Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd subsidiary The Sandbox has appointed Bertrand Levy, a digital pioneer and former global vice president of Brand Partnerships at Universal Music, as global vice president for partnership.
Bertrand Levy has more than 15 years of experience in the music industry, including a decade at Universal Music Group culminating as global vice president.
The company plans to leverage Levy’s established network and expertise to unlock value through partnerships with major entertainment brands, celebrities, and artists to build collaborations within The Sandbox gaming virtual world.
Extensive experience
At Universal, Levy created more than 100 strategic partnerships with diverse companies including McDonald’s, Creative Labs, Logitech, Samsung, Alcatel and BNP Paribas that together generated more than €100 million.
Levy, who holds a master’s degree in Digital Marketing and is a turntablist, created the world’s first legal music download site, ecompil.com in 2001 and the first legal digital music no DRM MP3 bundle website with the ISP, Neuf Cegetel, in 2007.
Currently, he is working president of Music Sounds Better with You, a company connecting global brands with artists and president of ‘My Name Is on the List’ an online B2B live booking platform for artists.
“Great addition to the team”
The Sandbox COO and co-founder Sebastien Borget said: “Bertrand is a great addition to the team and his senior expertise will help us to accelerate the integration of brands into the virtual world we are envisioning.”
“We’re just getting started here building up a metaverse where any creator can make his own games with characters and elements from his favourite IPs and publish these games next to them.”
Bertrand Levy becomes global vice president of partnership of The Sandbox.
Global gaming market
The global gaming market is expected to reach US$171.96 billion by 2025, with the mobile segment that is one of The Sandbox’s target platforms, projected to exhibit a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.3% over the coming years as smartphone penetration increases across the globe.
The Sandbox aims to disrupt the growing category of user-generated content games.
It offers new features for the category, including offering players total ownership of their creations and the ability to freely buy and sell player-created items with the ability to use them in The Sandbox or any other gaming platform.
The Sandbox strategy
The company has already secured more than 50 partnerships with award-winning game companies such as Square Enix, Atari, top decentralised games such as Crypto Kitties, and major brands such as RollerCoaster Tycoon, Care Bears and Shaun the Sheep
It has built a fun, creative ‘play-to-earn’ gaming platform offering virtual worlds and game experiences owned and created by players.
By allowing players to experience iconic games, characters, and brands in conjunction with player-created content, the company offers a rich experience joining the global impact and awareness of popular brands with fresh experiences created by players themselves.
“Truly innovative company”
Levy said:” I am very happy to join The Sandbox, a truly innovative company that has built a successful mobile game business with over 40 million users and is now expanding its vision of turning players into makers as a multi-platform gaming 3D virtual world with a disruptive approach to ownership.
“I'm thrilled to invite my extensive network of celebrities, artists, and brands to join us in building their very own experiences in The Sandbox world, turning the Ready Player One vision into a reality.”