TSB Gaming (formerly known as Pixowl), doing business and commonly known as The Sandbox, is a metaverse platform developer. Founded in 2011, the company is now a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands. The company's chief product is ''The Sandbox'', a 3D
blockchain game
Video games that include elements that use blockchain technologies, including cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), allow players to buy, sell, or trade in-game items with other players. The game publisher takes a fee from each trans ...
platform released in 2021 as a sequel to the 2D world-building mobile game developed by the company in 2012.
''The Sandbox'' is free-to-play, with in-game purchases available through an Ethereum-based
cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
called SAND.
History
Early mobile games
The Sandbox was founded as Pixowl in May 2011 by game designer Adrien Duermaël and entrepreneurs Arthur Madrid and Sébastien Borget. The year before, with his wife Laurel Duermaël, a comic book illustrator, Duermaël had created ''Doodle Grub'', a simple game that utilizes accelerometers in smartphones to allow the user to direct a snake-like character in the gameplay by tilting the phone. Pixowl was founded to develop new games and manage updates for ''Doodle Grub'' which had garnered more than 3 million users and 200,000 active daily players by August 2011.
In 2012, the company released '' The Sandbox'', a world building mobile video game in which the user can create a "universe" that fits on a single screen using "elements" such as trees, fire, water and mud to achieve the increasingly complex objectives presented as levels in the gameplay. By August 2012, the company had a branch in Buenos Aires and was headquartered in San Francisco. Its products included iOS and Android games in 15 languages. The company also raised $1.2 million in seed funding on AngelList from investors
500 Startups
500 Global (previously 500 Startups) is an early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator founded in 2010 by Dave McClure and Christine Tsai. The fund admitted a first "class" of twelve startups to its incubator office in Mountain View, California ...
, Kima Ventures, Ax Ventures' Pymar Fund,
Martín Varsavsky
Martín Varsavsky Waisman-Diamond (born April 26, 1960) is an Argentine entrepreneur based in Spain who founded several companies worldwide, including Urban CapitalMedicorp Sciences Viatel, Jazztel, EINSTEINet, Ya.comEoliaFabrice Grinda and Joshua Chodniewicz. In March 2013, ''Greedy Grub'', the first sequel to ''Doodle Grub'', was released. The game included short animated cutscenes to advance the story line over a total of eight episodes with plans to release additional storylines every few months.
''Grub'', another sequel to ''Doodle Grub'', was first released in June 2014 for iOS and included a new map feature which the user can navigate to uncover new levels. In November 2014, the company released ''The Sandbox EDU'', a new version of the game with several changes to make the game appropriate to children and educational. In April 2015, the company released, ''Garfield: Survival of the Fattest'', a game based on the '' Garfield'' comic strip. Developed in partnership with
Paws, Inc.
Paws Incorporated, legally known as Paws, Inc., is an American comic studio and production company founded by American cartoonist Jim Davis in 1981 to support the ''Garfield'' comic strips and its licensing. The company was originally located i ...
, the production company for the comic strip, the game allows the user to control multiple characters to complete quests on an expanding wilderness campsite.
In June 2016, the company released ''The Sandbox Evolution'', another sequel to the 2012 game. The new gameplay featured more than 160 elements that can be used to create a universe, including "the ability to create electrical machines that utilize levers, batteries, sensors and more". By 2019, the company had released games several games, such as a game based on '' Thomas & Friends''. In September 2019, Pixowl released '' The Addams Family Mystery Mansion'', a game based on '' The Addams Family''.
Blockchain and metaverse
In August 2018, Animoca Brands acquired Pixowl for $4.875 million in cash and stock. At the time of the acquisition, Pixowl had 27 employees working in San Francisco and Buenos Aires. Now a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, Pixowl changed its incorporation name to TSB Gaming LTD and began doing business simply under the name The Sandbox as it was preparing to release a sequel to ''The Sandbox'' in a 3D game format with
blockchain
A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...
integration.
In March 2020, the company raised $2.01 million in cash and cryptocurrency and planned to raise more funds through sale of it cryptocurrency SAND, the Ethereum-based utility token used on ''The Sandbox''. Virtual real estate on the platform began to be sold as property in plots representing no smaller than with air space up to .
In February 2021, a pair of sales of plots of land in ''The Sandbox'' were reported to have been valued at a total of $2.8 million. As of November 2021, there were more than 12,000 digital land owners on ''The Sandbox,'' including significant parcels of land were owned by musical artists
Snoop Dogg
Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. (born October 20, 1971), known professionally as Snoop Dogg (previously Snoop Doggy Dogg and briefly Snoop Lion), is an American rapper. His fame dates back to 1992 when he featured on Dr. Dre's debut solo single, " ...
Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc. (1972–1992), Atari, Inc., ...
and cryptocurrency exchangeBinance. In November 2021, the company also completed a Series B funding round in which it raised $93 million. Its investors included SoftBank Group, LG Technology Ventures, Samsung Next, and Liberty City Ventures. In December 2021, ''The Sandbox'' was the site of the biggest virtual land sale reported to date with a $4.3 million deal between
Atari SA
Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA) is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive. Be ...
and Republic Realm, a virtual real estate developer.
The platform launched for alpha stage testing in November 29 to December 20, 2021, attracting more than 200,000 users. In March 2022, the company announced a partnership with Paris Hilton's 11:11 Media to include "with an avatar and a dedicated space within the platform featuring a game-like experience themed around her". In October 2022, Gucci opened the "Gucci Vault Land" on the platform, where users could play games to potentially win raffles for platform's cryptocurrency. That month, a report indicated that ''The Sandbox'' had around 500 daily active users interacting with the platform's blockchain. Animoca Brand's founder, Sat Yiu said that this number was not representative of engagement, as the Sandbox claimed to have around 200,000 monthly active users at that time.