Some Future Day

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[00:02:37] Hi Sebastien. Thank you so much for joining Some Future Day today. It's great to see you again. I know that we were together in New York City months ago, so welcome and thank you for doing this. I appreciate it. it's pretty impressive what you've done with The Sandbox. I was just looking at some statistics that you've shared.

[00:02:58] The Sandbox now, the ecosystem in particular, includes over 400 brands. In fact, brands as compelling as Gucci. Adidas, HSBC, Warner Music Group, Playboy, and one of my favorites, Snoop Dogg. You have over 700 partners and 200 verified agencies. the market cap for The Sandbox is now north of 600 million, and I know that you were purchased by Animoca.

[00:03:34] so it's an amazing, journey. it's an amazing accomplishment. So congratulations with all of that. It's, super impressive.

[00:03:42] Thank you, Mark. Well, it's a pleasure to be here and get a chance to talk a little bit about Sandbox. it's been a fantastic journey since we've been acquired in 2018 by Animoca Brands. And we started to build a blockchain based version of Sandbox at its own span out entity, raising funds, like bringing more partners from entertainment sectors.

[00:04:03] Some of them you mentioned, but also going beyond. We saw all the sectors in the industry already embracing the possibilities that.

[00:04:10]

[00:04:11] Thanks so much. Thank

[00:04:13] I feel it's still early on as well, we are building the tools. We're providing, lands, avatars, and, combining an ecosystem, content and product. and we are glad to see that. Progressively, we're able to attract a very diverse, diversified type of content and experiences that you don't find on other platforms, and Sandbox is evolving into something quite unique in both, what you can play and also how you can create on it.

[00:04:39] you know, you, speak, like a true founder, a very motivated person. I see you're just constantly working and traveling and promoting. So I thought it would be interesting today. to share with our audience some insight as it relates to, and advice, honestly, as it relates to being a founder. So the first concept that I wanted to touch on from that perspective is innovation and ideation.

[00:05:07] Can you share an instance where an original idea or a creative approach to problem solving propelled the sandbox forward?

[00:05:17] if you look back, what Sandbox started in 2011 as a mobile game with this very simple idea, like, how do we enable anyone to create games? And leveraging the possibilities that technology available at that moment, has to provide for that.

[00:05:32] So, when we saw smartphones and we. we saw that smartphone already enabled anyone to make video games, not just like big triple A game companies of hundreds of people with a hundred million dollar budget. But now anyone, again, like the founders myth of a startup in a garage is possible with one or two people.

[00:05:53] we jumped on it and we thought, okay, but what's so special about that platform? What makes it so unique? And we found that it was actually the touchscreen. The idea is that you can play and it feels almost like magic when you interact with your finger on the screen and that it swipes so well and you think what wouldn't be amazing that when you swipe on the screen it feels like you're dropping like pixels of materials.

[00:06:15] And that's the core idea like we gave birth to Sandbox. The original Sandbox version was a very 8 bit style, like Commodore 64, flash game on Kongregate. And we took that and we decided, let's make it feel like things drop from your finger on the screen, falling like snow, et cetera. And that was an amazing feeling that started to grow, the interest and attract more and more people to become creators.

[00:06:41] And the user feedback was fantastic. People really felt empowered. I guess, Over the years, like it's also the accumulation of experiences that we had. Sometimes we make decisions that were not the right one, but we iterated very fast on

[00:06:57] moving toward a different decision, a different approach, and that paid off over years.

[00:07:04] So there's always this combination of like fast innovation, but also persistence over It's decades on what you feel is your company mission and you keep evolving around that. And that's what Sandbox now, even with blockchain and NFT still is about, it's still about making people feel great about creating, having fun creating with this new, no code software.

[00:07:27] taking that concept of innovation a little bit further, again, with wearing your founder cap, how do you foster a culture within your team of innovation? Like, how do you keep people excited to create and, design and

[00:07:45] feel this, multiple level first because we are a user generated content platform. Like it's inherent. That we are going to see always new content being made with our product. And what I needed to do as as a founder is more to bring to the company culture to care about what the community of users are making.

[00:08:04] To go check it, to go play it every day, to feature it, and to make it normal for our team to be very closely interactive, interacting with the creators, understanding how they use the product and what they are doing. And it's not necessarily very... Intuitive. Most people who design games and products, they design it for themselves, not for the consumer.

[00:08:28] That's the wrong approach. You want to design something not for yourself or your dream product. You design it for someone, even if it's an entertainment product. At the end of the day, you're focusing on targeting a niche and you're focusing on serving it right. So they keep engaging. And so that's where I felt like was important.

[00:08:49] The second is like being involved myself. I'd like somehow to say like lead by example, like it's hard to tell to other, oh, care about our creator, check what they do if you don't do it yourself, if you don't know your product, if you don't use your own product. So that's what I do. I use it massively.

[00:09:04] I go. Play the experience, when they go live, I go check all the new content. I interact a lot with the creators to hear their feedback, and then I hand them over, of course, to my team so they can be their account managers, their publishing manager, and they will support it through, the whole life cycle of, publishing, marketing, getting creative on, like, how we're going to communicate, launch, and more, the experiences.

[00:09:31] But I'm trying to inspire and be also very down to earth and on the ground because I feel like you, there's no opportunity to lose contact with your community, lose touch with your community or, users.

[00:09:45] It's interesting, I, you know, I own obviously a small advertising agency and my business partner and I also like to be very hands on all the time with every aspect. And I think for us, a lot of that is because we're doing what we love. We're doing, you know, something that really defines who we are. But it's something we're passionate about.

[00:10:05] So, I see that with a lot of founders, even as companies like yours grow. So is that kind of, like who define, like who, what defines you, Sebastian? Like you're doing this not to micromanage or as a helicopter operator, you're doing your hands on because you love what you do.

[00:10:22] Well, that's definitely I wouldn't be able to give so much energy, so much passion and inspire other people if I didn't genuinely love. Like the idea, like empowering others, giving them new opportunities, new jobs, and seeing what they make with our products. you know, it, it gives a lot of like adrenaline rush and good energy and good vibes to see the feedback.

[00:10:44] There doesn't need to be always positive feedback. I also take hits sometimes, there is a messy situation to solve, they complain, and so I want to show, I'm here to, Listen and to solve when on both sides, like the good and the bad side, and, but they feel like this product, this platform is being lifted by someone before it's fully handed over afterward, because we also will be decentralized.

[00:11:07] So one day, everything will have to run without me and without our team as well. So that's the promise of being fully decentralized. And I feel like, it is, it will come because we're inspiring others. And also something that when we started Sandbox originally, we didn't launch a game maker and saying, this is what it can do.

[00:11:27] We launched a game maker and six months before we worked with a hundred of creators to showcase what it can do. So when it launched publicly, there was already enough content to inspire more people. So I think that's something maybe people might be missing. It's not just a product alone, it's product and content all packaged together.

[00:11:47] It's like really the whole experience interesting.

[00:11:50] Yeah, that's really cool. I think, you know, you mentioned like the good and the bad, how you're like deep into the process and looking at both sides and founders are always challenged, and, have a certain level of resilience. I think that is almost like abnormal, right? it's easy for people to see you personally.

[00:12:11] on big stages, giving compelling speeches, having all of the success, rubbing shoulders with some of the most influential people in Web3. But, you know, every entrepreneurial journey comes with a certain level of setbacks and challenges. And I'm curious if you could share a particular challenge. That maybe seemed insurmountable for you personally.

[00:12:35] and then basically how did you manage to overcome it? And what does it take? what is it in your blood that allows you to keep hitting these roadblocks and driving through these difficult time periods? Thank you.

[00:12:47] I've been an entrepreneur since, 2008 already together with my business partner Archo Madrid. We co founded many companies, but really the one that's been growing that much and becoming the most impactful has been Sandbox for the past five years. frankly speaking, I was never prepared to become like a public speaker and go on big stage.

[00:13:10] Actually, I'm pretty shy. I don't like, so you will never see me like outgoing. Actually, I'm the guy like at the corner that talks to nobody unless people come to speak to him. I feel lucky in the way that people come to talk to me because if not, I will not start approaching them. Right. And I think it's more like.

[00:13:28] Overcoming certain of your fears and like training. It's through practice that you become better. So I'm not born a great speaker. I don't know if I am, by the way, but let's say

[00:13:38] I've progressively been trying

[00:13:41] more and more. And, thank you. It seems that it drives people, it inspires them, and they enjoy and they see value.

[00:13:50] And so I said, okay, now I can do it again because that I will reach to more people and that will bring them to the platform and that makes an impact for them and they launch great content. And I've been doing that across the world because I've also seen that Sandbox, our model, works very well when we are creating a more diverse, inclusive world.

[00:14:11] Bringing many regions of the world rather than trying like many of our competitors to focus on U. S. first. Let's be the biggest in U. S. and then care about the rest of the world. And we see Asia as a definitely a region in the world that feel very empowered, very talented, very creative on sandbox. And, from Thailand to Singapore to Korea to Japan, like they are really enjoying creating, owning land and, playing our experiences.

[00:14:38] And so it's great to showcase that among, as well, some of the brands you mentioned before, more Western brands like Snoop Dogg, Gucci, Warner Music, etc.

[00:14:49] It's interesting that you brought up the topic of Asia. I wanted to touch on that, but like in a broader tag, in a broader sense as it relates to the gaming industry, currently the global video game market revenue. In 2022, amounted to, 400 billion dollars, U. S. dollars, and, Mobile, where you started, is still leading the way.

[00:15:12] It's incredible, and the companies, the two biggest companies, as it relates to revenue, in gaming, are based in Asia. Tencent is number one, and as you're probably aware, that's a Chinese based entity. And then Sony is, number two, based out of Japan. And I've, from what I'm reading and from what you're sharing right now, it looks like, Sandbox is growing in markets like Hong Kong, Korea, Japan.

[00:15:39] but not necessarily so much in North America and the United States. And I'm curious, do you think that the growth that you're seeing in Asia, the interest in gaming, maybe the interest also in decentralization and Web3 is, because there's a different mentality and even maybe a different need in markets like Asia?

[00:16:00] Yes, absolutely. I think there's really different approach to culture, generally speaking as well, like the gaming culture, the access to internet, the access to mobile, the acceptance of like virtual world and how it can be used both for like business, marketing, education, work, and of course gaming.

[00:16:20] And, I've seen that for, already quite some time, like before the previews game studio, before the story of like our first contact with Animoca Brands, before we've been acquired by them in 2018, was we wanted to publish sandbox. Which was a popular game in the US to bring it to Japanese users, to Korean users, and Chinese users.

[00:16:42] And they were like specialized in publishing games in Asia. So, back in 2014, I already felt like, the market is definitely going to... Grow there, they will jump straight to the next technology. They will add, adopt like faster internet while Europe was on edge and three G, they were already on four G, five G.

[00:17:01] They will have like ways to make payments much faster by contactless or NFC by then where we or QR code where we were still ing with physical and wire transfers and checks. So in a way, there's always an opportunity to be, adopting the most recent technology combined to a very good concentration of, population that is young, that lives in metropolis, rather than in the suburbs, and, the culture where like gaming, entertainment, it's very much more accepted socially, like in Europe, in US, when you say, I spend all my weekend playing games, so you kind of like a weirdo geek guy that you don't want to kind of spend too much time with.

[00:17:44] In Asia, it's kind of normal, like they spend a lot of time playing together, both boys and girls and so on. And we've, there's been many studies around those behaviors. So I think it's, it's. being reflected in the adoption of metaverse, by all, ages, and by all kinds of businesses and their ability to also do business faster, to onboard and test things faster.

[00:18:10] And now, touching as well on how it translates more recently in the adoption of Web3 and Metaverse. those countries, like Hong Kong, have put in place regulation, that, really encourage adoption of Web3. So it's been also being driven by the public sector that sends a clear signal to, well, the private sector of, go ahead, be entrepreneur.

[00:18:34] Modern Institute, friend shoring,

[00:18:39] incubation program, and other mechanics. Whereas U. S. has been very laconic, sending very mixed signals, and more of a fear, general fear, atmosphere. That's... Honestly, they don't really support their, the entrepreneurship and innovation beyond and behind, and, it has definitely been affecting, the development of web free and metaverse, in that particular region of the world.

[00:19:02] Have you seen, firsthand that the United States government's inability to regulate their, inability to understand And it's an opportunity to learn even more about the And the digital, ecosystem. It's an opportunity to learn even more about the digital, ecosystem.

[00:19:31] it's a very common story you hear from entrepreneur, even American entrepreneur will go to incorporate, for example, in the, UAE, in Dubai, where there is like clear framework with Vara, or they will do it all in Asia, where as well, again, there is a clear framework. And so this is, they are losing their talents, their brains, and then because the world is even more global and connected than it used to be, like there is no more dream of the Silicon Valley.

[00:19:59] Like in Web3, the dream of Silicon Valley is totally gone. Like it's back maybe with AI. It was very strong with mobile and mobile gaming. But Web3, I cannot say there is a concentration of like founders and funding and talents in Silicon Valley, which has been for a long time, the main driver of innovation in the U.

[00:20:17] S.

[00:20:18] if you were going to rank where the talent is, if it's no longer in Silicon Valley, where would you say the top two regions are on the planet today, as it relates to gaming?

[00:20:29] So, I don't, excuse me, I don't have, the exact numbers, so it's more like a general impression, but I feel like, France is doing, is ranking quite well in terms of actual activity of web free founders and startups. You

[00:20:42] can think of Sorare, of Ledger, and a few other companies. Hong Kong is rising. Korea has been always, at the...

[00:20:51] Edge of it, and there's a great number of gaming company we were mentioning before from Nexon and C Star have come to us. We made Dead Marble, who are also already adopting blockchain technology on their games and launching new product. Japan has been very vocal in the past months toward creating an environment that will accept and welcome entrepreneurs.

[00:21:15] I feel Those countries are ranking top. and then U. S. Let's, look a little bit more if where U. S. stands on that.

[00:21:24] Do you think the United States will be able to catch up ever again? Like it seemed like they were really in a lead position there for a while. you think they could catch up if they get control over, you know, the regulations, the SEC and all? Or do you think it's just, it's, a losing proposition at this point?

[00:21:41] No, I think it's way too early to say anything is lost, like there's still like the highest concentration of the best university, of best talent, a lot of, and funding available in the US. So if like somehow trigger again, that environment and create a new, new Silicon Valley, region, I don't know if it will be still around the California or it will be anywhere else in the US.

[00:22:04] There is still a lot of potential out there, so I hope like months and years ahead will tell us that US can catch back on that front.

[00:22:12] Well, it's interesting. you know, notwithstanding the fact that we're like in this crypto winter, cryptocurrency still has a market cap of over a trillion dollars in value. and what I've watched historically is that, gaming is really a wonderful gateway into new and different types of innovation.

[00:22:34] And your world is really interesting because you're gaming first, you have this decentralized layer on blockchain. which, you know, obviously extends into cryptocurrency or, and, or tokens, to, you know, a certain extent. And we don't need to get into that, right now. I'm just curious from your perspective, like how important is a superior quality gaming experience?

[00:23:01] And do you think that gaming is the sector that will allow for mass adoption of all of the benefits of a decentralized Web3 landscape? Thank you eveyone.

[00:23:22] technology brings to what, the gaming industry. I believe that gaming is going to be still a strong use case that drive...

[00:23:29] Miami Very

[00:23:31] We have a lot of technology adoption, we know that gaming is bigger as an industry, that music and movies combine now in entertainment and is still poised to grow.

[00:23:40] texts

[00:23:40] see that, people are looking for still, great content and experiences. So there's no, decrease of speed in like the adoption of the number of people who are engaging and spending time in games.

[00:23:53] But there is a certain saturation in what kind of diverse experience made because of like the web 2 and the free to play model where games are more and more. Copycats or clones or little evolution of others. I think what's you said something quite important like trying to define like what's a superior gaming experience and it's not necessarily what people think it is.

[00:24:15] It's not about like the graphics alone. It's about, the fun. You can actually reach a lot of fun without, great graphics. Think about, Nintendo strategy. Why is still Nintendo very relevant with their 3DS before, with the Switch? It was never the best graphic console, but it was the most fun, multiplayer, casual, and always broadened the market of, bringing younger audience, bringing older audience, and family gaming.

[00:24:40] In a way, I feel like blockchain gaming can attract across like different, genre of games behind. At the end of the day, a blockchain game will ultimately be just a game that use NFTs, might be using, a cryptocurrency or not. We're seeing that a bit less now, to enable users to own their assets.

[00:25:02] trade them where they want on marketplaces monetize their time, but still an experience, like fun game plays, engaging game plays. And, it would be hard to differentiate the traditional an old game that doesn't use blockchain versus a new game that uses it very soon. Like the fact that there are developer solutions that makes it very seamless, etc.

[00:25:28] Like all of that has evolved greatly and we're really close to getting to that point.

[00:25:33] So I'm curious, you're so, you know, you've been your entire career, like deep into the gaming space. Are you a gamer?

[00:25:40] Well, I think again, who is not a gamer? 3 billion people play games, but if I play Candy Crush on my phone, I am a gamer or not? My answer is yes, you

[00:25:51] I agree.

[00:25:51] the gamer is not this stereotypical guy that only plays like Call of Duty or Battle Royale on a PUBG or like a Fortnite on a console device with a very high graphics, no, that's gone, if you think of that, you're already thinking 10 years later, too late, so anyone enjoy, casual gaming, small moment of fun, and Takes very various forms.

[00:26:18] Myself, yes, I started playing games since Super Mario, Super, Nintendo, Super NES, Super Famicom, depending on where you lived. And,

[00:26:28] I'm so old, I was

[00:26:29] every console generation. Oh Yeah.

[00:26:32] well, but somehow I like, working in the game industry changed a bit my perspective. not only, I play game, but I kind of deconstruct the game.

[00:26:43] So now, it's becoming a tool, part of my job to understand what makes that game fun. So trying to reverse back, okay, this is everything they've done, the control, the visual effect, the camera, the fight, the speed, the music, and how do we Take the best of that to apply it to our own game. this is what I enjoy now, like really finding like what makes games great, again, not only on the graphic, but on many other things and, apply it to sandbox in the future.

[00:27:11] Sebastian, I think that's a really cool angle to take, and maybe it's not such a common thing for people in your position to say, like the reality is that fun first creates an emotional connection between the individual and the game, and then the broader community. You don't hear that often, but if you do, go back to like where I started in the gaming space.

[00:27:32] When I was a kid, I would sit in my basement and play Pong. which I'm sure you would agree design wise was like non existent, right? But I would play for hours and hours and then as more innovation and great design came out, I kept going deeper and deeper into it. But my generation, the 80s, we were deep into Space Invaders and all of these other games where it was a very crude format There was no 3D immersive experience.

[00:28:00] There was no mixed reality experience. It was just fun. Right? So, for your perspective,

[00:28:07] there was probably already a social component of it, like maybe some friends were watching you play, you were playing together, when you go back to school you still talk about what you played and your scores, so it creates something, some memories, and that's the bound, binding that you refer to.

[00:28:23] where did, where would you go now? just on a personal level, forget about business, what are your favorite games to play personally?

[00:28:30] all right, so I still enjoy playing, basic games, match free games, city builders, trying to expand them. I've been a fan of, SimCity, Age of Empires, Counter Strike, for years, like, all my teenage days, nights, weekends, and holidays, probably, I spent on that. So I love, back then, multiplayer gaming already, quite early on.

[00:28:55] So, the fun thing is pretty cool, and you talk about community building and user generated content. I often talk about the age of imagination, like this time period where individual creators will be able to... disrupt, create new revenue streams for themselves, create entire businesses from, for themselves.

[00:29:16] So I'm curious, how do you see, creators like a new financial opportunity as, the concept of creating in gaming in particular is becoming increasingly Easier for an individual versus, you know, having a multi billion dollar entity. what's the opportunity for individual creators these days

[00:29:36] I think the opportunity has never been as wide as right now and it will keep increasing like attracting people who are not in the video game industry before, who didn't start like for a gaming job career and like to learn at specialized schools or universities or academies. There are so many tools that allows you to start creating your own game with or without programming and that's also one of the success of platforms like Minecraft and Roblox People, and to a broader extent, LEGOs, people like to build things. It's fun to create, actually, and that's a thing, the game is creating by itself, when you think about it, and showing to others what you create, seeing others enjoy into it, connect with others and create together, that's a kind of like socially binding moment.

[00:30:29] And we want to make Sandbox as accessible as possible to creators who don't need to learn a programming language, can just drag and drop and create within minute experiences. It's been very empowering for people to realize that they had all that potential in them. And the form of them founding new careers, starting new jobs, and then overall, if they pursue that, even launch their own business, hire people and become successful at it.

[00:30:56] I think that's the kind of impact that you can make. And when you bring different kind of creators. You are going to start with a different kind of content and experience on the platform. So it is very beneficial as well, to have a platform that's get more and more diverse and diversified because you have a different breed of creators behind.

[00:31:17] That's what Roblox really brought to the market for many years. People did never Roblox was game until they realized, oh wow, there's a lot of players and there is a revenue to be made. But still at that point of time, Roblox keeps. And gives back only 30%, sometimes less with exchange rate to the creators.

[00:31:36] So they're still like, they built the revenue model for themselves and as a platform, they take most of the value that is being contributed by the creators themselves. So we felt like this was also unfair. And that's why like with NFTs and blockchain, you can make sure that the value is being held in the hands of the stakeholders and creators who contribute the most to our like creating that value on the platform.

[00:32:02] have you seen any, you know, noteworthy examples of what you were talking about on Sandbox where maybe somebody like me who doesn't have a programming background came in, developed a world, developed a game, and monetized it? Are there a few that you could mention and highlight?

[00:32:19] Oh yeah, absolutely. There's we have this Voice from the Metaverse, channel on the Sandbox, on YouTube of Sandbox, and we interview a lot of creators, you can hear their story and how, indeed they found, I'm thinking of, small studios, like in Korea, there's a studio called Five Bros, led by Shanti.

[00:32:42] He originally, He, got interested in sandbox, bought a pretty large land and left his job at Samsung, which actually made big news because, leaving a group like Samsung to go start your own great studio in the Metaverse was kind of, extraordinary by that means. And now he runs a team of over 15 people there, creating very fun casual games after Ocean Rush, after, that I played on stream.

[00:33:10] You said you had a background into an advertising agency, Loretta Chen from Smobbler in Singapore kind of similarly had this background and she's definitely not a tech person and yet now she runs one of the most prolific Metaverse studio based in Singapore. She brought the kingdom of Bhutan in sandbox to create the Bhutanverse and she's been leveraging it to like empower, educate, and support certain positive impact goals.

[00:33:38] we've seen Younger creators who, start to stream as well, and now, are becoming more and more influential, among the community, and can live from, the full time streaming activity, too. That's really how the creator economy works, basically. it starts small, but progressively... Like the audience and large and being a first mover as an advantage, definitely.

[00:34:04] It's not like a gated platform where if you're not the first mover, you have no opportunity, but there is an opportunity in being first mover still.

[00:34:10] So what kind of like financial success have these people garnered on your platform as creators?

[00:34:18] there's something like, like I like to think a lot is What is financial success? is it earning a million, a hundred of millions of dollars? Or is it already being able to pay yourself a salary out of the thing that you do and you're most passionate about? So like you have that freedom of doing what you want.

[00:34:39] Instead of being into a system where, you have no choice and you only do it because you have to survive, pay your bills, and so on, and I look at the middle, what we call the middle class, not only the top winning studio, it's all the one percentile, but, making sure, the revenue distribution among the creators is good and, that's something that we found in Sandbox.

[00:35:02] Many creators are able to make a living with their creative work. And just create, sell their NFTs, launch experiences, and be able to have a very decent higher salary than what they were earning before in a previous job. That's

[00:35:16] to me what should be like financial success about.

[00:35:18] Yeah, I agree with you, wholeheartedly. I think passion and productivity, really do define human success. I'm a big, advocate or proponent of Ayn Rand, and I think that's what makes people happy, being productive. individuals and doing what they love. But, you know, I can't help but be curious when you talk about an individual who would leave Samsung to start a studio on your platform.

[00:35:45] is that studio generating tens of millions of dollars now in, in the metaverse?

[00:35:51] Give me a few more years and hopefully we'll be able to share this kind of stories like very, again, down to earth, like Sandbox, where we just recently opened a possibility for creators to publish their contents, opening it to their audiences. We are progressively opening the marketplace to everyone.

[00:36:10] For creators, so revenue comes in, but revenue has not been the first driver for we've been empowering creators to be able to launch content, engage audience, retain them, and monetization is a big topic for next year. Still, people who got involved in sandbox ecosystems, sometimes I heard stories like, I was able to buy my house, I was able to buy my car thanks to sandbox and so on, and That's always great.

[00:36:36] this

[00:36:36] is one of most people's life goals. And I want them to make not just one time story, but hopefully, More of a many hundreds and thousands of people's stories.

[00:36:47] So if these individual creators are, you know, building on the sandbox and you know, are, reaching, you've heard success stories now where they're buying their dream homes or buying a new car, that's like quite the accomplishment for you personally as a founder because you're creating wealth across society and across the globe.

[00:37:09] What impact do you think artificial intelligence will have as it relates to accelerating these creative visions for the creator on Sandbox? Pipelineo. org, Locator

[00:37:25] like even more, like we were just talking before, like how do we attract more creators? And the first step is like making no code tools, just drag and drop. But when you think about AI, if you can just type a text and it creates.

[00:37:37] It brings ideas to life, create characters, create environment, create gameplay. This is amazing. then it brings, it enables basically almost 7 billion people who just know how to type or write to become creators. So that's the potential that AI has, and it's coming. Like right now, AI is very strong at 2D images, text, music, 3D is still in progress, but it, every six months, it, Get twice better at what it was.

[00:38:05] So, I have no doubt that 3D will be mastered very soon. and I feel like, indeed, when you have an idea in mind, instead of spending 2 days, 3 days to drag and drop and put it together into the concept, in a matter of seconds or minutes, you get... A rendering that shows exactly like what you, or like a mood board or something.

[00:38:26] So we were talking like, how do we trigger innovation, brainstorming, et cetera. AI is a very powerful tool. We are using it both internally and we encourage creators to use it, to concept faster, to iterate faster on their ideas.

[00:38:39] Is there opportunity, Sebastian, for, creators, individuals, specifically, to take advantage of, new innovation that's, coming at us? Like for example, Apple, has this whole spatial computing platform that's going to be built out, right? With the new Vision Pro. So how could, an entrepreneurial creator.

[00:39:01] In Sandbox, take advantage of innovation like Meta's new Ray Ban glasses or Vision Pro and Spatial Computing. What should they be thinking about?

[00:39:12] Well, those opportunities are available not only to create our own sandbox, but in general, right? Like we are not integrated with any particular, but it's really the mindset, like that's the mindset we adopted. Being an early adopter, a pioneer, testing the technology, seeing what's available, even if it's early or clunky sometimes, but seeing, oh.

[00:39:33] That could improve toward that, and that's, what led us to be first on mobile, that led us to be, first on, uh, in my previous startup into peer to peer, into cloud streaming for photo, video, and music online. Always Trying out those technologies, being passionate about like their future potential, even if it will take five or ten years to materialize.

[00:39:58] And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Like you might think oh, VR really didn't took off as much as we expected, but still it made a huge studio. And creator, very notable, AR games has triggered Niantic, mobile great Rovio, and I don't know if many people know that Rovio, before they came to Angry Birds, they failed 51 games before.

[00:40:22] And then there was a 52nd title that was really the big hit for them. So there is

[00:40:27] always

[00:40:27] also resilience and, taking away like you, you probably not a lot of people in this world can get the right thing at the right time, at the right market for the right audience on the first try. I don't know who does, but like the fact that you iterate and you can.

[00:40:44] Get some takeaways and understanding of why it didn't work and have this ability to say, okay, it's time to stop, build something else and iterate. I think that's what really, uh, makes most of the characteristics behind many of the most successful entrepreneurs.

[00:40:59] Why is the real estate component of the sandbox important?

[00:41:04] Because we are a virtual world, so a virtual world has this map and the map is a very different way to browse and discover content. The way we think about it is instead of having a gallery of app icons that tells you which game to play to download, and there is literally no connection between each other, a map brings like location, geographical proximity between content and connects We're to neighboring experience by being closely available for an avatar to move in between and also potentially by, like participating to build something, even bigger.

[00:41:41] So we think like a map is very inherent to a 3D virtual world. Users who've played MMORPGs are very used to it. Google map is a great example of like When you browse on Google Maps versus when you browse on just Google for results, it's quite different, right? So it adds all that context and somehow a lot of the core characteristics of like real estate apply very well in virtual world.

[00:42:09] Buying a land to develop a business, an activity on top of it that drives... Traffic. So basically people on avatar. com makes them potentially spend time or monetize. And if like we're in a multiple creators in a neighborhood that indeed drive traffic, it flows, that traffic flows and we benefit. So we create a neighborhood that's more valuable for everyone.

[00:42:31] And surprisingly, people want to play, be. and build in places where there's more traction and more attractivity for them. So attracts even more business and entrepreneur. And I guess that's why it's so important for us to curate neighborhoods. Not just say, Hey, here's land. It's empty. Go for it. No, the way people and real estate promoters, they create project.

[00:42:55] They create a place you want to leave, place you want to work, place you want to like have access to many services. And they use great. architect, designers, so you can project yourself into, I want to buy that apartment, that house, I want to be part of a community, and all of that, that applies very well in the physical world, is also, uh, makes sense in virtual world, where we're going to spend more of our time as well.

[00:43:22] What about the bad, the negative parts of real estate and community from the physical world? Do they carry over into the virtual world too? for example, do you have anybody complain about my neighbor is doing something terrible or, you know, I don't like my neighbor, anything like that come up in the virtual world, just generally

[00:43:42] Yes, I guess it will, this kind of case will happen. I heard some story on the platform like CryptoVoxel, someone bought a billboard and put it right at the edge of another LAN and well, basically made pay me X amount so I can remove my billboards, my, this billboard, so you get your view. So well, these are

[00:44:01] it's happening, yeah, humans.

[00:44:03] Yeah.

[00:44:04] it does, and there is always this weird opportunity that's being created based on the rules of the platform.

[00:44:09] In sandbox, you don't see what's in your neighbor when you are into a LAN. So that doesn't affect you so much, but the kind of content might be not the one you want. So then in this case, you have options to move, you have options to maybe block access to these neighbors. So you don't get that traffic. We can think of different rule sets.

[00:44:30] But investment too, right? is it, would you say this is Madison Avenue 150 years ago and people that come in and invest in, in the real estate now

[00:44:41] yeah, sometimes we, compare to New York.

[00:44:43] financially?

[00:44:44] We are, we, the Big Apple size is roughly the size of sandbox as well. And the value of land in 1900, was a 1 parcel in the U. S. and now it's probably much more in sandbox. It could follow that same. pattern of price. If there is activities, there is traffic, there is business on it.

[00:45:07] But also similarly what we do, and sometimes I say we are like virtual, we, are urban planners. So basically we also have the ability. To buy back lands, to redevelop, to build concepts, we kept portion of lands all across the map to feature content from great creators who don't necessarily have to buy to get their content published.

[00:45:29] So we are active as well promoter of making sure like the whole different neighborhoods remains valuable and always have something. Interesting to play, to discover, to bring traffic for everyone in the community to benefit from.

[00:45:43] That's great. So I'm, sensitive to the fact that you have limited time. I just, Something that we do on Some Future Day is each guest takes the words, Some Future Day, and predicts into the future, I'll lead you and then I'd like you to finish the sentence, if that's okay.

[00:46:00] So for example, in Some Future Day, gaming will become

[00:46:06] Alright, so in some future day, everyone will become a creator in games. or, another way to put it, there will be no games where players cannot create their own content.

[00:46:18] Great. And then the next one, because I really think what you're doing with Sandbox is just so interesting on so many levels, like the psychology of it, the financial piece of it. there are just so many moving parts. Like you just said, you're an urban planner, like there's so much to it. So it's, more than a game.

[00:46:37] So in some future day, the Sandbox will become.

[00:46:42] Ah, well, in some future day, the sandbox will become the place you hang out with your friends, you'll date. Maybe other people, your work, you'll learn and you'll interact and make it your full time job to create or to engage or to discover, content and experiences.

[00:47:05] I love that. Sebastian, unless there's any other topic that you want to cover, I really am very impressed with. your vision and your resilience as a founder. I think a lot of our audience will really appreciate that. So thank you so much for today. I really do appreciate it.

[00:47:20] absolutely. There was even more, one more, in one future day, I believe, like people will not believe it when we'll tell them, your digital asset actually wasn't really yours and you couldn't do anything else outside of the game where it was originally acquired or bought

[00:47:38] Well, that's another topic I wanted to get into you with you, like the interoperability of an avatar, the value that's been built into it, and then how with cryptocurrency and web three. That avatar will become, you know, your, legal ID, it will have proof of solvency, like all of those components I wanted to like really go deep with you on.

[00:47:59]