Today Animoca Brands subsidiary The Sandbox blockchain game announced it partnered with Warner Music Group (WMG) to create a combination of a virtual musical theme park and music venue. With the deal, we could see metaverse performances from some artists signed to its labels, including Atlantic, Warner Records, Elektra, and Parlophone. But there’s no guarantee of appearances.
In typical web3 fashion, The Sandbox plans to exploit every last inch of the announcement by auctioning Sandbox LAND adjacent to the Warner Music LAND in March.
“Our partnership with The Sandbox adds a new layer of possibility in the metaverse, with the ownership of virtual real estate,” said Oana Ruxandra, Chief Digital Officer & EVP, Business Development at Warner Music Group.
“As a first-mover, Warner Music has secured the equivalent of beachfront property in the metaverse. On the LAND, we’ll develop persistent, immersive social music experiences that defy real-world limitations and allow our artists and their fans to engage like never before.”
The Sandbox already has more than 200 existing partnerships, including with Snoop Dogg, Steve Aoki, Adidas, and Atari. In November 2021, The Sandbox raised $93 million in a Series B funding from a high profile list of investors, including SofBank Vision Two Fund, Galaxy Interactive, Thai bank subsidiary SCB 10X, LG Technology Ventures, and Samsung Next.
The Sandbox is currently the third most valuable game cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $3.2 billion, not far behind Decentraland and Axie Infinity.
Earlier this week, non-fungible token (NFT) platform Blockparty said it had partnered with Warner Music for NFTs. The music giant has been involved in the blockchain arena for some time and was one of Dapper Labs’ early backers in 2019. Last year it partnered with avatar technology company Genies, which is backed by Dapper, to launch avatars of Warner’s artist roster and branded wearable NFTs of the celebrities. The NFTs are commercialized on Genies’ marketplace, running on the Flow blockchain developed by Dapper.
Besides Dapper-related partnerships, Warner also participated in a $725 million funding of blockchain games platform Forte and is a partner of digital artist Beeple’s NFT marketplace.
Warner Music competitor Universal Music has been less active in the blockchain space. However, it recently took the innovative step of creating an entire music label 10:22PM to focus on the metaverse. Its first group is KINGSHIP, based on four Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.