Success of the Open Metaverse Comes Down to User Experience: Sandbox CEO

Since the launch of the Open Metaverse Alliance (OMA3), 50 members have registered for the not-for-profit organization, according to Sebastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox, and Sarojini McKenna, co-founder and CEO of Dacoco.

Borget also gave Decrypt an update on its “Alpha Season” metaverse experience.

Borget and Dacoco were speaking at a press conference at WebSummit in Lisbon this week about the new consortium of Web3 firms dedicated to protecting the interoperability of the metaverse. 

Founding board members Animoca Brands, Dapper Labs, Voxels, Unstoppable Domains, Sandbox, Decentraland, among others were already aboard when the OMA3 was inaugurated on November 1.

McKenna, who serves as chair of the OMA3 Ecosystem Working Group, said that “we are standardizing open collaboration for metaverses” to fundamentally ensure that “users are at the core of the construction of their platform and the application” to control their identity, account and owned-assets. 

​”​OMA3 will produce technical standards, open source code, documentation on best practices, external advocacy and ecosystem liaison to support that purpose,” she added.

Membership has been opened for organizations with the Web3 space, and is anticipated to expand to individuals and DAOs in the near future. 

During the press Q&A, Decrypt asked Borget about how the OMA3 will quantify success and whether targets would be objectively measured via statistics. 

“We will quantify the success in two ways,” Borget replied. “First of all, the number of technical papers that are officially published from the board members. Second, adding to the market and consumer adoption.

“At the end of the day, it all boils down to what the user experience will be, and by contributing to the technical standards, users will seamlessly benefit from that,” he said.

Sandbox update

Borget then sat down with Decrypt to discuss the denouement of The Sandbox’s “Alpha Season 3” – a ten-week playable metaverse experience showcasing entertainment events from brands including Warner Music Group, The Walking Dead and Bored Ape Yacht Club, among others. 

Following the “exciting” holiday season, Borget revealed that “by next year’s first quarter we want users to be able to publish directly on their land, meaning that Sandbox will become open at all times with user generated content.” 

He also noted that creators will be granted access to “the same system we put in place with the season such as leaderboards, rewards, quests, and so on.” 

Metaverse worlds The Sandbox and Decentraland became the subject of profound social inquiry in early October after statistical data from DappRadar revealed that the virtual worlds attracted just 552 and 38 active users in a single day — quantified as unique active wallets (UAW) — respectively. 

Despite valuation in the billions-of-dollars, the metaverse space remains relatively nascent in comparison to the digital collectables market, for example. At the time of publication, the daily UAW figures for Sandbox and Decentraland were 1,393 and 1,408, respectively.