In the world of blockchain gaming and metaverses, a few names have risen to the top for various reasons. Meta achieved global recognition through arguably the least subtle play in the history of business. Meanwhile, The Sandbox garnered attention through some utterly incredible partnerships.
Not only have they had high-profile partnerships with the likes of Snoop Dogg, but they have also cast a net so wide it has captured disparate companies with ordinarily zero overlap: Adidas, The Smurfs, Hell’s Kitchen, HSBC, RollerCoaster Tycoon; what a bizarre affair The Sandbox Christmas party must be.
One of the newest, notable partnerships is with TIME, of TIME Magazine fame — a publication approaching its 100th year. For those well plugged-in to the NFT sector, this won’t be the most surprising partner of The Sandbox. Last year, TIMEPieces was launched which is a Web3 community by TIME. What TIME aims to do with The Sandbox is a little more interesting, however.
The slice of this metaverse that the history magazine has planted a flag in will become a reimagined version of Times Square, New York. Incidentally, this was announced at the event NFT.NYC which more or less took over Times Square for the bulk of last week.
The rather predictably named, TIME Square, will feature inside The Sandbox and will act as an environment providing unique experiences to TIMEPieces holders; it will function as a sort of home in the metaverse for their Web3 community. How the space will look is still to be determined.
In fact, to give you an indication of how seriously TIME is taking this project, they have launched an open call for architects to pitch their vision for TIME Square.
The Sandbox is often viewed as a ‘virtual Manhattan’, a vibrant space alive with culture, entertainment, and brands, where anyone can discover, learn, work, meet new people, play, dance, and find amazing new opportunities … By partnering with TIME, we’re adding TIMEPieces as the beating heart and soul of this virtual Manhattan, where a design call for virtual architects will be held in TIME Square, a place in our creative metaverse for brands and creators.
The opening of TIMEPieces in September 2021 wasn’t a piece of news I paid all that much mind to; my focus is blockchain gaming and there wasn’t immediately any overlap. Nevertheless, I did take a moment to appreciate a historic organization — with significant relevancy to culture throughout the last century — staying as current as they are. It would be all too easy for a publication of this standing and heritage to become stuffy and laggard, adopting new technology when it is already well established. Instead, they are at the cutting edge of Web3 which given its polarizing nature, probably caused some resistance when the idea was floated!
