When you spend 10 ETH to buy a piece of LAND in The Sandbox, what will you do with it?
A. Build a cool castle and then take screenshots to post on social media every day
B. Wait for land prices to rise and then sell it off
C. Rent it out for others to hold virtual concerts and collect ticket revenue share
D. None of the above—because like most people, you will stare blankly at the empty plot for three months and finally decide "let's just leave it for now"
But Yield Guild Games (YGG) provided a fifth answer: turn over 200 pieces of LAND into the 'water, electricity, and coal' of the entire metaverse.
From landlord to developer: an undervalued transformation
At the end of 2021, when land prices in The Sandbox were at their hottest, YGG quietly did two things:
First, they spent about $500,000 to acquire a whole block of adjacent LAND in the core area—not scattered plots, but a contiguous ‘commercial district’.
Secondly, they did not immediately start construction; instead, they initiated a survey in the community: ‘If we build this into a public space, what do you most want?’
This seemingly simple operation reveals the essential difference between YGG and other ‘metaverse real estate developers’. Most buyers think about ‘what I own’, while YGG thinks about ‘what services I can provide’.
Three plots of LAND, three types of business
LAND 01: Creative Testing Ground—‘Try before you pay’
In March last year, a small team game called (Pixel Kingdom) found YGG. They were creative but lacked traffic, wanting to promote in The Sandbox, but unable to afford good locations.
YGG provided a solution: offer LAND for free, but require games to launch a 'demo version' on YGG plots. Players can experience the core gameplay for free, and if they like it, they can jump to the full version via a link.
So what’s the result?
· Average player stay time for regular The Sandbox events: 8 minutes
· (Pixel Kingdom) demo activity average stay time: 27 minutes
· Conversion rate from demo players to full version: 13% (the industry average is 2-3%)
‘It's like opening an experience store in a mall,’ said YGG's community manager in a post-event review, ‘We don’t charge rent, but we earn ‘discovery fees’—helping good games find players, and helping players find good games.’
LAND 02: Launch Platform—‘The Apple Store in the Metaverse’
A larger experiment occurred in collaboration with (Kingdom Alliance). This is a game that already has a certain user base, and they want to use the metaverse approach to launch a new version.
How do traditional game launches work? Live streams, trailers, press releases. How do most projects in The Sandbox operate? Build a nice exhibition hall and put in a few interactive installations.
YGG has played a new trick: they have transformed LAND into a playable press conference.
Players entering the plot will experience four zones:
1. Historical Corridor: Use interactive games to showcase classic moments from previous games
2. Puzzle Area: Solve the puzzles to obtain new version spoiler fragments
3. Battle Arena: Try out the new version's PVP gameplay in advance
4. Exchange Center: Obtain limited NFT rewards after completing all steps
Data speaks volumes:
· Traffic volume during the event: 420,000 visits
· Average completion rate for all steps per player: 78%
· During the press conference, new user registrations for (Kingdom Alliance) increased by 310%
‘The most interesting thing is,’ shared YGG's operations head, ‘23% of participating players had never played (Kingdom Alliance) before; they were purely attracted by this 'playable press conference' format.’
LAND 03: Social Center—‘Not just playing games, but meeting friends’
But YGG's smartest layout may be that piece of LAND that looks the least 'profitable': the public square.
There are no flashy games here, just simple buildings, a few interactive installations, and a lot of open space. It hosts three fixed events each week:
· Tuesday 'Developer's Teahouse': Game developers come to share creative insights
· Thursday ‘Player Marketplace’: Players trade their created NFT assets
· Saturday “Cross-Game Party”: Players from different games come here to socialize
Does it sound like a public welfare activity? Look at the data behind it:
· Weekly active visitors to the public square: stable at 15,000 to 20,000
· Average visitor visit frequency: 2.3 times per week
· Conversion rate from the public square to other YGG partner plots: 41%
‘We are cultivating habits,’ explained a community leader at YGG, ‘just like Starbucks in real life—you may not go there just for coffee, but you are accustomed to meeting friends, working, and passing time there. Once this habit is formed, the space will naturally generate value.’
Secrets hidden in financial statements
If you think YGG is just 'holding events to gain popularity', you are underestimating their financial design.
Revenue Diversification: More than one way to collect rent
YGG's income from LAND is divided into at least four tiers:
First Tier: Basic Service Fee
Provide standardized LAND construction, event planning, and technical support for partner projects, charging a fixed fee. This covers the costs.
Second Tier: Performance Sharing
If the event brings quantifiable effects like new user registrations and in-game purchases, YGG participates in the revenue sharing. This is one of the main sources of profit.
Third Tier: Data Insight Sales
The player behavior data generated from the activities (after anonymization) can be sold to game developers for market research. This part has a very high profit margin.
Fourth Tier: Asset Appreciation
As YGG's plots become 'traffic centers', surrounding land prices naturally rise. The value of LAND held by YGL has already increased by an average of 370% compared to the purchase price.
Smarter gameplay: Let LAND 'flow'
At the end of last year, YGG did something incredible in traditional real estate: they collateralized part of their LAND NFTs on a DeFi platform.
The specific operation is:
1. Deposit LAND NFTs worth $1 million into the NFT collateral platform
2. Loan out $600,000 worth of stablecoins
3. Invest these stablecoins in early tokens of other game projects
4. Investment returns are used to pay loan interest and generate additional income
‘This is equivalent to turning fixed assets into yield-generating assets,’ explained YGG's financial strategist, ‘The LAND itself generates activity income, while also serving as collateral to generate financial returns. We call it the ‘dual-extraction strategy’—a bit unrefined, but very illustrative.’
Infrastructure Thinking: YGG's True Ambition
All of this points to one conclusion: YGG does not see itself as a ‘landlord’; they see themselves as a ‘municipal service company’.
Think about the real world: why is Wanda Plaza worth more than street shops? It’s not just because the buildings are better, but because it provides unified traffic flow, management, marketing, and services.
What YGG is doing in The Sandbox is exactly the same thing:
1. Standardized Service Package
They provide a one-stop solution for partner projects, from LAND design, interactive development, event operation to data analysis. A small game team only needs to focus on making the game, while YGG handles all the troublesome matters related to metaverse launches.
2. Network Effect Design
YGG's LAND is not isolated. The demo area attracts new players, the press conference creates buzz, and the public square maintains daily activity—together they form a traffic loop.
3. Asset Leverage
Through DeFi operations, let the ‘sleeping’ LAND assets continuously generate cash flow, and then use this cash to invest in new projects, further enriching the ecosystem.
Future: From ‘landlord’ to ‘metaverse service provider’
Recent signs indicate that YGG is productizing this model:
Product One: LAND-as-a-Service (LaaS)
Small and medium-sized enterprises can rent YGG's LAND and a full set of operational services monthly, without needing to purchase plots and build teams. Currently, 12 projects have signed contracts.
Product Two: Cross-Game Activity Network
Events held in The Sandbox allow the participation rewards to be redeemed in multiple partner games simultaneously. This amplifies the value of a single event exponentially.
Product Three: Data Dashboard
Partners can view event data in real-time: player sources, behavior paths, conversion funnels… These analytical capabilities, which were previously only available to large companies, are now open to all partners through YGG.
Reflection: Do we really need ‘metaverse real estate’?
One of the most questioned points about The Sandbox is: ‘What is the use of these virtual land plots?’ After all, LAND without player traffic is just a string of code.
YGG's practice provides an answer: The value of LAND does not come from the land itself, but from what services you can provide on it.
This is very similar to the early internet. In the 1990s, people debated ‘what is the use of a domain name’. Today we know that the value of a domain name lies not in those few letters, but in the value the website it points to can provide.
What YGG is doing is becoming the 'website hosting provider + cloud service provider + content distribution network' in the metaverse. They are not just ‘owning real estate’, but building the infrastructure that allows everyone to easily use the metaverse.
Next time you see someone spending a fortune on land in The Sandbox, don’t rush to laugh at them. Ask yourself: If this piece of land is not an endpoint, but a starting point—if it is not meant to be 'owned', but to 'serve'—then its value may need to be recalculated.
And YGG has already sounded the first bead on this new abacus.
