In brief The highly anticipated game sold out its virtual land plots quicker than a February presale.

The presale raised 3,300 ETH from gamers.

The land bought will form an Atari theme park in the upcoming game.

With social distancing strictures in place worldwide, virtual real estate may be a hotter prospect than the real thing.

Highly-anticipated blockchain-based game The Sandbox this morning announced it had sold out its third presale of virtual real estate in six hours. It generated 3,330 ETH—equivalent to $440,000—via the sale of 12,384 unique LAND parcels.

One of the most anticipated blockchain games due for release this year, TSB Gaming’s The Sandbox is built on Ethereum and will allow players to build, own, and monetize their own voxel gaming experiences in a virtual world.

A total of 166,464 LANDS will ever be available in the map that will form The Sandbox metaverse. LAND is the basic sandbox unit on the platform’s map and each LAND comprises 96x96 meters in the game world.

LAND presales offer people a chance to get their hands on a piece of The Sandbox metaverse at an early adopter price. The presales see future gamers buy virtual real estate and assets like characters, animals, monuments, buildings, trees, and tools to populate game experiences. Keen buyers in the most recent presale were buying up land that will form an Atari-themed neighborhood.

With many countries in a state of near-lockdown due to the COVID-19 crisis, the quick sell-out of virtual LAND—a digital piece of real estate—may be due to people wanting to share spaces online. “With this horrible pandemic situation, we feel the needs for people to use digital spaces to express and share together,” said Sebastien Borget, COO and co-founder of The Sandbox.

Yet LAND parcels had been selling at a rapid clip well before the coronavirus shut much of the world down. Its first presale took place in December, selling out over 3,000 LAND parcels in four hours. Its second presale took place in February, with 6,192 pieces of LAND going quickly.

A fourth LAND presale will be announced later this year. The game is set for a 2020 release.