Adrian Cheng, Sun Hung Kai & Co, PwC Hong Kong, Times Capital, Stephen Fung, Shu Qi, Dough-Boy@BlueArk, Little Fighter, and Dreamergo Will Create Cultural Hub

HONG KONG, Jan. 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The Sandbox, a leading decentralized gaming virtual world and subsidiary of Animoca Brands, announced today that it has added multiple Hong Kong partners from the film, music, entertainment, acting, professional services, finance, real estate, and gaming sectors to create Mega City, a new cultural hub. The new entrants have joined The Sandbox‘s virtual real estate by acquiring LAND NFTs in the open metaverse and have committed to building experiences in Mega City. To celebrate the new partners, The Sandbox will launch a new LAND sale on 13 January 2022 that will allow players to purchase choice spots near the LANDs of the partners announced today.

The Sandbox, which was recently featured by the Wall Street Journal and CNBC as a metaverse pioneer, is building a vast online metaverse where users create and monetize their own distinct worlds and game experiences. Mega City will be a cultural hub based on or inspired by multiple Hong Kong talents.

Partners who acquired LAND to build Mega City in The Sandbox‘s metaverse include Hong Kong tycoon Adrian Cheng, alternative investing leader Sun Hung Kai & Co, professional services firm PwC Hong Kong, blockchain-related investment and asset management company TIMES CAPITAL, director/producer/actor Stephen Fung, international star Shu Qi, renowned musician Dough-Boy, game IP Little Fighter, and local illustrator Dreamergo.

Following its recent partnership with South China Morning Post, The Sandbox continues the expansion of Hong Kong culture into the metaverse with the new Mega City cultural hub, featuring the city’s actors, movies, music, entertainment, art, professional services, finance, real estate, and gaming major figures. This mosaic of diverse talents and success stories represents Hong Kong’s enduring vitality, technological advancement, and vibrant culture.

The soul of Mega City is the talent of Hong Kong. More than a strict metaverse reflection of Hong Kong, Mega City is its expansion into the future, a place of dreams and fun. All LAND in Mega City will share this city-of-the-future connection that will be uniquely Hong Kong in its visual approach while reflecting the vision of individual LAND owners.

The new LAND owners who have committed to building Mega City include the following:

Adrian Cheng, a Hong Kong-based entrepreneur and well-established strategic investor, is bringing his vision of the future to The Sandbox through unique interactive experiences aimed at the emerging new generation of metaverse players and entrepreneurs. His XL Estate (24 x 24 LANDs) will be the innovation hub of Mega City. One of its main landmarks will be the GBA Pavilion, a vibrant place of creativity and tech wonders showcasing the successes and achievements of the Greater Bay Area startups. Around this pulsating center, the GBA Companies associated with Adrian Cheng, C Venture and Eureka Nova, will be featured and provide entertainment, exclusive NFTs, and immersive experiences, making it the place to be for innovators and dreamers of the future.

Sun Hung Kai & Co. Limited (SHK & Co), a leader in alternative investing headquartered in Hong Kong, entered The Sandbox by participating in its recent US$93M Series B fundraising round. SHK & Co’s XL Estate will bring to The Sandbox an experience bridging finance, sports, art and culture from around the world, augmented by SHK & Co’s global investment reach. A financial hub will showcase SHK & Co’s portfolio companies and their services, especially those related to TMT, crypto, and blockchain ecosystems. A virtual museum will present SHK & Co’s art collections, including an exclusive NFT of SHK & Co’s iconic Scallywag racing yacht. Revenues generated will be donated to the SHK & Co Foundation to support various charitable initiatives in the Greater China region. The SHK & Co LAND will include environments to host investor events, exhibitions, exclusive parties, and private performances. SHK & Co has been a long-standing investor in Animoca Brands, the parent company of The Sandbox, since 2018, before blockchain and NFTs captured the public’s attention and influenced the gaming landscape.  The company’s recent investments in both The Sandbox and LAND reflect its continued belief in the future of open ecosystems and the long-term value that they can create for all stakeholders.

PwC Hong Kong, a professional services firm, is a member firm of the internationally recognized PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) global network. The firm will play a valuable role in the growth of the open metaverse particularly by helping to build an ecosystem where companies and brands that may be less familiar with Web 3.0 can get the advice they need to explore the new and exciting opportunities created by this technology.

TIMES CAPITAL is a blockchain-related investment and asset management institution that will collaborate with local game studios and creators to bring to the Mega City an immersive Hong Kong film IP museum and game experience based on its over 150 classic films IP portfolio. The LAND will also include one of the largest NFT galleries in The Sandbox, displaying TIMES CAPITAL’s rich collection of NFTs, including icons like CryptoPunks, the Meebits, and much more.

Stephen Fung and Shu Qi, the award-winning entertainment stars, are entering The Sandbox to create an exciting district of Mega City that will showcase their talents and love for art and culture. Bridging tradition and modernity, director/producer Stephen Fung will create immersive experiences paying homage to Hong Kong film classics as well as a special NFT gallery that will showcase his creations and those of new artists selected by him. International actress and model Shu Qi will present experiences that favor direct interaction with fans, with a social hub where she will showcase exclusive NFTs.

Dough-Boy@BlueArk, the award-winning artist and music producer, will create the BlueArk Land, Asia’s first clubbing metaverse hub, in The Sandbox. It will be a social gathering spot for party animals to experience music, games, art, and beyond, all curated by Dough-Boy and his friends. Exclusive NFT private passes will give access to many unique experiences that will take place at the BlueArk Land including The Warehouse, The Wrestling Room, The Concert Hall, and The Shop.

Little Fighter (LF) creator Marti Wong will lead the development of the Little Fighter Metaverse in The Sandbox. The ultimate virtual amusement park of Mega City, Little Fighter Metaverse will be a virtual world with four different stages: Kowloon City, Ninja Village, Ice and Fire Island, and the Evil Castle. Players will meet and interact with all the most iconic characters from the world of Little Fighter, go on adventures together, solve puzzles, and fight alongside them in missions. All stages will have prizes including exclusive NFT rewards. Ready? Fight!

Dreamergo, the popular Hong Kong-based illustrator, will build Dreamergo World, a virtual fantasy park in The Sandbox. It will showcase the delicate art of Dreamergo, converting over a thousand illustrations full of love and dreams into the voxel style and bringing those lovable icons into a new dimension. Players will be able to collect their favorite characters as exclusive NFTs, locate them to take photos, and explore and play with them in worlds based on Dreamergo’s soothing illustration style.

The involvement of the partners announced today follows The Sandbox‘s Alpha launch in Q4 2021, which gives anyone the opportunity to participate in play-to-earn gameplay to earn SAND, The Sandbox‘s utility token. Players can now experience the metaverse as they play or take a creative role, building  assets and worlds that can be traded as NFTs with other players, creators, and artists on the platform.

The Sandbox has secured over 165 partnerships, including Adidas, Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, South China Morning Post, The Smurfs, Care Bears, Atari, CryptoKitties, Shaun the Sheep, Mcdull, and Hanjin Tan, to build a fun, creative play-to-earn platform that offers virtual worlds and game experiences owned and created by players. The play-to-earn model gives players true ownership of anything they collect in the game, allowing them to trade it to other players (including outside the game on other websites), transfer it to other players, or even resell it.

Upcoming LAND Sale

On 13 January 2022, The Sandbox will hold a Mega City LAND sale that will allow users to purchase LAND located near to the Mega City projects announced today. The partner’s estates can be seen on The Sandbox virtual world map. Premium LAND located near the partners will be offered, and each will include exclusive premium NFTs and have the possibility to host events, gaming experiences, or social hubs.

The Sandbox has already sold 70% of its 166,464 LAND NFTs, releasing them in successive waves that usually sell out in seconds. Existing LAND owners include Binance, CoinCheck, Metakovan, Pranksy, Socios, and CoinMarketCap, among others.

The Mega City Land Sale starting Jan 13 features eight partners from Hong Kong, click here to see the Mega City Land map.

Editor’s Note:

• To watch or embed The Sandbox teaser video, visit https://youtu.be/0Jquhzr4d4k
• To get high resolution screenshots, download the Media Kit

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About The Sandbox

The Sandbox, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, is one of the decentralized virtual worlds that has been fueling the recent growth of virtual real-estate demand having partnered with major IPs and brands including Adidas, Snoop Dogg, The Walking Dead, Deadmau5, Atari, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Care Bears, The Smurfs, and more. Building on existing The Sandbox IP that has more than 40 million global installs on mobile, The Sandbox metaverse offers players and creators a decentralized and intuitive platform to create immersive 3D worlds and game experiences and to safely store, trade, and monetize their creations. For more information, please visit www.sandbox.game and follow the regular updates on Twitter, Medium and Discord.

About Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands, a Deloitte Tech Fast winner that is ranked in the Financial Times list of High Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2021, is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification. It develops and publishes a broad portfolio of products including the REVV token and SAND token; original games including The Sandbox, Crazy Kings, and Crazy Defense Heroes; and products utilizing popular intellectual properties including Formula 1^®, Disney, WWE, Power Rangers, MotoGP™, and Doraemon. The company has multiple subsidiaries, including The Sandbox, Blowfish Studios, Quidd, GAMEE, nWay, Pixowl, Bondly, and Lympo. Animoca Brands has a growing portfolio of more than 150 investments in NFT-related companies and decentralized projects that are contributing to building the open metaverse, including Axie Infinity, OpenSea, Dapper Labs (NBA Top Shot), Bitski, Harmony, Alien Worlds, Star Atlas, and others. For more information visit www.animocabrands.com or follow on Twitter or Facebook.

About Adrian Cheng

Adrian Cheng is a Hong Kong-based entrepreneur and well-established strategic investor. He is a co-founding partner of C Ventures, a leading venture capital company focused on disruptive businesses in technology, lifestyle, and media. His personal investment portfolio includes a wide range of innovative technology, healthcare, and consumer related companies. 

About Sun Hung Kai & Co

Sun Hung Kai & Co. Limited (SEHK: 86) ("SHK & Co", together with its subsidiaries, the "Group") is a leader in alternative investing headquartered in Hong Kong. Since its establishment in 1969, the Group has owned and operated market-leading platforms in Financial Services. The Group invests across public markets, alternatives and real assets and has an established track record of generating long-term risk adjusted returns for its shareholders. Most recently, SHK & Co has extended its strategy to incubate, accelerate and support emerging asset managers in the Asian region. SHK & Co is also the major shareholder of a leading Consumer Finance firm, United Asia Finance Limited. The Group currently holds about HK$48 billion in total assets as at 30 June 2021.

For more information about SHK & Co, please visit www.shkco.com.

About PwC Hong Kong

PwC Hong Kong is a member firm of the PwC global network, whose purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. Being a network of firms in 156 countries with more than 295,000 people, PwC is committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services.

Find out more about PwC Hong Kong at www.pwchk.com. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details.

About TIMES CAPITAL

TIMES CAPITAL is a blockchain-related investment and asset management institution.  At the early stage of establishment, we focused on various cryptocurrency ICOs, and various seed / series funding of cryptocurrency projects.  We later introduced mining machine custody service in Hong Kong, Fiat-to-Crypto over-the-counter (OTC) service, STO consulting and investment in Blockchain Nodes of different projects etc.  In the recent wave of NFT (non-fungible token), we had actively participated in NFT projects and invested in a number of top NFT projects, including CryptoPunks and Meebits.

TIMES CAPITAL collaborates with leading Metaverse project The Sandbox, to build Hong Kong film IP museum and games. For more information – https://times.capital/

About Stephen Fung

Stephen Fung is an international filmmaker. His films have been commercial hits, won numerous awards, and have been officially selected by The Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Busan Film Festival amongst others. On the TV side, Stephen is the Executive Producer, Director for  AMC’s hit Martial Arts Drama "Into The Badlands, and Netflix’s hit action series Wu Assassins.

About Shu Qi

Shu Qi is one of the most iconic celebrities in Asia, she is the winner of numerous acting awards including the prestigious Golden Horse Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Starring in international hits such as The Transporter, So Close, Gorgeous: her films have garnered an accumulated international box office of over 1 billion USD. Shu QI has a huge fanbase of more than 40 million followers on Weibo and 2.5 million followers on IG.

About Dough-Boy

Dough-Boy is an award-winning Asian music producer, rapper, songwriter. He was the youngest artist to win the Best Soundtrack Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. He has collaborated with many renowned rappers across the world including Jackson Wang, Lil Yachty, Pressa, Joe Flizzow, MC Jin, MC Hotdog, and MJ116. He was an ambassador for brands such as Chanel, Adidas Originals, Vans, Places + Faces, Havana Club, Sankuanz, Hublot, and CLOT.

Dough-Boy has been invited by Binance NFT to release his first musician sample pack as an NFT.  He continues to pursue this new media initiative by co-founding the brand BlueArk – an integrated NFT and technology platform delivering an impeccable journey to the metaverse. BlueArk offers innovative NFT products and services in art, music, and gamefi utilizing its self-proprietary AI and blockchain technologies with an aim to enhance the value of these NFTs as well as integration into the metaverse. BlueArk also operates the first physical art and music metaverse concept store at the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong.

About Little Fighter 2

Little Fighter 2 (LF2) is a popular fighting game created by Marti Wong and Starsky Wong in 1999. It is a very addictive game with numerous gameplay modes, a side-scrolling fighting system, and 24 different characters with sophisticated moves and combos. The game is so popular around the world and has more than 50 million downloads. For more information – https://lf2.net/

About Dreamergo

Dreamergo, born and raised in Hong Kong, has been an illustrator for over 20 years. With a small but visionary pair of eyes, he has been observing the world and drawing since he was three years old. His vivid drawings express love with passion and vision. In recent years, Dreamergo has been active in different fields, including publishing, handicraft industry, crossover business cooperation and encryption art. In 2015 to 2019, he published illustration columns in "Skypost" and "Ming Pao – Happy PAMA". In 2013 to 2021, He was the Art Director and illustrator of the life fighter Nick Vujicic’s "Give Me a Hug" series, which has been translated into more than ten languages and published around the world.

In 2009 to 2021, he cooperated with Dreamerland Crafts to launch Dreamergo’s stamp products, and officially entered the global handicrafts market.  In 2020 and 2021, Adobe was invited Dreamergo to become the official Hong Kong campaign ambassador of the Adobe MAX Conference for two consecutive years. For more information – www.dreamergo.com