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Atari has launched Sunnyvale, a major new experience in The Sandbox metaverse. The virtual space is an ode to the golden age of video games and the birthplace of Atari.
The Sandbox, owned by Animoca Brands, recently unveiled its latest Alpha Season 3 featuring 90 new metaverse experiences. Atari is one of the largest owners of Land, or virtual real estate, in The Sandbox. And now it shows that it is willing to devote resources to developing that country, Tyler Drewitz, director of Atari X, said in an interview with GamesBeat.
New York-based Atari turned 50 this year and remains one of the most iconic consumer brands 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 appreciate the experience and it was worth taking the time to do,” Drewitz said. “We’re going to find out what they like. It’s a cool entry into Web3.”
Within Atari Sunnyvale, players can explore and interact with each other and with non-player characters (NPCs) based on Atari characters.
Players can also participate in a number of quests and games, such as hide and seek, where the winners receive rewards. The Crystal Castles experience is a game where players race through a maze-like castle, collecting gems and fighting off enemies. Crystal Castles is just the first of many games to come.
The 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 craft, play, share, collect and trade – all in a decentralized environment where they have secure ownership and copyright of their creations, as all in-game assets have a unique and immutable blockchain ID. to have. Atari Sunnyvale launches as part of Sandbox Alpha Season 3.
“We are incredibly excited to share Atari Sunnyvale with the Sandbox community, and we know it will draw more Atari fans to the growing platform,” said Drewitz. “I especially want people to experience the deep, wonderful environments based on our games created by our development partner, Metatworld Entertainment.”
Atari has sold some of its land in The Sandbox, but even after that, it remains one of the largest landowners in The Sandbox, and will continue to work with partners to develop more experiences to engage the player community in the coming years.
“The vision that the team at The Sandbox has, and the creativity and energy they bring to the project, makes them an ideal partner for Atari,” said Wade Rosen, Atari CEO, in a statement. “We will continue to experiment and find new ways to bring programming to the open world, and look forward to bringing more experiences to players.”
Atari X is an initiative that consolidates Atari’s blockchain interests into a unified operation fully controlled by Atari. It was founded four years ago under previous CEO Fred Chesnais, who left the company about 14 months ago. Drewitz joined in March (after 2.5 years of advice) and is breaking new ground.
Through a combination of Web3 development partnerships, the Atari X initiative is building a robust blockchain ecosystem that intertwines gaming, utilities and the community, and will ensure that blockchain remains an important part of Atari’s business and long-term strategy.
“The reason we made this, which is one of the first things I made when I came on board, is that Atari was such an early mover when we entered licensing deals and partnerships, starting with this one in 2019,” said Drewitz. “We signed licensing agreements with Zed Run with Atari skins and Atari was a first mover in blockchain. But what we didn’t have was a community or something else.”
He added: “As you probably know, it’s very split between gaming and blockchain gaming and there’s not much of a middle ground with a crossover for fans. So with these partnerships we were creating, but we didn’t really have a place to interact with the cool projects and the cool technologies being used, we just gave them the Atari name and moved on.”
But now the company is going into these Web3 projects and creating a more engaging experience. The Atari Sunnyvale experience is a large space where you can run around like a blocky Lego-esque character.
“If Web2 goes straight to the consumer, Web3 is straight to the community,” Drewitz said. “We can create this ecosystem of Atari X. We have Twitter, a Discord, and in the last week since we launched our own project, we have over 50,000 on Twitter, up from 3,000 a week ago. So it’s all starting now and it’s going pretty fast.”
Drewitz said more blockchain projects are coming to help the ecosystem for Atari X grow.
“Quality gaming was lacking in early blockchain gaming,” he said. “I’m very interested in people making great games, especially now that Unreal 5 is now entering the blockchain space. Atari Sunnyvale has our favorite IPs such as Pong, Centipede, Asteroids, Missile Command, Black Widow and Crystal Castles.”
In the Missile Command area, you’ll see a large missile looming overhead. And you can take an elevator to the Missile Command Center. Atari will be giving away some season passes for The Sandbox Alpha Season 3. The team is looking to expand the land in The Sandbox and do more cool stuff at a measured pace. Over time, they believe the metaverse will attract more users to a decentralized creator community. They make minigames and more.
“We’re going to engage the community and hold construction and asset contests where winners can have their creations placed on our land,” Drewitz said. “The Crystal Castles experience feels like you’re playing on the Atari 2600.”
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