Continuous events in The Sandbox Game

[gawiz]

Hi All,

Fellow creator here. Recently I did an event on Sandbox for our game thanks to DAO grant and @KamiSawZe.

This was honestly my first time doing an event full time. I have participated in BC before but never made a community. Just some posts here and there. This gave me a chance to interact with players more deeply.

One of the concerns that they have and I feel make sense is that there are not enough events on Sanbdox all year round. BC comes and goes. Player events come and goes. So, if they dont have anything to look forward to all the time, its natural their interest in Sandbox goes down. They start looking at other places. Now, I am personally against rewarding players all the time to play games but thats the reality we live in.

As a dao, I think we should do events all year round. Find 12 games (by creators) x run monthly events for each game = gives us 12 monthly events to keep players engaged.

We can do like a 10k sand reward pool per event. We dont need to pay creators to build games - we will use games already built and doing well. this will also motivate creators to improve their game quality. We can pay them a small fees for just managing it for that month. This will also give creators a small revenue + chance to collect feedback on the game + keep them tied to Sandbox ecosystem.

Its not about giving a large reward pool. It’s about giving players something to look forward to each month. We should not let our loyal players leave the ecosystem.

As a DAO, building games, I think, should be out of bounds. It needs a team and continuous focus, which is not possible for DAO where everyone has a daytime job. But we can facilitate both players and creators using this mechanism.

Just an idea I had while working on the event. Today is the last day. Would love to know what others think?

[gawiz]

We should do like a voting mechanism to select creator games. this will not only make it more fair but also more interesting. Imagine creators running communities to get votes for getting selected in DAO.

[theKuntaMC]

Thanks for the idea, @gawiz !

Any thoughts from the community, @Delegates , or @domainallocators on this one?

[hishmad]

I agree with your idea to keep players engaged with year-round events in Sandbox. Monthly events featuring existing, high-quality games would maintain interest and strengthen the ecosystem without over-relying on constant rewards.Solutions to follow through:

1. Event Curation Process: Establish a DAO subcommittee to select 12 high-quality games annually based on player feedback, engagement metrics, and creator reputation. Use a transparent voting system to ensure fairness.
2. Budget Allocation: Propose a 10k SAND reward pool per event, as suggested, with a small stipend (e.g., 1-2k SAND) for creators to manage events. Present this budget to the DAO for approval, ensuring alignment with grant funds.
3. Event Framework: Create a standardized event template (e.g., challenges, leaderboards, or tournaments) to streamline planning. Share guidelines with creators to ensure consistency and quality.
4. Creator Support: Offer creators tools like analytics dashboards or feedback forms to collect player insights during events, helping them refine games and stay connected to the community.
5. Promotion Plan: Leverage Sandbox’s social channels, newsletters, and X to promote monthly events, ensuring players know what’s coming. Create a calendar to build anticipation.
6. Feedback Loop: After each event, gather player and creator feedback via surveys to improve future events and identify top-performing games for repeat features.

This approach keeps players engaged, supports creators, and leverages existing games without overextending the DAO. Thoughts on starting with a pilot for 3 months to test the concept?

[gawiz]

Thank you for your thoughts @hishmad. I agree with mostly all the points.

I know the specifics can be discussed later but for the event framework I believe we should keep it open for creators to decide. The reason I say that is if we have a template then creators have to spend time aligning the game to it - so it will not just incur more time but also might add more bugs. Creators are free to change things but not in a templatized way. But again I have just done one event so I might be a little inexperienced on this. Open to discussion

Creator support idea is amazing and we should also add a rating system for creators by players. Players can rate creators basis how the event was conducted, game quality, etc. This can be a toolkit for future dao decisions. What say?

[meowl]

I think Sandbox already runs regular campaigns and events that feature more creators. But yeah, we still feel there aren’t enough events overall. Some current campaigns involve Game Jam winners and typically run for about a month. I’m trying to understand how your idea differs from what Sandbox already does.

Would be great to hear more. I’m up for discussing how we can make events more engaging for players and creators.

[DAO]

I agree that it seems like TSB requires more events, especially those that actively engage UGCs. Perhaps a smaller pool per XP, with more XPs being engaged, will be a good fit. Shouldn’t be a problem for the DAO to fund such activities.

[gawiz]

@meowl There is just one event this month and that too with 7-8 quests across 3 experiences. A good player can complete all the quests in 2-3 days max. 6 quests are from a single experience, which can be done in 30-35 minutes. There is no engagement for the rest of the month.

It doesnt have to be necessarily different from what The Sandbox does as TSB is not a competitor, Right? More like augmenting what Sandbox does in our own DAO way to give the players what they want.

There are still ways we can differentiate and make it more rewarding for players - like adding a weekly championship. Adding a social competition layer on top of the events. But this is just based on my experience. We can always experiment and generate new ideas. Even allow creators to run their own experiments to make it more fun for them as well. Pit the 12 creator against each other. Have a reward pool for creators also. Sounds a lot of fun in my head. haha

[meowl]

Ah, got it, I see what you mean now. I was thinking that adding just one more experience event wouldn’t really make a big difference. But yeah, it would definitely be more fun if we added some social elements on top. I’d love it if we had a small fund to experiment with creative event ideas.

[Biversen]

In my opinion, There are several problems in this regard.

problem is not that TSB does not organize events. TSB needs to open an event space for Creators.

When Creators want to organize events, they try to announce them on social media and Discord. How difficult could it be to add a form and a tab to the existing Event section?

Another problem is that Creators have to spend much more than they earn to build their own ecosystem within TSB. The main reason for this is that people see TSB as “play, get the reward, and leave.” The NFT market is already dead. Creators can’t sell anything to anyone. Even if they do, it’s very limited. The only thing being sold is Avatars. So, even if a creator wants to keep their system going, they should at least get something in return.

Incompatibility with mobile devices is already a problem in itself, and a significant player potential is lost because of this.

From a creator’s perspective, Game Maker is a complete nightmare. Each version has completely different problems. Incompatibilities with previous versions. Bugs.

There’s one thing I don’t understand about this. It’s really hard to manage to break something that works or make something that’s better worse. The Game Maker developers manage to do this every single time.

As a creator myself, I can also say that updating games with every version and fixing bugs that didn’t exist before is a bit frustrating.

In short, TSB is a platform where players will leave after getting rewards instead of spending money. For creators, every version of Game Maker is a nightmare.

As long as this perception doesn’t change, even if you increase the number of events, the only thing people will eagerly await is the reward. As far as I’ve observed, many people don’t care about playing just because it’s a game. Creators are tired of constantly updating the game.

The content of your suggestion is also to get people to play in exchange for rewards. I don’t think the result will change.

[gawiz]

You address some valid points @biversen and thank you for sharing these. Let me try to respond to them

1. Reward mentality :Completely on your side regarding reward mentality. But that problem is not TSB’s problem - it is a web3 problem. I have built games on TG and it is the same there. When I run events, I have seen DAU upto 7k. So, it is an industry wide problem, we are all trying to solve.

2. Platform limitations: Secondly, there is limited intervention we can do on Game Maker and other stuff or how TSB is run in general. Incompatibility with mobile, NFT, event forms, bugs are all things which are not in our control as a community. Nonetheless this sort of advocacy is definitely needed to push TSB

3. Creator monetization: Again as a creator myself, I have had a love-hate relationship with Sandbox due to limited growth oppportunities here but I still believe in Sandbox and what it stands for and what it can become. Ported two games to GM0.12 in last 1 month so I know the challenges.

So, we cant fix everything but we can definitely think of solutions or atleast experiments for the problems in front of us.

Also, this will also add a new monetization layer for creators. So that should alleviate some of the concerns you had. If we use existing games, development time is low so its profitable for creators also. TSB games are not that bad, its just about hitting that sweet spot. Maybe, we can try tiktok marketing to find a new set of players.

But, we can listen to users we currently have on the platform and come up with solutions for them atleast. Happy to discuss any other ideas you have to solve this.

Also, on the creator side - I agree. But again most problems are not in our control. Here, we should not ask creators to build new games. Just give them a monetization channel for what they have already built. Atleast some money they can make. Also, I did the event for the first time, it was more fun than I expected. I used it to get feedback on the game - so there is also the learning value. I ported two games to GM0.12 in last one month, and it took 1 person 1-2 days at best per game. I am sure this is profitable enough for creators.

[Biversen]

In my opinion, what needs to be done is a longer and more permanent event.

For example, 300 games over a period of 12 months. (At least one high-quality game can be included from every creator, big or small, and creators can be given 1000 sand each).

It can be played with the Alpha season logic. One game is activated every day.

This gives players a reason to come back every day. The sandbox UGC platform would evaluate UGCs. It would provide some support. Players could discover games they didn’t know about.

Ultimately, even if we approve your idea, the TSB side must organize this event and distribute the rewards. But one game per month won’t keep users engaged continuously. Because the logic is play, get the reward, and leave.

Example: Let’s take a parkour game. You’ll give a big reward to the fastest player and distribute the rest equally. On the first day, 500 people play the game. On the second day, those who aren’t good won’t come back. Only 3-5 good parkour players will remain.

If you put a narrative game, no one will come back after the first day.

Let’s say we put in a crash-themed game. As soon as someone gets lucky and scores big—which will happen within two days—people won’t come back.

In short, if it’s going to be a play-to-earn event, it should be a long-term event with lots of games. It should compel users to come back.

[gawiz]

Completely with you on doing a permanent and longer event. However, I have my reservations on doing 300 games. Maybe we can do weekly. Daily seems too much.

Like for the event I did, it was a 10 day event with daily rewards. So, I had a consistent set of players everyday. Each player came back everyday. So, its upto us how we experiment and take this forward. Narrative games are out like you said.

Also, TSB should not be organising this event or distributing rewards. We should definitely get real estate on the website for marketing but everything else should be done by the creators. But, again this is something up for discussion. My personal preference is to involve creators more. Creators can be more flexible and agile in terms of experimentation.

For the parkour game example - I got the same feedback on the second day of my event. My solution was to distribute rewards in the ratio of their scores to all players above a certain threshold? Each player gets something. More skilled players are rewarded more. And scores refreshed daily so every one logged in everyday. It worked well for me.

And every quarter, creator with the most successful event should get an additional bonus. This will also help us filter good creators who can market well. What do you think? @Biversen

[Biversen]

300 games isn’t too many. It averages out to 0.8 games per day.

Not all of them have to be competitive. They can be placed in experiences like the Narrative social hub. That way, people will constantly return to competitive games. And they will also play other types of games.

It also helps reduce the dominance of skilled parkour players in every competitive parkour arena.

Rewards should be given based on reaching a certain level and the number of quests completed.

For example: Let’s say there are 300 games and 5000 quests. The reward amount should be distributed from the highest to the lowest number of quests completed and levels achieved.

In competitive games, the top 10 players on the leaderboard could receive extra rewards, provided they are not excessively high (symbolically, 10-20 coins, for instance). Legendary assets could also be awarded (e.g., outfit pieces).

If the game’s creator decides to organize an event for their game during this process, they can provide the extra reward themselves. (This could be an NFT or Coin.)

[gawiz]

That’s one way of doing it. But selecting these many games and managing an event with so many games and creators is a logistical and administrative nightmare which will need a full time person. Also, a lot of support from TSB which as of right now is questionable.

I agree with the reward structure.

We will make sure that all games selected are not parkour. It should be a mix to give all creators and players a good chance.

[cryptodiplo]

This is a good idea but it requires a lot of work and effort, so the difficulty here is just finding someone to organize it all. There is a ton of backend effort required so we would need to hire a team to do it, which would then butt heads with TSB. Likely too logistically difficult.

IMO we need to first make it profitable to make games, and then we won’t need events because creators will be able to make money and attract players without large centralized events.

[gawiz]

@cryptodiplo I know I would love to be able to build profitable on Sandbox if there were enough players. Let alone paying players.

I agree that it can be logistically difficult that’s why I want to pass on the work to creators and not include TSB. One creator can do event for their game for a month (or 10 days). They get paid a small amount for it. I am sure most creators will be happy to take up a short 10 day gig. They report to a sub-commitee* on the activity about their activity. Player rewards - we can own it through some tool like request finance so that its automated.

*sub-committee for game selection like @hishmad said.

But yes, its definitely not easy logistically. We will have to see how we can manage it. Open to more ideas and suggestions on this. All the ideas in my head lead to democratization.