If you have seen my previous articles about The Sandbox game you know how hype I am about it. However, this hype faded quite a lot and quickly today.
It was the last Pre-sale of their lands through their website but also one that quite a few will remember as a great fail.
So what happened?
When taking part in the previous pre-sale I was not able to grab a land, blaming my connection or computer. This time it was not my connection or my hardware. I changed for a better computer and connection since. No, the problem was with their platform. So for me and for many others, we experienced all kinds of problems, connection error, endless loading, being logged out. And in the end to get to a maintenance page.
As I got to their Discord I realized that there were many others who had problems and it was acknowledged by the team. They said they did shut it down and were wondering what happened. They pointed people to their Twitch for a live update which was pretty much nothing. After a few minutes, they decided to continue the presale as on their side they said there were no problems. They blamed it on people's connections or computers and relaunched the Pre-sale.
What a surprise on Etherscan
But little did we know it was not crashing for everyone. Looking at Etherscan, the Ethereum block explorer, we could see sales of land still going through for another 40 minutes before it was completely shut down. Quite a few people were able to secure more than one land. I've seen another user who had bought about 15 estates while others couldn't even access the system or their account on The Sandbox platform.
Reactions
What I would say is that it is very unfair. But the worse is their response to the event or should I say lack of. For a project like this, it's almost unbelievable that they did not have any communication with their users other than 3 posts on Discord and a live video on Twitch. Nothing on any other social platform.
On another side, some people who had planned to invest 30,000$ were left out of the sale and just basically gave up on the project. Quite frustrating when they build hype for weeks, get people to buy and transfer $SAND, their own token, and the only way to buy lands. And in the end, not deliver and live up to the hype they built and to the expectations of their customers.
Let's see what is next...
So this is the map of the Pre-sale after all this mess… Green means sold, blue is reserved by the team, the ones with images are sold and what is left are the grey or the yellow squares which means they were up for sale but did get bought. They are planning to sell the rest next week but I am afraid that the same will happen and that the people who did buy on this one will still have a better chance for next week somehow but it is not disclosed yet. Anyway, I will give it a try and see what happens.
Meanwhile here is a link to their website if you want to have a look for yourselves.
The Sandbox Game website
I read about the sandbox from my dear friend @CryptoWordsmith and just like everyone who waits, he's frustrated he wasn't able to buy a land. Hope the next sale will be fair.