There was a general mail i think put out in march that asked for submissions for s4
Hello everyone, it seems that my experiences are not in the table for either the first two or the 3-4 week periods. Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and how to fix it?
Its… a strategy no doubt… Perhaps the next round of games will include Stay2Earn
We actively discouraged AFK before this ranking came out but it seems we now have to take certain measures in order to counteract the exploits that are pushing us further and further down the rankings each 2 week period. It’s clear the top 3 games are taking advantage of no anti-cheat + anti-afk.
We got similar playtime in weeks 3-4 as we did in 1-2, and we’ve gone from 2nd in the initial rankings (with anti-cheat), to 15th here.
We’ve spent a long time building up a solid community of active players, each playing 2+ hours in our game a day, yet we’re way down the ranking. We’ve given away thousands of SAND to players, yet the top 3 games have no competitions. It’s really hard for the players who have put so many hours in to not get properly rewarded for their time.
We’re in a system which has forced us creators to compete against one another in a race to get top 3. The crazy top heavy ranking structure has created an overly competitive environment. Either you get a game in the top 3, or you and your community are screwed.
We want to be able to continue building games on this platform, as does everyone here. 3000 SAND every 2 weeks (for 4th place?!) is nowhere near enough to sustain a studio whilst also rewarding players. It’s far too stressful being a creator on The Sandbox right now, something needs to change quickly otherwise we’re going to see many creators and studios pushed out, and players too.
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So to recap: Bot our games using telegram bots, duplicate the same experience on multiple lands (and if you just have one you can just use the same land, don’t matter), and finally, just suck the life away from our audiences.
(Not blaming anyone for these tactics, just pointing out what TSB is encouraging.)
@TSBCreators FTFY 
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The only positive action from The Sandbox I’ve seen lately is clearing all the negativity off of Twitter to here. 
Well played. 
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Yes Tushay. It seems to be the case for everyone who wants to thrive and somehow showcase their work and achieve prominent positions, whether for SAND rewards or just to be in highlighted spots. What other options do the Creators/Studios have when it seems to be encouraged to do?
When community feedback is given, often in advance of events, and unfortunately there is no action taken to clearly define the situations, we end up facing a sea of “seemingly” undesirable circumstances.
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I have an honest question here for all the studios that are complaining.
Why is your business model based solely on getting rewards from TSB itself?
I keep seeing the same pattern over and over. “We can’t survive if TSB doesn’t pay us.”
Why?
So if tomorrow, TSB decides to stop paying anybody, be it BC 2 or Game Jams, all the studios will close shop?
Whatever happened to monetisation strategies? Is it a fact that most of the studios that complain about not making money from BC 2 lacking that?
Is the only source of funds available only through TSB? Because most studios in the gaming industry sell products in 1 form or other to their consumers. No one sustains their business just solely only grants given out by the parent company.
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OMG, bombs dropped here! 
Out of the 70 messages so far, these are the ones I want the most response from TSB! 
Thanks for it @TobeyU
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You know what, fxxk the leaderboard, the botting, the mass publishing etc.
The crux of the matter is that.
I can bet, many of said studios will not have an answer for it.
I don’t question the talents the studios bring, but I do question their business acumen.
I used to sympathise with studios bc they hired creators, but this week’s leaderboard mishap has shown truly how the problem isn’t just with TSB.
Dude, what’s your point?
All I understand from your replies is telling us to understand TSB as it is and shrug the whole thing off. What happened to this?
Do you really see our side? I don’t get it. I don’t think you understand that the reason we’re being vocal here is because we want to save TSB from the shambles it’s imposing upon itself and as we concerned builders foresee if this goes on. And it seems like, you are 100% with that… If you think you aren’t, read your replies again. You’re an outsider as you said, right? So just DON’T try defend something you don’t understand our concerns well and redirect us with just running away from all of these.
We want it to strive along with ourselves. It has given us this kind of opportunity that many solo artists/devs or previous non-devs/artists found refuge with. Seb just mentioned that in one of his posts : TSB has encouraged first time builders in their platform.
They’re all for community, right? That’s what they said… And we’re doing our part to help TSB to the right direction were they promised this to be a metaverse with quality content: Check Dankoy’s post for screenshots etc.
It sucks to let go of something you’ve worked so hard. You just don’t throw away things because you don’t like it anymore. You wait, you observe, you reflect, you fight for it until you can’t. Unfortunately, a lot already can’t, and I can’t blame it. I’m probably close to it if this “shrug it off” mindset won’t change.
And you here, after all that is said by the ACTUAL builders, you still encourage to just “shrug it off, go find something else.” It’s easy for you to say because you’re not a builder. You don’t know the feelings of builders here. So just DON’T tell us to shrug it off like it’s nothing. Probably have let you off the hook if you only said it once (not literally, but expressed). But dude, it’s the same message across all of your replies. Like why are you even here? You’re trying to tame us? You’re trying to wake us from something? Maybe it’s all with good intention but come on, read between the lines.
There’s a fix to what you think TSB is having problems with. A company wouldn’t strive if they would say “we’re stretched too thin.” THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. “we don’t know how to do things yet.” THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. ETC ETC ETC. Because if you don’t do something about a problem, leave it like that, then you just don’t care.
But WE BUILDERS DO CARE.
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Don’t worry, Studios have them.
That’s why I forward the questions to TSB.
Honestly, the questions you asked are really good, but they were directed to the wrong entity.
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May I ask a stupid question here?
My experiences went through a QA round for an upcoming event and the feedback and metrics are awesome in my opinion. Furthermore, the descriptions of the QA metrics are crystal clear. That gives me as a creator the information to improve my experiences in multiple areas. Here is my stupid question:
Why can’t the BC2 Experience List goes through the same QA process before announcing the leaderboard?
- 410 qualifying experiences, 10mins of QA for each experience on the list = 68 Man Hours [MH] required.
- Add loading time of 10% = ~75 MH
- A team of 5 clears all experiences in 25 MHs ==> 5 Days of QA.
Worst Case scenario is 5 Days of QAs. There will be experiences that can be eliminated off the bat since it might be duplicates, or even just “cheating”…
We can even only do it for the top 100 then it would bring the MH down to 16 which 3 person can clear in 3 Days.
**Before anyone bashes me… I know the experiences might be “subjective” in terms of fun! But we all know and we all know that we all know on what makes a relatively okay experience per se. No empty Land with 1 Flower in the middle to pick that sort of experience. No duplicates with just 1 different Assets. I believe the keyword is the effort… Even if you’re a newcomer and decided to make a game with just 1 Rule. It is fine if you are making the effort to learn. The community has a lot of trainers and educators to help you speed up the learning. I believe most of us do not want to have a sort of community we are gaming the extraction of resources as much as possible with minimal effort. Doesn’t bode well long term for any of us.
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My point is that everyone is hurting.
Everyone wants their side heard. EVERYONE.
I can emphatise with many of the legitimate points that have been made here regarding botting etc.
But I, as a “supposed” outsider, can also see that while everyone is making themselves out to be the underdog and TSB the villain, it’s almost as if there’s a mob mentality here.
TSB is incompetent. TSB screwed up. TSB has done it again. I’m leaving, for the 100th time.
This is all I see: criticism, threats, picking on failures.
I can’t make out who’s the underdog here anymore.
And I’d like to know, from your POV, and I’m assuming you are a studio, have you tried running it any other way other than relying on rewards as your largest source of income?
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You haven’t heard mine yet. So go make some time, because soon you’ll know what I want to say, and I would start since my school days.
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Thank you. And if they have the answers, I’d like to hear from them too.
I run a business myself, and while I started off with govt grants, I’ve learnt from the very beginning that that grant will cut off after awhile.
I grew my business, it’s not highly profitable, but sustainable. I’ve had to pivot my business model multiple times in the process.
I had to adapt.
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And yet, you focus or fixate yourself on the studios because?
And yet, you only see criticism: threats, picking on failures. Did you turn a blind eye on the suggestions, feelings, frustrations, stories, analysis, and will of those who have complained? Did you selectively read?
To answer your last question, yes we are not relying on just rewards. And we have had income from other things. So if one or many of the studios here would say, “yeah we’re actually just relying on rewards as our income.” So you pack it up, you win. Congrats?
I’m voicing out because I’m don’t want to tolerate the “shrug it off” mentality. It’s not good for TSB and builders. Do you really want an environment where low quality and cheating is fostered 90%. Didn’t you see the conclusions others have made in the previous posts? That “you know what, let’s just cheat, that’s how it is anyway.” Like that effin sOcks.
After all these, TSB will make a choice. We said what we said, the others will probably say more. TSB will be the end all be all of the decision. So they either do better or have the same mindset as yours.
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I think you and I should take a breather.
It seems like I’ve touched a raw nerve just asking questions while facing the other side.
I’m sympathetic towards TSB because it has been just less than a year since open publishing has begun.
And it is just the second round BC.
Sure, there are inherent shortcomings, but I believe they are trying, and they have to make tough, unpopular and sometimes, wrong decisions in order to learn from it. And I also believe they are thoroughly short-handed.
I’ve seen them communicating vigorously, be it through BC, or the DAO. And yes while ideas may have fallen through, I feel that we as a community should also be kinder with our words.
If you’ve held events before, you’d know how harsh people can be when giving feedbacks.
So, yes, be kind.
This my POV. I am a studio consisting solely of me, myself and I. That is 3 mouths to feed 3 times a day. It gets expensive. However, I am not trying to solely survive on TSB’s blessing. That is just poor biz acumen like you said. What I cannot condone is this hit and run strategy from studios that are supposed to be the “best” of us. They pave the way; they can set a standard. Not this scummy way just to make 40K sand per 2 weeks. It just makes the platform less palatable. Studios do it and some creators will follow and it’s just downhill from there.
FYI, I am not hurting btw. I find this an interesting play of events actually. From Week 1/2 's over tuning of parameters to Week3/4’s under tuning of it. I even wrote that exact sentiment in Week1/2 Topic in forum. It’s bound to happen. I am even a little embarrassed that 2 of my experience which I didn’t intended for it to be in this round of BC2 to qualify due to the removal of the 10 unique players rule [Astrowalk, PlayPan 2.0]. So, I just give the SAND to other creators that makes nice equipment. Even bought a couple of the 50% multiplier NFT to support TSB back.
We as a community together with TSB can learn and work together to improve this BC. Learning from mistakes is part of the journey as I always tell my students. It isn’t wrong to make them. Looking through data is my fetish, so if TSB would like a pair of hands and eyes to help, I would gladly do it free… The suggestions us creators give are there in hopes to improve the overall system structure, not to just bash TSB willy nilly. There is no good outcome of it. Like I always say: APES TGT STRONK!
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You must be new if you think all we do is complain. Not sure who you actually are since you just created this account yesterday to comment on this specific post, but here’s a quick recap of the last few years that we’ve been developing studios in TSB:
2021 (Year 0) - Started off slow, all of us learning and competing in Game Jams. Yes, that was our main source of revenue. We weren’t really studios yet, so much as we were beginning to learn who we worked well with. Meta rebrand midway through the year. All eyes on TSB. We started getting knocks at the door in every direction with people throwing money at us to build things for them. Things are looking great. Hey, maybe we can start a business doing this? Let’s all try at the same exact time. TSB is super excited about this. We all start to hire.
2022 (Year 1) - Business are formed. People are hired. We’re all doing work for clients and getting calls from people we never thought we would work for. Do I want to take a call with Atari? Are you fucking kidding? Hell yes. But wait, the market is slowing down… hmm, whatever. Metaverse baby! We’re hiring, growing teams, building cool shit. But the platform? Hasn’t caught up to us… so we can’t launch things. But soon™! Anyway… clients get tired of hearing that. By the end of 2022 SAND and Sandbox sentiment is both down 90% or more.
2023 (Year 2) - Hello? Anyone out there? It’s us! We’re still building! Hmm… maybe I’ll knock on doors. I must have pitched to 120+ companies in those 12 months. Any bites? Yeah, three clients on discount. Were we the only ones? Am I doing something wrong? Maybe I’ll ask… nope. Sounds like no one has any work. Alright… well at least the market is picking back up. Surely that means NFTs and Metaverse hype will return, right? Right? Hmm… hard to sustain a company in these conditions. Better tell TSB this is becoming a problem, maybe they can give us some of these brands to work with, right?.. Right?
2024 (Year 3) - “Will build games for food”… Hey team, uh… difficult chat here but not sure how we’re going to keep this up. Got enough to keep us going this year but we need to figure someth-- Oh wait… what’s this Builder’s Challenge thing? Alright, well, this is going to be easier than sending 120 more pitches this year. Let’s give it a shot.
And here we are. So, while our businesses don’t completely rely on rewards, it turns out that rewards are way easier to get than clients in 2024. Should this be the way things are? No. Absolutley not. I would love to not pay attention to this builders challenge and go back to making games for brands, but I’m not in that position at the moment.
Also, completely aside from all this, why does any of this excuse us wanting the platform to do right by creators?
We know these competitions are getting exploited to hell and back, and we’re sick of seeing money given to people who don’t care about this platform rather than reinvested into those that will help it grow.
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