SIP-19: WakeUp Labs creating The Sandbox UGC Platform Development Team

Muy bien, Lanzer, ¡excelente pregunta!

Déjame darte un resumen general de lo que está sucediendo en la propuesta y por qué. Lo desglosaré punto por punto.

Preguntaste: “*Tu estrategia de monetización parece muy ambiciosa. Creo que tienes la capacidad de hacer lo que dices, pero ¿por qué crees que el mercado respaldará la estimación positiva de efectivo que has delineado en tu propuesta?”

Un componente clave de la propuesta y la mayor parte del potencial de ingresos que diferencia las dos propuestas es la función de minería Access Pass. Cuando agregamos esta opción, era una opción viable que era esencial para generar casi todos los ingresos. Específicamente con respecto a la actividad de Sandbox Marketplace, nuestra propuesta apunta a expandir la comercialización del ecosistema Sandbox para desarrolladores, aumentando los DAU (usuarios activos diarios) y brindando a los desarrolladores de alta calidad acceso al tipo de infraestructura “CD-Key” con la que pueden estar familiarizados de Steam, Epic Games o ecosistemas similares, aumentando así el incentivo para unirse y permanecer en el ecosistema.

Ahora bien, con eso en mente, aquí está la estimación positiva de efectivo que hemos delineado en nuestra propuesta junto con una serie de números: Potencial. Lo que sí sabemos hoy es que hay un DAU más fuerte durante la temporada de contenido de Sandbox. Sabemos que los desarrolladores están más incentivados a desarrollar cuando Sandbox paga en SAND. Sabemos que nuestros socios están buscando formas de monetizar cada flujo de ingresos de manera similar a cómo el equipo de Snoop Dogg vendió pases de acceso, pero limitados a 10,000 unidades. Ampliaremos esta oportunidad.

Ahora, en cuanto al segundo punto, “¿Qué piensas sobre la observación de que las regalías pueden darte un poder increíble y una riqueza financiera dentro de Sandbox si las predicciones son precisas?”

En realidad, cubrimos esto en un artículo extenso sobre el terreno de juego, pero hay mucho sucediendo allí, así que lo destacaré aquí.

En primer lugar, Alex y yo hemos estado en este ecosistema desde antes de que existiera cualquier token SAND. Lo construimos antes de ganar dinero. Hemos estado aquí para un crecimiento increíble, pérdidas y todo lo demás. Estamos aquí independientemente de si el mercado es alcista o bajista, pero eso no resuelve las preocupaciones.

Hablando de “poder”, según nuestro contrato con la DAO, estamos otorgando a la DAO poder financiero. La DAO ha solicitado que el 100% de los fondos se tomen prestados, independientemente de la cantidad emitida, sin importar lo que pida el equipo. Para una solicitud de $150 000, se necesita una estrategia financiera para devolver el 100% de ese dinero antes de ganar un solo centavo para la empresa. La publicidad por sí sola no es suficiente. La publicidad en este tipo de sitios web genera alrededor de $0,40-$0,75 por cada mil espectadores. Suponiendo que el sitio web obtenga los 500 000 usuarios en la temporada 4 de la alfa, de manera optimista solo ganará $375 por mes en ingresos por publicidad, incluso sin el sistema de contrato de acuñación que incluimos para generar pases de acceso.

Por lo tanto, la DAO tiene una posibilidad razonable de recuperar toda su inversión a través de la propuesta dentro de un plazo razonable. Sin embargo, esto va aún más allá en el futuro de la DAO. Por los próximos $300.000 en ingresos, la DAO obtendrá otros $150.000 de esos ingresos, lo que representa el 50% de todos los ingresos obtenidos (EBITDA). En ese punto, pasamos a un enfoque diferente, donde The Council devuelve el poder a la comunidad, en lugar de retenerlo.

“En segundo lugar, nuestro principal recurso para el marketing será llevar las mejores experiencias de calidad al mercado y gastar hasta el 50% de nuestros ingresos finales en juegos”.

Como puede ver aquí, de los $150.000 que podemos conservar en nuestra segunda ronda de financiación, hasta $75.000 se pueden utilizar directamente para comercializar experiencias a las que se les dé acceso a través del servicio. Una vez que los desarrolladores se conecten a nuestra plataforma y obtengan pases, los ayudaremos a promocionar su contenido a través de los canales de marketing tradicionales, comunicados de prensa, reseñas y todos los medios de juego tradicionales de los que The Sandbox carece actualmente.

Daremos poder a los desarrolladores, y a los desarrolladores que no tienen experiencia en el entorno del periodismo de juegos en el que hemos estado trabajando durante más de 10 años como parte de Press Media.

Supongamos que todo sale perfecto. La segunda mitad de la pregunta se vuelve más importante: el empoderamiento. ¿Cómo podemos seguir creciendo con la intención de devolver el poder a los desarrolladores en el ecosistema sin centralizar?

Si eso sucede, tenemos un problema muy bueno. En primer lugar, la DAO ahora duplica su ingreso inicial por inversión, lo que le permite construir dos proyectos con un impacto similar, y las cifras de DAU en el panel principal de TSB serán mucho más altas. En segundo lugar, la DAO ahora se lleva de forma permanente un recorte del 20 % de todos los ingresos del consejo. Este es un contrato escrito y lo respetaremos por siempre.

Con una participación del 80% de $300,000 (por año, supongamos para simplificar manteniendo las mismas cifras) podemos contratar personal por un valor de $240,000 para expandir nuestros sistemas existentes. Publicitar en convenciones, pero no con el objetivo de adquirir jugadores. Es por eso que The Sandbox hace marketing. Buscaremos exposición a otros editores en la industria de los juegos, exposición de los próximos lanzamientos de juegos y conectar a esos desarrolladores con periodistas. Expandir este ecosistema para tener realmente un nivel de plataforma de Epic Games.

Herramientas de desarrollo. Herramientas de publicación. Herramientas de ingresos. Herramientas de marketing.

Si bien el principio básico de la propuesta es expandir las cifras de DAU en The Sandbox, creemos que eso se logra primero con experiencias de alta calidad. Esperamos que esté de acuerdo y que nos dé su voto y su confianza en que continuaremos construyendo el futuro de la plataforma para los jugadores. :smile:

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expansion of marketability of the Sandbox ecosystem for developers,

Understood everything except how this part plays into it. Are we expecting an expansion of marketplace activity that makes the numbers math in our favor?

Makes sense. I went back through and reread with the benefit of hindsight. The remarks about 50/50 split until 300% and then 20% thereafter is very generous. I think the only remaining thought I have here is–on pages 10 to 11 it estimates your annualized earnings.

What did your research reveal about how the Low End vs Mid Range vs 5% penetration math is realized? As in, during 2022 bear run and 2024 bull run, which options would the Council have seen play out if your UGC platform had been operational during both?

Yessss. That makes sense to me. I’m not surprised to see you and Alex approaching it from this angle, and I agree with the approach. I appreciate you spelling it out a bit more for me.

Alrighty! I’m going to finish listening to the X Space and then mark my vote down.

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This entire conversation makes me want to sell my LAND.

Is the expectation really for the team behind the Wizzyverse project to develop a platform on the scale of Epic Games or Steam?

And at the same time, are we expecting external developers unfamiliar with the ecosystem to create a website that will drive traffic to The Sandbox?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on having The Sandbox itself implement these features? This SIP gives the impression that the goal is to extract value from an already struggling ecosystem rather than strengthening the core platform. The priority should be improving the main experience, not investing in third-party sites.

I generally support tools built to enhance the user or developer experience, but these two SIP’s only create double the work for developers and dilute the main experience on The Sandbox’s website.

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이 대화 전체를 보면 내 LAND를 팔고 싶게 됩니다.

Wizzyverse 프로젝트 팀이 정말로 Epic Games나 Steam 규모의 플랫폼을 개발할 것으로 기대합니까?

그리고 동시에 생태계에 익숙하지 않은 외부 개발자가 The Sandbox로 트래픽을 유도할 웹사이트를 만들 것으로 기대하고 있습니까?

The Sandbox 자체가 이러한 기능을 구현하도록 하는 데 집중하는 것이 더 합리적이지 않을까요? 이번 SIP는 핵심 플랫폼을 강화하기보다는 이미 어려움을 겪고 있는 생태계에서 가치를 추출하는 것이 목표라는 인상을 줍니다. 우선순위는 타사 사이트에 투자하는 것이 아니라 기본 경험을 개선하는 것입니다.

나는 일반적으로 사용자 또는 개발자 경험을 향상시키기 위해 만들어진 도구를 지원하지만 이 두 SIP는 개발자의 작업을 두 배로 늘리고 The Sandbox 웹 사이트의 주요 경험을 희석시킵니다.

Toda esta conversación me hace querer vender mi TERRENO.

¿Realmente se espera que el equipo detrás del proyecto Wizzyverse desarrolle una plataforma a la escala de Epic Games o Steam?

Y al mismo tiempo, ¿esperamos que desarrolladores externos que no estén familiarizados con el ecosistema creen un sitio web que atraiga tráfico a The Sandbox?

¿No tendría más sentido centrarse en que The Sandbox implemente estas funciones? Este SIP da la impresión de que el objetivo es extraer valor de un ecosistema que ya está en dificultades en lugar de fortalecer la plataforma central. La prioridad debería ser mejorar la experiencia principal, no invertir en sitios de terceros.

Generalmente apoyo herramientas creadas para mejorar la experiencia del usuario o del desarrollador, pero estos dos SIP solo crean el doble de trabajo para los desarrolladores y diluyen la experiencia principal en el sitio web de The Sandbox.

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Totally agree with that. Plus, the examples of similar sites are for platforms that are already massively successful and were not funded by the company behind the platform or by an organization backed by it (like this DAO). If there’s real demand for such a platform, it should emerge naturally from independent developers, just like it did for Roblox and Fortnite. We’re just skipping steps here. This funding would be so much more valuable for new game jams that could at least help improve TSB’s game collection.

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Honestly, I would prefer all the features I proposed to be a main part of The Sandbox site. I’ve pitched them internally before with mostly the response being that there isn’t bandwidth to do them - at least not yet.

When I read the RFP my first thought was “all these things already exist on the main Sandbox site.” Which is why our proposal added a bunch of creator and player focused ideas we think the community sorely needs in order to retain existing players and grow with new ones.

As for the scale of the site, I don’t see it being in the same range as Steam (which has about 80 staff), but more of a mix between the Roblox/Fortnight game curation sites mentioned in the original RFP and Layer3. Our lead web developer works for Deskpro, and I’m confident in his ability to deliver the features we’ve presented.

The Wizzyverse is my own project, and any delays in the avatar launch are primarily due to my own perfectionism related to my artwork, and trying to balance with more urgent projects. While I’d have an administrative role in the creation of this UGC site, and many of the ideas come from me, I would not be handling the coding or design, leaving that in far more capable and experienced hands who I know can deliver on the proposed timeline.

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In an ideal world, yes, TSB should be the one to build and synergise every component at its disposal. But as @KamiSawZe has mentioned, they are out of bandwidth, and if we’re going to expect quality products/events coming out of them (think the next AS or Game Jams or Builder’s Challenge) then we have to expect that they’ll prioritise and rank such initiatives down.

Bringing this to the DAO makes sense since:

  1. We’ll be able to decentralise a UGC platform.

  2. We can decide what improvements we want, and give direct feedback to the team without having to worry that it’ll be the least of their priorities.

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After a long reflection my vote will go for Wakeup Labs, for several reasons:

  • the total budget
  • expand the number of people involved in the development of tools for TSB
  • the transparency announced
  • on-chain tools (I expect an extremely high level of seriousness and security to avoid any problems.)

I hope that despite everything, Alex’s team will be able to provide advice and feedback to the team B if necessary.

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Without declaring any favor for/against this particular SIP, it is important to remember that there is enough funding for multiple different things to advance at once.

While we may have different priorities, there are different categories of funding, most of which have barely been tapped since we’ve not passed many SIPs.

This comment also applies to the discussion around the “window resizing SIP,” as some have expressed that is not important as other matters.

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Honestly I find this justification kind of a surprising for a platform that’s supposed to be growing (and not a little). If they (TSB) don’t even have the bandwidth for this then how do they expect to scale and attract more players ? And we’re talking about a project that can do it with a $50k budget, something doesn’t add up.

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Bandwidth is the excuse. That can be solved with optimizations and purchasing. And I agree with you, if 50K - 100K is a problem that can be solved in this way, let it be solved directly on the TSB website. DAO give the money to TSB and let the team do the project on the TSB site.

If this is really the problem, TSB is not investing in the most necessary thing for its infrastructure.

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I think perspective should be put in place when it comes to this sort of speculation (yes, we are all speculating here as to why the UGC platform isn’t built by TSB)

This is my perspective. For an industry that, not too long ago, was hailed as the next big thing and then thrown into the dumpster the next moment, it’s appropriate for TSB to stay lean. Take a look at SAND price, we aren’t exactly making ATHs with plenty of opportunities for fundraising for the company. Staying lean means having to prioritise goals, which means we’re all going to be disappointed at the pace of progress, for the sake of survivability.

If I’m to be very honest, funding the UGC platform from the DAO, or any platform improvements for that matter, is like outsourcing work. As opposed to hiring people, the contracts(in our case, SIPs) that go out can/or not be renewed. That versus if you were to hire a team to build out the platform, and then having to downsize (or even retrench them) if it doesn’t work out, is way more costly.

Do I think that TSB can be more efficient? Yes. But we cant force our priorities on them either. Which is why going through the DAO and letting us(community) decide what and who we want with the funding we are given is the next best thing.

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‘Most necessary’ is a matter of perspective. Is it most necessary to:
Fix/improve GM and client?
Revamp TSB’s marketplace?
Improve UGC engagement?
Launch subsequent Seasons to continue engaging and expanding player base?
Implement resizing of GM/VE/client?
Build out a UGC platform with multiple features?

There’s plenty more of necessaries.

Ask different people and they will rank all these examples differently.

SIP 21 is a good example. A majority agrees that fixing resizing should be a priority, and you and I agree it isn’t.

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Let’s look at it from a different perspective. Because I assume that everyone has complaints about the progress of the system as creators and players.

So what are these complaints, let’s take some examples:

A dedicated space for UGCs.
Insufficient bandwidth.
Problems with gameplay (Lag FPS etc.)
Basic improvements to Game Maker to keep creators comfortable.

For 5 years

there has been no space for UGCs.
Lag - FPS problem could not be solved. Because there are performance issues.
Simple improvements cannot be made for Game Maker.

For example, when version 9 was released, the improvements needed for GM could have been made instead of releasing 10 immediately afterwards.

The only reason for these is that TSB is going FAST to innovate. constant innovations bring bugs and problems with them. if the focus is on solving the basic problems, today UGC Platform should be a separate area from TSB. We wouldn’t be talking about things like whether we should give grants from DAO.

Builders Challenge is being organized. There is no space for creators to enter their Events. How hard would it be to add 1 form on the website and a UGC tab in the Events area? UGCs already distribute prizes manually.

Even experience pages were added after a very long time.
SIP opened here for Multi Window - Fixing Resize (should have been done already)

Does the SAND token need to make ATH for these things to be done?
These seem to me to be planning problems rather than financial problems. Correct me if I am wrong. I don’t think the Community should be the one to fix it.

Why is a new version coming out so soon when the current version of Game Maker and Game Client is only just stabilized? Is there such an urgent need? It comes with a lot of bugs and all the focus shifts there? Nothing else can be done. Does that make sense?

Yes. And no.

No.
Because I would have preferred to do the Basic enhancements that Creators need while GM.9 is stable. There was no rush for V10 and V.11.

Yes.
V.11 is on the way and it has a lot of bugs. I think they will affect 90% of the experiences. The focus should be there now.

If the site is optimized for UGCs, the Sandbox won’t have to struggle to attract players. UGCs will already do that instead of Sandbox. It will only be enough to organize a Builder’s Challenge.

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I vote “None of the proposals” on SIP-19 because no solid arguments have been presented at the moment to justify the need for having two UGC platforms. Some main concerns remain unanswered:

  • What are the specific deficiencies of the current UGC platform that make a second UGC platform necessary?
  • How will this new platform prevent it from dividing and diluting the current low platform’s traffic?
  • How will UGC creators (big/small studios, solo devs) compete with the experiences of Big Brands that already have greater exposure with more budget and that will remain on the current platform or even official Sandbox’s experiences?
  • If a new UGC platform proves to be necessary, should its budget come from the DAO Treasury?
  • If the new UGC platform proves unnecessary or does not meet expectations, what steps will be taken to prevent it from being a waste of DAO resources?

No prior proposal or argument from the The Sandbox, or the DAO Admin Team demonstrated this necessity before and after issuing the RFP. Although the two teams that submitted The Council QA and Wakeup Labs demonstrated that they were very capable of creating this platform (and they would do an incredible job if any of them are selected for votation to make the proposal), the need for it was never properly established—a responsibility that rest on The Sandbox, the DAO Admin Team, or who authored this RFP.

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Fair points and I agree with you.

The point is that there’s way more stuff TSB has to catch up on, and adding the creation of a UGC platform on the main page will just be another item on their plate, and it’ll likely not be a priority because of all the issues you’ve mentioned.

Which is why I’m fully supportive of The Council building up that platform, because of their extensive knowledge and connections of all things TSB.

Its as close as we can get to getting TSB to build it out, without actually getting TSB to do it.

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Hey @rocksymiguel, I’ll answer point by point.

  1. There are a lot of missing features on the current platform that we plan to have on ours. I listed a bunch in this twitter thread, but I’ll list them shortly here too: notification system; a reply system in comments so you can hold actual conversations; player profile XP and leveling to gamify the discovery of experiences; daily and weekly quests focused around players finding new experiences to play and rating/commenting/engaging with the community; community built challenges; event planner for builders to make their own seasons; pass minting/bridging system to enable affordable monetization for game creators; and more. The goal here is to keep players coming back because they’re having fun and they’re discovering things they didn’t know were out there.

  2. I already plan on working with TSB’s dashboard director (a long time Wizzy fan, and the first person from TSB I ever met IRL) on how we can integrate synergistically with the existing dashboard. Ideally a lot of elements will be automatic, making your UGC profile basically the same as the TSB one. Sort of how a Google account can be used for Drive, Youtube, and Gmail. So while we may have more features, it should just be a matter of preference which platform you’re engaging in. But the playcounter/leaderboard/etc. is all counting in the same place.

  3. We have no plans on promoting studios over small creators. While we may have a news feed that mentions official TSB events which could be featuring their partners, those studios will need to engage with the UGC platform to be visible there. Only by actually engaging with the community like solo devs and small studios do will they get the same sort of traction. There will be random and algorithmic aspects to discovery which will not favor brand names at all, and there will be specific incentives to finding small and unknown creators (in the quests). More important than staff curation of experiences will be player curation, where you’ll be able to follow what friends are rating highly and suggesting. Now there are plans to monetize the platform by allowing for ad purchasing. But promoted games will be clearly marked, and not designed to overwhelm the discovery mechanics which will be adjusted as needed to keep promoting hidden gems.

  4. That would be up to the DAO to vote on. I’d hope that our platform meets everyone’s needs but if another platform needs to get made and the DAO wants to fund it then so be it. Our monetization plan has the goal of maintaining and expanding the site to allow it to grow to meet these needs - or the DAO could decide to fund more development. We’ll see what that future holds.

  5. The proposal includes a specific schedule of fund disbursements in five 20% chunks as laid out on the last two pages of the write-up. I’m not sure how it would be written out contractually, but I’m under the impression that if we were failing to meet our objectives, or if the DAO decided to cancel the work, then the DAO could just refuse to pay and we’d discontinue working. Maybe @Geraldine can elaborate on that? The goal is that the site becomes self-sufficient and a source of passive profit for the DAO. The DAO is not beholden to upkeep costs, so even if the site fails, the DAO will not have a financial burden for the site simply existing. If the site could not pay it’s own hosting/domain/etc. fees then the site would shut down.

And on the last bit I agree. I hope future RFPs are something that the DAO gets to discuss and vote on before the RFP “goes live” and has teams putting in work to develop pitches before the DAO has had a consensus on actually establishing the project is wanted.

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This is actually the nature of the Alpha stage of development. Piling on features and making the thing you want it to be. Beta phase is smoothing it out, making sure it runs well, cutting out what shouldn’t still be in there. TSB has certainly had an unusual blend of live events mixed with alpha stage development. I don’t always understand it myself, even being on the team, but it’s an exciting (if sometimes overwhelming) adventure.

I’m not sure how much I’m actually allowed to say related to bandwidth issues. But I can say there are just other focuses at the moment. My hope is that should this site be funded, it will be able to more nimbly innovate without the other priorities of the main TSB site. Then maybe TSB can “steal” our good ideas when it sees them working.

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The problem is that the process is moving too fast.

Does it make sense to open a Continuous SIP here and get approval for things that should have been done already and push the team even harder?

Or is it better to finish all the small improvements, stabilize and work on V11 while V.10 is stable and there is no rush for V11?

I agree with everyone, as much as it needs. Your idea is good because TSB said that in 2025 there will be no development on the site for UGCs. A UGC Platform does nothing for UGC. Tragically funny.

@Lanzer is right. small improvements should have been done already. SIP should not have happened.

TSB is right on one point. Yes they are busy. Since they are in the Alpha phase, nobody says anything when there is a problem or a bug. On the contrary, they defend it by saying that they are in the Alpha process.

But this intensity is created by their lack of planning. This is the point I want to make.

As for bandwidth, even if you didn’t say it, it is something that is obvious. it is already one of the main reasons for complaints. Someone who understands a little bit of delevopment/software will question this first.

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