As we’re about to close the chapter of 2024 and look towards the dawn of a new year, we’ve been asking some of the key members of the blockchain gaming sector about their thoughts on the past year and what they expect in 2025.
Sebastien Borget is co-founder and COO of The Sandbox.
What was the most significant trend for the sector of 2024?
The rise of TON, which has proven that with the strength of its 900 million user base and the distribution it brings, network effects in action can help propel applications and games towards millions of users in a timelapse never seen before. Despite the simplicity of the mini-apps and games, which mostly consist of hypercasual games and idle-clickers, they have reached over 10 million users in a few days and onboarded more people to crypto and web3.
In 2024, the most popular web3 applications are the simplest ones, proving that you do not always need to build triple-A games to match the demand of users. It’s always exciting to observe the success of new entrants in the sector and see how this new wave of adoption will turn into long term engagement and retention for game developers and creators.
Telegram mini-apps are to mobile gaming what HTML5 was to mobile advertising – a new way for people to get instant snap-on experiences and a try before you buy approach, which drove developers to rethink the technology and its accessibility.
How did the focus of your business change this year?
While our mission always remains to empower anyone to become a creator, this year we put a special focus on our no-code Game Maker tool to make it easier for first time creators to make games with us. This positioned The Sandbox as one of the most accessible game creation platforms. Just this year, over 1,500 experiences have been published and are now playable on The Sandbox map.
The limitations of our Game Maker is that industry professionals cannot adapt their games and skills using the traditional engines they’re familiar with. While it did onboard new creators, we weren’t able to reach more established game studios.
The main shift in our business this year is viewing The Sandbox as a broader gaming ecosystem supported by our SAND token.
Last August, we announced the Voxel Games Program which empowers indie developers and gaming studios to develop games using their preferred technology and engines (Unity, Unreal, HTML5, etc) across mobile, web and desktop platforms. The program offers proven gameplays with both free-to-play and ad monetization models, enabling users to connect their wallet and benefit from their SAND tokens, LANDS, avatars and all of their NFTs acquired in The Sandbox. These games will have the voxel-style graphics that The Sandbox is known for, but also reach mainstream audiences on different platforms, advancing adoption of true digital ownership.
What do you predict will be the most important trends in 2025?
Web3 gaming has never been as big as it is today, with millions of users on Telegram mini-apps, games like Pixels and Axie Infinity on Ronin, Off The Grid on Avalanche, Cross the Ages on Immutable, and of course The Sandbox on Ethereum/Polygon – yet it is more fragmented than it has ever been.
These different blockchain ecosystems coexist with very little permeability of their audience from one game to another. We’re seeing an increase in the launch of app chains and roll-ups like Abstract, XPLA, Xsolla Chain, etc., which contradicts the principle of interoperability and decentralization. In 2025, more cross-chain solutions will appear that will address this issue and ensure users can swiftly move assets and liquidity across any of these ecosystems.
UGC will continue to grow as we see more players wanting to make their own content and games. Alongside this, there will also be more crossover between mainstream/well-known brands and web3 gaming. Ownership of your own creations and collaborative content with famous characters and brands are what make web3 appealing to a mainstream audience.
What was your favourite blockchain game of the year?
Cross the Ages.
What’s your New Year’s resolution and what resolution would you enforce on the industry?
My New Year’s resolution for 2025 is to focus on improving what we’re already doing best. The Sandbox is a lifetime journey – together with my co-founder and CEO Arthur Madrid, we are continuing to iterate on-building the platform, improving our Game Maker/creation tools as well as LiveOps with more events next year so we can engage more players to achieve our vision. With more brand partnerships and more decentralization, the metaverse will continue to expand for the next 10+ years.
For the industry, we hope to see even more games launched in 2025 that target broader audiences and deliver fun experiences, while leveraging digital ownership.
Check out all the 2024 End-of-Year interviews here >>