The Sandbox, a decentralized gaming virtual world and subsidiary of Hong Kong-based gaming firm Animoca Brands, has on Tuesday announced it has acquired Sviper GmbH, the German game development studio.

Animoca Brands said in a statement that Sviper adds development, engineering, and creative talent to The Sandbox’s global team and will empower the creator generation to build more engaging and fun forms of experiences focusing on social features, new multiplayer gameplay options, and new Game Maker possibilities for creators.

“The Sandbox’s German team is a creative powerhouse that is already advancing the gameplay possibilities available to our internal teams and The Sandbox creators at large,” said Sebastien Borget, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of The Sandbox.

“From adding social features to designing rules creators can use to prototype game logic to implementing powerful multiplayer features, our Hamburg team is supercharging the metaverse’s creative potential,” he added.

The Sandbox Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Arthur Madrid said the firm has built a high level of trust with The Sandbox Germany team as they’ve demonstrated tremendous innovation and quality by both working with major partners and ideating on new gameplay concepts.

Sviper is a game development studio founded in 2016 by industry veterans with PC, mobile, and free to play experience from Germany’s biggest gaming companies.

Sviper is known to deliver outstanding gameplay experiences in the highest quality.

Uniting know-how, innovation, focus, and speed in a zero-politics work environment, Sviper works with some of the biggest PC and mobile IPs and partners in the world.

Led by Chief Executive Officer Ole Schaper and Chief Product Officer Mark Buchholz, the leadership team of Sviper has over 25 years of experience working with well known brands in mobile, PC, and multiplayer gaming.

Sviper has been collaborating with The Sandbox for over a year and is fully integrated into the platform’s ecosystem.

Sviper’s team currently has 40 members, based in the gaming tech hub in Hamburg, and it is now hiring for The Sandbox in Germany.

“We are thrilled to join The Sandbox and contribute to the creation of a cutting-edge virtual world that combines gaming, creativity, and community,” said Ole Schaper, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Sviper.

“We believe that The Sandbox has enormous potential and we look forward to working with the team to bring this vision to life,” he added.

Sviper Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder Mark Buchholz said The Sandbox is a visionary enterprise with countless fascinating aspects beyond traditional game development.

“The ability to create innovative, social user-generated gaming experiences, the growing social platform, and the revolutionary aspects of Web3 are just some of the key features,” he added.

Agnitio Capital acted as merger and acquisition adviser to Sviper in connection with the transaction.

The Sandbox is one of the decentralized virtual worlds that has been fueling the recent growth of virtual real estate demand.

Building on existing The Sandbox IP that has more than 40 million global installs on mobile, The Sandbox metaverse offers players and creators a decentralized and intuitive platform to create immersive 3D worlds and game experiences and to safely store, trade, and monetize their creations. For more information

Part virtual real estate, part amusement park, The Sandbox fully embraces the idea of the metaverse as a continuous shared digital space where worlds and heroes collide to make magic.

Over 400 partners have joined The Sandbox, including Warner Music Group, Ubisoft’s Rabbids, Cut The Rope, Tony Hawk, Gucci Vault, The Walking Dead, Invincible, Snoop Dogg, Deadmau5, Steve Aoki, SM Entertainment, The Smurfs, Care Bears, and Atari, all following The Sandbox team’s vision of empowering players to create their own experiences using both original and well-known characters and worlds.

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