Celebrity Endorsements Didn’t Save The Sandbox; Whales Did

Abstract
Introduction
Background
The Sandbox
The Data
A: Transaction Graph
B: Bow-tie Model
C: The Sandbox Support
D: The Sandbox Scandals
E: Whales
Methodology
Results
Related Work
Conclusion
Resource Contributions
Acknowledgements and References

Conclusion

VII. CONCLUSION In the end, we saw that most support from outside parties received by The Sandbox did not significantly impact its longterm activity. The only exceptions found were Warner Music Group and deadmau5, with deadmau5’s supposed impact likely attributable to the general rise of GameFi that coincides with their support. This means that these attempts to attract users via popular traditional brands did not result in any shift in public perception that legitimized The Sandbox enough to attract a new wave of consistent activity. DApps hoping to achieve this will have to look to other strategies. This approach may support this end, but it needs to be part of a larger plan. The scandals looked at also had largely insignificant effects on the long-term activity of The Sandbox other than the Ronin hack, which shook the entire GameFi space. However, this could be because the other three scandals occurred after The Sandbox’s prime when its activity was already very low.

This indicates that the users still involved in The Sandbox at the time of these scandals were more invested and less likely to be shaken by these scandal levels. Thus, these users form The Sandbox’s true core user base that will survive these perturbations. Our analysis showed that whales are involved in most transactions in The Sandbox environment and largely drive the overall activity. We also saw that many whales dropped The Sandbox and stopped being whales. However, we found that these whales were similarly involved to the surviving whales regarding The Sandbox’s activity. This driving force that whales have is significant since it means that they are largely responsible for the activity on The Sandbox, so it could be beneficial to target whales directly when trying to drive up activity in GameFi dApps.

Ultimately, GameFi markets, like DeFi, are very unstable and difficult to control. Trying to stabilize those markets positively through third-party support and events is a poor strategy. Viable strategies should instead target whales directly as they are a small subset of the user base with substantial sway over the market and, thus, have much more potential to produce significant results. On the other hand, once a GameFi market has stabilized to a lower state, it is significantly more resilient to both positive and negative events. It remains stable, meaning a small but reliable user base has formed. In combination, this means that whales need to be targeted during unstable periods, but an invested user base needs to be built up over time for the future as those users will stick with the game past its prime. Building a dedicated user base is something that traditional web-based games have excelled at, so GameFi has a great legacy from which to build. Following this approach, GameFi dApps can achieve early high success followed by a lower but stable success in the long term

Resource Contributions

Our research artifacts (code, documentation, and graphs) are shared under the Apache 2.0 license. We maintain an opensource GitHub repository for all our artifacts: https://github. com/decentralized-social-media/gameFi

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Algorand Centres of Excellence program managed by the Algorand Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the Algorand Foundation.

References

[1] D. Inc., “Andiami Unveiled: Ethereum & Decentral Founder Anthony Di Iorio’s New Global Tech Project to Address Paradox of Centralization in Decentralized Technologies – prnewswire.com,” https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/andiami-unveiledethereum–decentral-founder-anthony-di-iorios-new-global-techproject-to-address-paradox-of-centralization-in-decentralizedtechnologies-301671316.html, 2022, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[2] C. X, “Axie infinity and the rise of nft games,” https://www.finextra.com/ blogposting/21521/axie-infinity-and-the-rise-of-nft-games, accessed: 2023-07-14.

[3] A. R. Chow and C. de Guzman / Manila, “A crypto game promised to lift filipinos out of poverty. here’s what happened instead,” https://time.com/ 6199385/axie-infinity-crypto-game-philippines-debt/, accessed: 2023- 07-13.

[4] Prashant Jha, “The aftermath of Axie Infinity’s $650M Ronin Bridge hack – cointelegraph.com,” https://cointelegraph.com/news/theaftermath-of-axie-infinity-s-650m-ronin-bridge-hack, 2022, [Accessed 28-11-2023].

[5] “The sandbox play. create. own. govern. earn. welcome to the metaverse,” Animoca Brands, White Paper, August 2020. [Online]. Available: https://installers.sandbox.game/The Sandbox Whitepaper 2020.pdf

[6] “The Sandbox – CertiK Skynet Project Insight – skynet.certik.com,” https://skynet.certik.com/projects/sandbox.game, [Accessed 20-11- 2023].

[7] J. B. Glattfelder, “The bow-tie centrality: a novel measure for directed and weighted networks with an intrinsic node property,” Advances in Complex Systems, vol. 22, no. 06, p. 1950018, 2019.

[8] The Sandbox, “The Sandbox and Square Enix Team Up to Bring Dungeon Siege RPG Experiences to the Metaverse – sandboxgame.medium.com,” https://sandboxgame.medium.com/thesandbox-and-square-enix-team-up-to-bring-dungeon-siege-rpgexperiences-to-the-metaverse-c5029bb13bd4, 2022, [Accessed 29- 11-2023].

[9] ——, “The Sandbox Partners with Ubisoft to Bring Rabbids to the Metaverse – medium.com,” https://medium.com/sandbox-game/the-sandboxpartners-with-ubisoft-to-bring-rabbids-to-the-metaverse-c7c08fd1360e, 2022, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[10] “The Sandbox Announces Partnership with Skybound Entertainment to Bring The Walking Dead Comics to The Sandbox Gaming Metaverse – animocabrands.com,” https://www.animocabrands.com/the-sandboxannounces-partnership-with-skybound-entertainment, 2021, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[11] D. Takahashi, “Atari launches its Sunnyvale experience in The Sandbox metaverse – venturebeat.com,” https://venturebeat.com/games/atarilaunches-its-sunnyvale-experience-in-the-sandbox-metaverse/, 2022, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[12] The Sandbox, “ZEPETO Partners with The Sandbox Open Metaverse to Launch NFT-based Worlds – medium.com,” https://medium.com/sandbox-game/zepeto-partners-with-the-sandboxopen-metaverse-to-launch-nft-based-worlds-4f241dbc490d, 2021, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[13] ——, “The Snoop Dogg Avatar Collection – medium.com,” https://medium.com/sandbox-game/the-snoop-dogg-avatar-collection85083087d4d3, 2022, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[14] ——, “deadmau5 x The Sandbox – medium.com,” https: //medium.com/sandbox-game/deadmau5-x-the-sandbox-428891563b2e, 2021, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[15] ——, “Steve Aoki’s Avatars are coming to the Metaverse! – medium.com,” https://medium.com/sandbox-game/steve-aokis-avatarsare-coming-to-the-metaverse-aa96de6ba675, 2022, [Accessed 22-11- 2023].

[16] Warner Music Group, “The Sandbox Partners with Warner Music Group – wmg.com,” https://www.wmg.com/news/sandbox-partnerswarner-music-group-create-music-themed-world-metaverse-36116, 2022, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[17] D. Takahashi, “Adidas Originals launches NFTs and buys a plot in the Sandbox metaverse – venturebeat.com,” https://venturebeat.com/games/adidas-originals-launches-nft-drop-andbuys-a-plot-in-the-sandbox-metaverse/, 2021, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[18] K. Moore, “Gucci Vault Opens In The Sandbox, Bringing Luxury Fashion Into The Metaverse – forbes.com,” https://www.forbes.com/ sites/kaleighmoore/2022/10/28/gucci-vault-opens-in-the-sandboxbringing-luxury-fashion-into-the-metaverse/?sh=64dd41981e87, 2022, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[19] “animocabrands.com,” https://www.animocabrands.com/the-sandboxpartners-the-smurfs, 2020, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[20] The Sandbox, “The Care Bears Avatars are entering The Sandbox metaverse! – sandboxgame.medium.com,” https://sandboxgame.medium.com/the-care-bears-avatars-are-enteringthe-sandbox-metaverse-cc3557b87c7d, 2022, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[21] A. Warrick, “$622 Million Hack Plummets Axie Infinity (AXS) And Ronin (RON) Token Prices – coingape.com,” https://coingape.com/axieinfinity-axs-slumps-after-hack/, 2022, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[22] I. Zia, “Hackers Target The Sandbox Users via Employee Email – dailycoin.com,” https://dailycoin.com/hackers-target-the-sandbox-usersvia-employee-email/, 2023, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[23] T. BLACKSTONE, “The Sandbox CEO’s Twitter was hacked, used to promote alleged ‘airdrop’ scam – cointelegraph.com,” https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-sandbox-ceo-s-twitter-was-hackedused-to-promote-alleged-airdrop-scam, 2023, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[24] “SEC.gov — SEC Charges Coinbase for Operating as an Unregistered Securities Exchange, Broker, and Clearing Agency – sec.gov,” https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-102, 2023, [Accessed 29- 11-2023].

[25] D. . A. Hayward, “Sandbox COO: ’We Do Not Agree’ With SEC Labeling SAND Token a Security – Decrypt – decrypt.co,” https://decrypt.co/143707/sandbox-does-not-agree-sec-labeling-sandtoken-security, 2023, [Accessed 29-11-2023].

[26] B. Guidi, A. Michienzi, and L. Ricci, “Steem blockchain: Mining the inner structure of the graph,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 210 251–210 266, 2020.

[27] C. Li and B. Palanisamy, “Incentivized blockchain-based social media platforms: A case study of steemit,” in Proceedings of the 10th ACM conference on web science, 2019, pp. 145–154.

[28] B. Guidi and A. Michienzi, “Social games and blockchain: exploring the metaverse of decentraland,” in 2022 IEEE 42nd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops (ICDCSW). IEEE, 2022, pp. 199–204.

[29] Y. Lai, S. Fan, and W. Cai, “Quantitative analysis of play-to-earn blockchain games: A case study of axie infinity,” in 2023 IEEE International Conference on Metaverse Computing, Networking and Applications (MetaCom). IEEE, 2023, pp. 250–257.

:::info
Authors: