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Atari launches Sunnyvale, a great new experience in The Sandbox metaverse. The virtual space is an ode to the golden age of video games and the cradle of Atari.
Sandbox, owned by Animoca Brands, recently unveiled its final Alpha 3 season with 90 new metaverse experiences. Atari is one of the largest owners of the Land, or virtual real estate, of The Sandbox. And now it appears willing to spend resources on the development of Earth, Atari X director Tyler Drewitz said in an interview with GamesBeat.
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New York-based Atari turned 50 this year and remains one of the most iconic brands among consumers and game makers. The Atari Sunnyvale Experience is based on nine classic Atari games and includes a full game based on Crystal Castles.
“We think people will enjoy the experience and it’s worth taking the time to do it,” Drewitz said. “Let’s find out what they want. This is a great entry point to Web3.
In Atari Sunnyvale, players can explore and interact with each other and non-player characters (NPCs) based on Atari characters.
Players can also participate in many quests and games, such as hide-and-seek, with winners receiving rewards. The Crystal Castles experience is a game where players navigate a maze-like castle, collect gems, and fight enemies. Crystal Castles is just the first of many games to come.
Sandbox is an immersive virtual world where players can create virtual worlds and games and participate in experiences created by others. The voxel gaming platform allows creators to create, play, share, collect and sell, all in a decentralized environment where they have secure ownership and copyright of their creations because all Game objects have unique, immutable blockchain ID. Atari Sunnyvale launches as part of the Alpha Season 3 Sandbox.
“We are very excited to share Atari Sunnyvale with the Sandbox community, and we know it will attract many Atari fans to the growing platform,” said Drewitz. “I’m especially looking forward to people experiencing the deep and beautiful environments based on our games created by our development partner, Metatworld Entertainment.”
Atari has sold some of its land in The Sandbox, but it remains one of the largest landowners in The Sandbox, and it will continue to work with partners to develop more experiences to include community of players in the next few years.
“The Sandbox team’s vision, and the creativity and energy they bring to the project, make them an ideal partner for Atari,” Atari CEO Wade Rosen said in a statement. “We will continue to experiment and find new ways to bring programming to the open world, and we look forward to bringing more experiences to players.”
Atari X is an initiative that consolidates Atari’s blockchain interests into a joint operation fully controlled by Atari. It did so four years ago under former CEO Fred Chesnais, who left the company about 14 months ago. Drewitz joined in March (after 2.5 years on the board) and he’s taking it in a new direction.
Through a combination of Web3 development partnerships, the Atari X initiative is building a strong blockchain ecosystem that connects games, utilities and communities, and will ensure that blockchain remains an integral part of business and strategy. term of Atari.
“The reason we did this, which was one of the first things I did when I came on board, was that Atari was a leader when we entered into license agreements and partnerships, starting with 2019,” Drewitz said. . “We did Zed Run licensing deals with Atari skins, and Atari is a blockchain pioneer. But what we don’t have is a community or anything.
He added, “As you know, there is a lot of division between games and on-chain games and not much common ground with crossover for fans. So with these partnerships, we are creating, but we didn’t really have a place to associate with cool projects and cool technologies that were used. We just gave them the Atari name and moved on.
But now the company is jumping on these Web3 projects and creating a more engaging experience. The Atari Sunnyvale Experience is a huge space where you can run around as a Lego-like blocky character.
“If Web2 is direct-to-consumer, Web3 is direct-to-community,” Drewitz said. “We can make this ecosystem with Atari X. We have Twitter, a Discord, and last week since we started our own project, we are over 50,000 on Twitter compared to 3,000 just a week ago. So that it all starts now and moves quickly.
Drewitz said more blockchain projects are coming to help grow the Atari X ecosystem.
“Play quality was lacking in early blockchain games,” he said. “I’m very interested in people building great games, especially Unreal 5 coming to the blockchain space. Atari Sunnyvale has our favorite IPs like Pong, Centipede, Asteroids, Missile Command, Black Widow, and Crystal Castles.
In the missile command area, you will see a large missile hovering above your head. And you can take an elevator to the Missile Command Center. Atari will provide season passes for The Sandbox Alpha Season 3. The team wants to build The Sandbox Land and create more cool things at a scale pace. Over time, they believe that the metaverse will attract more users to a decentralized community of creators. They do mini-games and stuff.
“We’re going to get the community involved and do asset building competitions, where the winners get to see their creations put on our land,” Drewitz said. “The Crystal Castles experience is like playing on the Atari 2600.”
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