The Sandbox Blockchain Gaming Platform Partners with the Smurfs to Create Virtual Smurfs Village LAND and Offer NFTs Digital Assets to its Creators Community
Revolutionary Blockchain-based Gaming Metaverse Will Feature Smurfs Games and Digital Assets (NFTs) On Its Platform
SAN FRANCISCO – October 29, 2020 – Animoca Brands and its subsidiary The Sandbox, a leading decentralized gaming virtual world, announced today it is partnering with IMPS, official licensor of the Smurfs that has facilitated the download of over 175 million digital games from partners, to bring the lovable blue Smurfs characters and their Smurf Village world to The Sandbox metaverse. Through the agreement, The Sandbox players will be able to socialize in a virtual Smurf Village virtual land, play adventure games using their favorite characters from the IP, and purchase Smurfs-themed in-game content to use for building their very own Smurfs games and worlds.
The Sandbox is building a unique virtual world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences using NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and $SAND, the main utility token of the platform. The Sandbox’s vision is to offer a deeply immersive metaverse in which virtual worlds and games will be created collaboratively and without central authority. The Sandbox has secured over 60 partnerships, including Care Bears, Atari, CryptoKitties, and Shaun the Sheep, to build a fun, creative “play-to-earn” platform that offers virtual worlds and game experiences owned and created by players.
The Sandbox is scheduled to launch its first Player’s Beta in December 2020, enabling them to build a fantastic collection of NFTs and resources and trade them with other players, creators, artists etc on the platform. This business model is called play-to-earn, as anything they collect in the game is truly owned by players, they can trade it to other players (inside the marketplace or outside on other websites), transfer it to other players or even resell it through our currency $SAND.
VoxEdit allows any player to make his own NFTs on The Sandbox platform
Known for building happiness since 1958, the Smurfs are a powerful and iconic brand with an astounding 95% global awareness. The Smurfs began life as comic book characters created by Pierre Culliford, better known under his pseudonym, Peyo, in the series “Johan and Peewit”. The little blue characters’ appearance was met with such success that they went on their own adventures in a dedicated comic book series, which is still ongoing. In 1981, The Smurf stories were adapted for television by Hanna-Barbera, a run that lasted for nine seasons. After the first showing on NBC, a worldwide roll-out of the classic cartoon series made The Smurfs famous worldwide. With three blockbuster animated movies grossing over $1.2 billion, as well as over 120 publishers and 100 broadcasters in more than 100 territories worldwide, 700 active licenses, and five theme parks, The Smurfs brand is stronger than ever with a brand new 3D-CGI Smurfs series now in production by Peyo Productions and its co-production partner, Dupuis Édition & Audiovisuel.
Under the terms of the The Smurfs agreement for The Sandbox, IMPS will receive large digital spaces, known as LANDS, in the gaming metaverse. On these LANDS, a 3D voxelized version of the forest home of the Smurfs, Smurf Village, will be made available for players to explore when The Sandbox publicly launches later this year, complete with Smurfs-themed environment, attractions, games, and buildings with which to interact. Players will be able to play and create games with their favorite Smurf characters such as Smurfette, Papa Smurf, Azrael, or Brainy Smurf. Furthermore, IMPS and The Sandbox have the right to produce and distribute Smurfs-inspired collectible in-game ASSETS for game creators to use in their own games, tokenized on the blockchain as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The Sandbox is designed to support deeply immersive gaming experiences that can be shared socially, and players will be able to meet and chat in The Sandbox Smurf Village LAND using their Avatar characters in addition to playing together.
The Smurfs NFTs will be sold as Premium ASSETS in the upcoming LAND Presale on November 12th. Read more in this article:
https://medium.com/sandbox-game/announcing-the-sandbox-land-presale-4-3-the-last-and-biggest-land-presale-with-smurfs-31ece7890b
The Smurfs will be part of the upcoming The Sandbox LAND presale
“Bringing the Smurfs to The Sandbox gaming metaverse through this licensing agreement is like inviting favorite friends from childhood over to have a playdate. Our players will be able to create their own Smurf adventures & explore Smurf LANDS, play Smurfs games, and collect and trade their favorite characters as NFTs just as I collected Smurfs toys, figurines, and books when I was a child,” said Sebastien Borget, COO & Co-Founder of The Sandbox. “The worldwide popularity of the Smurfs across multiple generations will further fuel mainstream adoption of NFTs and blockchain technology through the powerful combination of global brands united with compelling user-generated content on The Sandbox.”
“I am very proud of this beautiful partnership between The Sandbox and our little blue elves, we have the same true values and as a fan of games I look forward to the release on the market!” said Véronique Culliford, Founder and President of IMPS, and Daughter of Peyo
LANDS are the main access to publishing games and earning $SAND in The Sandbox
The Sandbox game franchise is one of the world’s largest independent user-generated content and gaming platforms, with 40 million downloads and over one million monthly active users. The upcoming 3D based blockchain version of The Sandbox – which introduces new creative and commercial possibilities by allowing users to create 3D items and gaming worlds from the digital equivalent of building blocks – has been named one of the top 10 most anticipated blockchain games globally and one of the Top 50 Blockchain Gaming companies in the world (source: BlockchainGamer.biz).
Creators can download the Game Maker at http://gamemaker.sandbox.game
About The Sandbox
The Sandbox team is a leading creator of world-building experiences with over 40 senior staff with 10+ years of experience building and maintaining game live operations with millions of players. The Sandbox is a community-driven gaming platform that will allow creators to monetize assets and gaming experiences on a blockchain, allowing them to benefit from their creations. Scheduled for release in December 2020 and building on existing The Sandbox IP that has more than 40 million global installs on mobile, The Sandbox will offer players and creators a decentralized and intuitive platform to create immersive 3D worlds and game experiences and to safely store, trade, and monetize creations through blockchain. For more information, please visit www.sandbox.game and follow the regular updates on Medium and Discord.
About Animoca Brands
Animoca Brands is a leader in the field of digital entertainment, specializing in blockchain, gamification, and artificial intelligence technologies to develop and publish a broad portfolio of mobile products including games such as The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes as well as products utilizing popular intellectual properties such as Formula 1®, Marvel, Garfield, Snoopy, Thomas & Friends™, Power Rangers, MotoGP, and Doraemon. Animoca Brands’ portfolio of blockchain investments and partnerships includes Lucid Sight, Dapper Labs (creators of CryptoKitties), WAX, Harmony, and Decentraland. The Company is based in Hong Kong, United States, South Korea, Finland, Argentina, and the Czech Republic. For more information visit www.animocabrands.com or get updates by following Animoca Brands on Facebook or Twitter.
About IMPS / Lafig (International Merchandising Promotions & Services) - THE SMURFS
IMPS, is the official licensors of the little blue-skinned characters ‘The Smurfs’. Over the years, IMPS (since 1984) has worked in close collaboration with their agents worldwide to develop successful licensed merchandising programs, retail- and co-branded promotions, publishing activities, broadcasting deals, theme parks, family entertainment centers, live shows, video games, online games, Smurf music … that have secured the everlasting success of the Smurfs.
IMPS is run by Véronique Culliford, the daughter of Pierre Culliford, the creator of the Smurfs, who is better known under his pseudonym Peyo.
Smurfs New Tv Series
A Peyo Productions and Dupuis Audiovisuel production, in collaboration with KIKA, TF1, VRT and RTBF, with the participation of Wallimage (La Wallonie), of Screen Flanders, of BNPPFFF and with the support of the Tax Shelter of the Belgian Government and the participation of the CNC