is highly active in marketing, and the NAKA token is built on a clear vision of creating a metaverse-based economy.
What are the Pros of Nakamoto Games
Nakamoto Games offers a handful of completed games built to use the free to play model. Using the NAKA token is optional, but it will give advantage in owning virtual land plots. Nakamoto Games offers more than one gaming option, moving beyond the sandbox theme.
What are the Cons of Nakamoto Games
The Nakamoto Games project aims to integrate gaming and blockchain in 2022. Starting with this project may require waiting for a few months. The NAKA token is also not highly liquid and has limited exchange availability.
Infinity Skies
Infinity Skies is an upcoming IDO and sandbox ecosystem. The gaming project planned its token launch for January 6, 2022, to go through the Chain Boost launchpad.
Nevertheless, Infinity Skies will aim to build a metaverse world through its funding. The token offering, scheduled between Jan 6-8 2022, aims to raise a minimum of $50,000. Because of its unfinished stage, Infinity Skies is still far from the achievements of more developed ecosystems, but may become one of the important points in 2022.
Voxies (VOXEL)
Voxies (VOXEL) started as a token sale on Binance Launchpad. Voxel Network chose the sandbox-type game for its play to earn activities, but basing its VOXIES token on Binance Smart Chain.
Reaching official Voxel Network channels is possible at:
What Makes Voxies Stand Out
Voxies is popular due to its high-profile token launch. The game has the potential to become the version of The Sandbox with its appealing characters and sandbox environment. Voxies has not yet built its complete game, only releasing a gameplay test version.
What is the VOXEL Token
VOXEL, despite its launch on Binance Launchpad, is a token based on the Polygon (MATIC) blockchain. The token is still distributed among only 3,159 Polygon addresses. Despite this, VOXEL has a highly active market on the Binance exchange.
What are the Advantages of Voxies
Voxies is a dedicated project with signs of active development. Its token is comparatively liquid, and the project is viewed as potentially competing with The Sandbox.
What are the Cons of Voxies
The game is still in testing mode, and is racing against time to gain enough players and token owners. Voxies still relies on the NFT mint model, starting with 9,999 unique distributed characters in its Genesis collection.
The Parallel Infinite Metaverse
The Parallel is another project aiming to build an infinite metaverse sandbox. The Parallel is currently in its token sale stage, and is offering mystery boxes of varied rarity. The game has offered earning opportunities through locking the PRL token to receive a bigger chance of rare item drops from mystery boxes.
The Parallel has an active outreach policy through:
The PRL token has only traded for a few days, launching in December 2021. The token has a total supply of 1B, with only 19M in circulation. The chief purpose of PRL in this stage of the game is to buy rare items.
The Parallel has not yet launched its mining, crafting and playable features are yet to be introduced.
What are the Pros of The Parallel
The Parallel opens another door to metaverse-type games. The game creators have also introduced a rarity element and tokenomics.
What are the Cons of The Parallel
This game is still early in development, and the PRL token relies mostly on PancakeSwap to trade. Leaders like Decentraland took years to gain influence, and The Parallel may require some patience before the launch and the token price discovery, as well as more serious earning options.
Sandbox games in play to earn space have the most straightforward model to produce value. Yet the games allow for user-driven content creation and potential NFT sales for items, buildings, terrains and other features. Play2Moon will track the games as they add features, adding new developments in this category.
FAQ
Q: What is the most active sandbox game?
A: As of January 2022, The Sandbox had the most active land sales. But according to DappRadar, the game marks 149 users per hour. Sandbox games on the blockchain are still in their early stages, the projects supported by item or avatar trading on OpenSea.
Q: Is it necessary to buy a token to play those sandbox games?
A: Some games have free test versions or free to play versions. Only buy tokens if you understand the risk of ownership and are OK with holding a relatively illiquid asset for some time.
Q: What are the best wallets for sandbox games?
A: MetaMask is suitable for multiple play to earn games. Binance Wallet is an alternative. Other networks may require specific wallets to access and hold items. Wallets can hold both reward tokens and NFT items.
