Published on: 04/11/2022
Future of metaverse ‘evolving,’ The Sandbox co-founder says
The Sandbox Metaverse co-founder and COO Sébastien Borget told Cointelegraph’s Gareth Jenkinson during the Web Summit tech conference in Portugal on November 3 that the future of the metaverse was “evolving.”
The Sandbox is an Ethereum blockchain-based metaverse game platform where players can generate, possess and monetize their gaming experiences. After nearly ten years of work, Borget described The Sandbox as “the natural evolution of things.” The metaverse has evolved quickly, particularly regarding how brands interact with users.
“We’re now seeing in The Sandbox with more than 200 studios around the world that are building on a daily basis,” Borget said, referring to the new creator tools that were released recently.
These studios are associated with well-known, significant brands that have discovered the value of interacting with clients on a digital level. Gucci, The Walking Dead series, Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg and others have invested or participated in the metaverse.
Borget said consumers were frequently frustrated by their inability to collaborate with the big names they admire. As metaverse projects progress, they will be able to do so.
“It is not just about the influence and the reach of the celebrity or the brand. It’s all about the content — the characters, stories and locations that people are familiar with and want to interact with,” he said.
Borget emphasized the importance of actual users and major brands and celebrities appearing in digital words.
“Players themselves bring life by being present, by engaging in the land. That is also something that should be seen as valuable because they contribute to the growth of the network,” he continued.
Any change to a digital platform must encourage active users to interact with new tools and experiences. The needs and concerns of the users shape the appearance of an online space.
Platform engagement, according to Borget, is more than just sharing, liking, or retweeting. Instead, he said that as the metaverse evolves and users converse in digital spaces, the user and the brand must create brand engagement collaboratively.
“To me, that’s real engagement. That’s something that many brands are looking at because they not only reach Gen Z, but they help define the future of themselves in 3D worlds,” he said.
Borget claimed that the popularity of virtual worlds and metaverses was growing due to the constraints of the physical world. It’s alluring because individuals can show up in the virtual world at any moment and interact with anyone.
Web Summit tech conference
With 71,033 attendees from 160 countries, Web Summit, the world’s largest technology event, will conclude today. The summit is well-known for bringing together some of the most influential technological figures, and 2022 is no exception.
The event’s exhibition space had been sold out six weeks before it began. With a floor space of 8,478 square meters, 2,296 startups and 342 partners from 94 countries are attending the event. The industries with the most startups are SaaS, fintech, AI, eCommerce and advertising. The top partners are Figma, Stripe, AWS, Google and Binance.
The first day included major Web3-related announcements, such as the Web3 Domain Alliance, which aimed to avoid nefarious phishing attacks, bad actors and Web3 domain collisions. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao talked about the significance of investing during a bear market.
The second day began with a discussion about NFTs and the metaverse’s future, with main talks about Web3 scheduled throughout the day.
