The Sandbox

VS

Roblox

The Sandbox is a blockchain-based virtual world and sandbox game that peaked in popularity during the NFT/metaverse boom around 2021-2022. Activity has dropped significantly since then, partly due to a wider decline in interest in crypto gaming and metaverse titles. It is still supported by Animoca Brands and has a steady, niche user base, but the current daily player count is relatively low compared to its peak. It does offer massively multiplayer elements but most spaces are instanced or event-driven, not a single persistent shared world.

Roblox is a massively popular sandbox platform, released in 2006 but continually updated and widely adopted by younger audiences globally. It consistently reports tens of millions of monthly active users, with peak daily actives usually around 5–10% of monthly users. Recent filings and reports indicate Roblox has over 60 million daily active users, but this covers global user logins across many devices and experiences. Adjusting conservatively for reporting and engagement variance, daily actives typically exceed 50 million worldwide, but simultaneous users generally peak in the hundreds of thousands to low millions. As a platform with persistent worlds, it fits the broader MMO definition.