Weekly Rankings Update: Builder’s Challenge N°2 – Week 3+4 🌟

[TSBCreators]

Hi everyone,

We appreciate your feedback and understand your concerns. We apologize for any frustration caused to creators. On our side, we are working hard to improve processes and systems every week, as well as actively implementing the feedback we receive here and directly.

We are aware of suspicious activity. Due to changes made to the anti-cheat system, reviewing this activity now requires more manual work. In parallel, we recognize the community’s need for timely rankings, so we published them while our reviews are ongoing. Based on the results of these reviews, which we expect to complete by mid-next week, the charts may be updated. The review process is taking time, especially for builder studios that have been around for a while and worked closely with the ecosystem. We want to ensure a fair process, which includes direct conversations with the creators.

We acknowledge that the BC has not satisfied the entire community. As mentioned in the past, the original goal of the BC was to reward engaging experiences, support creators who could build communities, and increase the number of experiences published on the map.

Whatever shape or form the next iteration of the BC takes, it will be community-driven and vetted on this forum. We will post a thread for this in a couple of weeks that will include the takeaways from the current discussion.

Thank you,

BC team

[AndyRichy]

This is a rather poor response really… but I guess we will wait again for another week just to build the tension.

[TobeyU]

Ok thanks for clarifying. I initially didn’t think it was an issue as raids happen in other games as well as TSB.

But with all the suggestions, I’m afraid I might get flagged for doing so.

As for the Builder’s Launchpad, I have pals who have been accepted into it, completed the QA, featured and received rewards as well. As to the selection process, I’m not sure how long it takes.

[TobeyU]

Thanks for the update. I guess from now on we can expect a possibility of 2 different lbs for each 2 week results.

[TomVoxel]

If this is the case, then the first post with leaderboard missed “DISCLAINER: Following leaderboard has not been filtered by our anti-cheat system. Results are not final! It is raw data and might include experiences that will later be eliminated.”

This sentence would help a lot and avoid part of what we can see in comments above. Hope to see it for the next Leaderboard as it feels like a crucial detail.

Thank you for your understanding.

[cryptokoosha]

The review process is taking time, especially for builder studios that have been around for a while and worked closely with the ecosystem.

What does this mean? shouldn’t those studios have the clearest data and the most legit ones?

[YuelWolf]

Feedback on BC2 from Ashara Studios

Hello, Team Sandbox. We at Ashara Studios would like to offer our feedback regarding BC2.

Why It’s Not Working

1. The Bot War: I understand that when you wanted to launch this model, you based it on the Unreal Fortnite Editor system. The problem is that in this model, the creator doesn’t have to focus on user acquisition but on retention, clearly delineating Platform vs. Creator responsibilities. Here, you gave user acquisition responsibility to the creators without having a functioning anti-cheating system. As a result, you have cases like HKINDEX with two experiences offering a maximum of one minute of gameplay, no reward system, no social media, no community, and not even a functioning page. The most incredible case is Gats Studio; it took my team only three days of investigation to find out that their only social media with numbers is a telegram of ANNOUNCEMENTS with no community or interaction, no rewards, and playable experiences that do not offer good content or FTUE. This studio took over $200k from you, and all the creators who participated in BC1, including the players from various communities, noticed how a studio using bots took 40% of the engagement pool, and The Sandbox did nothing about it. You didn’t even follow up on the supposed military support campaign for Ukraine, which has no proof of being carried out. This is one of the biggest disasters, and you must be tough on banning these exploiters who know that with just 100 active bots a day, they can take the money from a platform many of us believe in and have worked on for years.
2. Featured Experiences & Social Media: The featured system is one of the most damaging systems currently for BC. An example of this is how the last two GJ experiences take top positions during BC for a short period and then disappear due to the low number of users being handled. Any help from TSB is critical to determining a winner, which is unfair to the teams participating without this help. Similarly, support for studios by publishing their events or giving immense visibility to a personal brand on their main social media puts the rest of the competitors at a disadvantage. A good system must be fair and have the same conditions for everyone.
3. Reward System: The reward system of the first BC was considerably better than this one. It makes no sense that if I have one less user than the top 3 and end up in the top 4, I only receive 15% of the earnings compared to the next position. This system seems like a terrible idea to control what happened in BC1, which could have been easily solved by banning the studio in question. Following this, the bonus given to the top 10 creators gave a respite to the studios seeing bots taking the necessary rewards to continue creating value in the ecosystem, being a very good idea. Finally, the fact that of the 25 million SAND that is to be executed this year according to the BC announcement, only 3 million are available, leaving time with your current model for only one more BC this year. This is a way to leave studios completely illiquid, as our colleagues Pickaxe Master have already pointed out. With these values, we will starve to death in no time.

Solutions

1. Ban Without Fear: In UFNE, if something does not meet the policies or something suspicious is noted, the Epic Games team has no qualms about banning the creator in question without any explanation. No decent person in this space will defend you banning HKINDEX, GATS Studios, or, for example, the creator with cloned lands exposed by Tuschay Studios (good investigative work, guys). Be tough, and you will get rid of all the bots and exploiters who see this as an ecosystem to bleed dry and not the future of web3 metaverses. The evaluation criteria are straightforward: Do they have social media? Do they have a community? Is there a justification for players to stay here for x time? Are there rewards? It’s very easy to see which studio is contributing what to the ecosystem.
2. Disable the Featured System for Games in BC: Stop promoting personal brands or studio events on The Sandbox’s main social media during BC periods.
3. Return to the BC1 System After Clearing the Bots: At least double the SAND pool, give rewards to creators who can accumulate a large number of hours and player retention with multiple experiences, and improve the system for identifying if an experience is new through systems for counting missions, blocks, and messages in the land (there are experiences with minimal modifications considered new).

This feedback comes from a studio dedicated to developing experiences and generating value for the ecosystem. We know we are not the only ones. We applaud the studios doing beautiful work in this space.

[TobeyU]

Why It’s Not Working

Agreed with point 1.

Point 2: Featured experiences is also a way for smaller creators to get visibility. You guys, the studios, may already have your own following, but don’t forget that there are also smaller indiv creators that don’t have to resources you do, and TSB has to also support them.

Mostly agree with point 3, except the fact that for one, i’m glad they’ve only released 3m SAND, unless u’d wish for BC 1 and 2 to have disbursed even more SAND to the suspicious studios in question.

I think studios, while justifiable that you want justice against malice especially with botting, should get it in their heads that they are not the only ones participating in BC 2.

And it again goes back to my point of why studios, who are already dominating Game Jams, also rely on BC 2 to support themselves and not other sources of income since The Sandbox is relatively new in terms of open publishing?

@YuelWolf

This is a way to leave studios completely illiquid, as our colleagues Pickaxe Master have already pointed out. With these values, we will starve to death in no time.

Idk, maybe this is a good wakeup call to all of you, that while you’ve had good times, you’ll also have bad and you need to prepare for that, otherwise, the whole industry needs to restructure.

[Vilaincoincoin]

Hello YuelWolf,

I noticed that players often don’t read the content found in the experiences and on the description pages.
It seems that you don’t read the entire discussion either…
I’m not going to repeat what I’ve already said, here is a copy-paste from before.

First of all, my LAND are my property, as the exclusive beneficiary I can dispose of them as I wish.
Considering the amount invested (higher than average), I do not need you to know how to diligently pursue my creative desires.
I would like to point out that none of my creations contain or propagate discriminatory ideas (contrary to your comment and with the punishment you wish me).
None of my experiences contain or propagate racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic or xenophobic ideas, thus respecting the charter and therefore the trust of TSB.
You alone seem to be able to dispense death and judgment, which seriously redefines the dimension of “private investor”, “creative subjectivity” and of course that of LANDOWNER…

I also draw attention to a trend that I think is important to highlight. I hope I’m wrong but I sometimes feel an unofficial “war” between small creators and studios like yours.
The biggest among you have the means, a team, equipment and legitimate links with TSB… that is to say everything I don’t have.
Publicly whipping me doesn’t affect me because we don’t play in the same playground, you belittle the little ones likely to eat one of your kibbles on a leaderboard that can accommodate 1000 experiences.
I give back on my “Shooting map” 80% of the rewards offered by TSB to new creators who start on VoxEdit (miniaturized GMF). A concept that seems to be totally foreign to you, or maybe you shine brighter than the light?
This proves that we all have the right to experience the TBS phenomenon freely and as we want, no decent person in this space will be mad at me for this sentence.

Would you like to decide for me what to put on my LANDs, I can replace them if you wish with fun parkours in a very short time, my Workspace contains thousands of assets…

As for robots, I don’t feel concerned either because the ten or so players visiting the “Shooting maps” are real people.
I know this for a very simple reason, I know some of them in real life, the others I know their voices in vocals. Your immutable justice must ban them too?
We have already participated in several events at TSB’s premises in Paris, where we are always
well received, I would like to point out. The investigative work you are referring to seems to be enough for you, that says a lot about your seriousness…
No, I am not a robot from a science fiction movie, my nephews call me “Uncle Sandbox”…
As for your “simple evaluation criteria”, I wonder…
You haven’t noticed that I have been trying to build a community since BC1?
You haven’t noticed that this community extends over 2 discords and 2 Twitters, including that of a group of creators who are especially French?
You haven’t noticed the rewards calendar during BC2, rewards that come from my wallet and not from the rewards offered by TSB?
I find it curious that you didn’t unleash the fires of hell from the first ranking because the library has been present in STORY and FPS versions since the beginning…
If it’s the number of LANDs that puts you in this state, I beg you to forgive me for my initial investment and I suggest you participate in the RAFFLE that I organize and which gives everyone the chance to win 2…
You are not credible, for my part, your words and your analyses are not trustworthy…

Just like you, I am surprised by the top1 and top2 even if I do not feel concerned by this level of the Leaderboard.
After consulting S.Borget’s answers on this subject, I do not know what to think. After all, it is quite possible that a large structure has federated in order to perpetuate their development…
There does not seem to be any media coverage of this, perhaps because they do not use the same alphabet… I do not know, I do not feel competent to clarify the top of the leaderboard.
Recently I proposed the idea of ​​making it so that an inactive player is automatically disconnected after a while, without being a programmer I think it is possible.
For me, an hour of play on the same MAP is a lot, I already have trouble captivating a player on Tokenfield for 30 minutes when there are 63 quests…

This leads me to raise a fact that has not been addressed, it seems to me, in the discussion.

Before slamming TSB as soon as an opportunity arises, it would be wise for the creators to also “clean up” their community!
it is enough to enforce a few common sense rules, I attach a screenshot as an example.

Finally, you can see from these few screenshots that my creations do not need any approval from you, even if yours must be much superior given the means at your disposal.

[TheStockerGATS]

Well, charity loves silence, but if Ashara Studio had made at least a $10 donation, they would have spent another $100 to boast about it.

The Sandbox team is aware of what our studio does for the people in Ukraine, but if you are so eager to dig into our underpants (business), well, be careful not to choke on what you find there:

PHOTO 1

Speaking of donations, I am ready to show you these screenshots of contributions made to a well-known fundraiser in Ukraine for drones at that time. I can’t show more to avoid hindering the goals and progress that follow from the financial support our fighters receive.

However, I am ready to show you my house, looted after the enemies troops arrived.

PHOTO 2

Nevertheless, this house served as a good logistical base for the generators and batteries I bought in Europe and sent to Ukraine.

PHOTO 3 and PHOTO 4.

[TheStockerGATS]

If you really want, I can also show you the mining farm that I bought from a Ukrainian and sent to people who lost their desktop PCs so they could work on laptops.

PHOTO 5

When it comes to low-quality games, please, show us and our guys, who sit without electricity for 18 hours a day working on generators between air raid alerts, how to build better.

PHOTO 6

[TheStockerGATS]

And yet, in my opinion, we create games that significantly exceed the average quality and innovation level of The Sandbox.

PHOTO 7

Want to say something about game genres? Then take a look at your phone, and you will be surprised that people play casual games much more than mid-core ones.

Oh yes, you also didn’t like that we just run a video blog where I speak openly about the prospects of The Sandbox metaverse.

PHOTO 8

And we have only 7,000 subscribers on Telegram (the main social network in Ukraine).

PHOTO 9

You also forgot to mention my 10 years of experience in marketing and sales. If you want, I can reveal tree secret concepts to you:

Audience selection
Understanding audience values
Cold sales

Knowing who our players are, their values, and how to work with cold traffic and targeted advertising, miracles can be achieved.

P.S. I’m glad you spent three days on the investigation; unfortunately, I spent a whole 20 minutes writing this response to you, which I won’t get back. And while you are busy with “investigations,” we will continue to promote The Sandbox globally and help its development.

P.P.S. As i did not write on forum yet, i could not add each image separately due to requirements of forum for new users here. Sorry everyone for quality.

[HaloGrak]

Why I cannot see my experience on this list. My experience’s name is “The Halo Adventure” by TheHalo

[Dankoyy]

I’m really quite lost right now.
Why are we talking about war in this community?
I can barely read, and my stomach already hurts.
This is my last message in this thread. I’ll be focusing on other situations like Catalysts.
Peace guys!

[PickaxeMaster]

I’ll add one last post into this thread, for the sake of being clear and not misunderstood.

Firstly I’d like to start by saying that, we are grateful for all that we were able to experience and accomplish on The Sandbox, from meeting amazing Creators and amazing Community members. The Sandbox helped to expand the Pickaxe Master IP into Web3 and I’m very grateful for all the journey we had in here.

Secondly, the fact that myself and other Creators are expressing here, is solely due to the fact that we care about The Sandbox and want to see the platform suceed, either by sharing personal feelings, bringing suggestions or by trying to bring light into subjects that don’t feel as transparent as they should be. We could be wrong, but please proove us we are wrong.

Third, @TobeyU back to your question, I don’t have to answer you or proove you anything. You can make any assumptions based on my answers as you please, that’s solely your point of view, not the truth itself just because you want it to be.

But since I’ve tagged you, let me answer your question:
We were always a small Studio, we never had more than 4 Developers in the team at any given point. We never participated in a Game Jam, neither we have ever approach to build for clients. Additionally, no team member on The Pickaxe Master works here full time, we all have day jobs. We are very conservative in spending and have saved for the hard times, while never declining in quality or commitment. The team is actually earning below half of the minimum wage, we create, because we love creating.

All funds we got so far, were mostly re-invested in the project for growth and development, which not only our development, but also indirectly making the Sandbox ecosystem grow as whole. Many Creaters like us, have also re-invested back their earned SAND to grow the Sandbox into a more complete ecosystem.

So answering directly yes/no to your question, we never had a successful monetization model, our Web3 business model involves micro-transactions, which is a topic we have been pushing forward since Day 1 we joined here.

Selling solely NFT’s is not a successful long term business model in The Sandbox, at least until we can have more practical tools to embody utility on them. Not even The Sandbox can sell out their Branded Avatar collections at this point, let alone UGC.
We would need more traditional monetization tools, to actually become a sustainable business inside The Sandbox. Comparissons to any other game/platform is irrelevant, as we don’t have the same monetization opportunities.

Whatever “devil’s advocate” role you are playing, is being perceived out as trolling, towards a lot of good people in here, that are just trying to innovate and develop on this platform. With this, I’d like to say you do have a lot of valid points, but try to see the full picture, not all is Black and White.

Lastly, it’s really so sad to see Creators fighting eachother and scaling to the point of personal attacks. The Sandbox always stated they wanted to compete with Roblox and Minecraft, where the ecosystem was welcoming both Studios and Solo Creators. The outcome is that neither Studios or Solo Creators are living up to those expectations set, not by us, but by The Sandbox. The result is being reflected here and it’s disheartening to read everyone’s situation.

I believe that the Builders Challenge is an amazing iniciative and again, hope it doesn’t rub the wrong way, it needs a lot of improvement and tweaks, but the fundamentals are there, it’s an amazing initiative. This should be complementary, not the main dish, we’re waiting for the ingredients to be able to cook ourselves the main dish.

We can change what we can change, and right now from what I see, is that we are either being forced to:

• Accept whatever we’re given.
• Fight agaisnt the current Sandbox paradigm.
• Move to other platforms and expand our IP somewhere else.

I don’t want to fight anymore, nor get headaches or feeling overwhelmed by frustration, that is not good for health or a good mental state. The Sandbox runs the company as they wish. So far I know, they can just take away the Builders Challenge for good, just not to hear complaints and backlash, and there is simply no rewards at all for any Creator, pooff gone. We’re just taking The Builders Challenge for granted.

I’ll end up by saying that, I sympathize with everyone’s struggles and appreciate everyone’s courage to step up to speak your hearts and mind. I hope the outcome of this discussion is positive and will pray for the best.

Stay strong, have hope and look out for yourselves.

[YuelWolf]

@TobeyU

Idk, maybe this is a good wakeup call to all of you, that while you’ve had good times, you’ll also have bad and you need to prepare for that, otherwise, the whole industry needs to restructure.

Hello TobeyU,

The visibility it’s perfectly okay but as I explained if these activities define who won during a bi-week period is unfair.

I agree that it was better start with little sand reward pool, but with the current reward system is unsustainable for studios.

What do you mean by good times? We started creating games in The Sandbox in 2022, right after the great fall of crypto. There haven’t been good times since then, just hard work and confidence that The Sandbox will become the most important metaverse. We believe in this because of the incredible possibilities that blockchain technology brings, but there haven’t been good times yet.

[YuelWolf]

Hello GATS,

• I appreciate that you are open to discussing these matters.
• I hope that you, your team, and his families are safe.

Now, we are not interested in your business. The fact that we see a mining farm leaves me with more concerns than clarifications. We know many game genres and have seven different games across seven different genres. As I mentioned, it’s an announcements-only Telegram, which doesn’t prove any interaction with real players. Please don’t reveal anything; I don’t want to know anything else. That is the job of The Sandbox Team.

There are people here with many years of experience in game design, game production, marketing, etc. It’s really easy to discover inconsistencies.

[TobeyU]

Thank you, for taking the time to clarify and for explaining why monetisation is still difficult in these early stages.

This is what I was hoping for, a reasonable explanation as to why studios can’t seem to sustain themselves through other mechanisms already available. I believe we can all agree that TSB has entered into a relatively new phase, be it in the open publishing, marketplace mechanisms, or BC. Previously, the environment was pretty much controlled by them but with the unleashing of open publishing brings about a whole different challenge.

Maybe to some it seems like trolling, but honestly nobody 100% understands the plight of the studios, just as nobody understands the plight of the single creator, or TSB for that matter.

I also do hope that while we pursue just causes, studios, creators, players and TSB doesn’t cruxify each other with baseless accusations, unfiltered tongues and threats of leaving.

[TobeyU]

Sorry, I assumed that most of the studios here complaining experienced what Tuschay mentioned, from the hype, boom and then bust. I figured perhaps it was frivolous spending without a care to prepare for bear markets that has led everyone to this state of illiquidity and tight finances.

I guess it’s fair to say that many assumptions, on mine and everyone’s part, has led us all down this path. After reading through what vilaincoincoin and Gatsmania has to say, I’d believe that many of the claims/accusations here seem unfounded, including my own.

It’d be good to hear from HKINDEX too to understand what’s going on before we all jump the gun. Either that or allow TSB to do their own investigations.

[Shakesbeer]

Significantly exceeding average And Arqonix says hi