Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd’s decentralised virtual arm, The Sandbox, has picked up German game development studio Sviper GmbH, adding senior-level development, engineering and creative expertise to its growing team.
Led by CEO Ole Schaper and CPO Mark Buchholz, Sviper has more than 25 years of experience working with well-known brands in the mobile, PC and multiplayer gaming arena — knowledge The Sandbox will leverage as it develops its metaverse offering.
Part virtual real estate, part amusement park, The Sandbox aims to unite participants in a collaborative, virtual digital space.
So far, more than 400 partners have joined The Sandbox, including Warner Music Group, Ubisoft’s Rabbids, Cut The Rope, Tony Hawk, Gucci Vault, The Walking Dead, Invincible, Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5, Steve Aoki, SM Entertainment, The Smurfs, Care Bears and Atari.
Sviper’s game development squad has been working alongside The Sandbox for more than a year, making the company a synergistic fit for the platform’s ecosystem.
Sviper Team in Hamburg (December 2022).
The Sandbox COO and co-founder Sebastien Borget said the subsidiary’s German team was a “creative powerhouse” that was already pushing gameplay boundaries across the platform.
“From adding social features to designing rules creators can use to prototype game logic to implementing powerful multiplayer features, our Hamburg team is supercharging the metaverse’s creative potential,” he explained.
“We’ve built a high level of trust with The Sandbox Germany team as they’ve demonstrated tremendous innovation and quality by both working with major partners and ideating on new gameplay concepts,” added The Sandbox CEO and co-founder Arthur Madrid.
Sviper CEO and co-founder Ole Schaper said his company was “thrilled” to join The Sandbox and eke out this cutting-edge virtual world.
“The Sandbox is a visionary enterprise with countless fascinating aspects beyond traditional game development,” echoed Sviper CPO and co-founder Mark Buchholz.
“The ability to create innovative, social user-generated gaming experiences, the growing social platform and the revolutionary aspects of Web3 are just some of the key features.”
Sviper team members with COO and co-founder Sebastien Borget (January 2023).