Introducing: Federalization, a smarter way to partner up

If you own a sandbox, you've most likely encountered this situation:

Your sandbox and a competitor platform are really, really good friends. Your users love both of you, they want to share stuff with both of you, and so the idea to "partner" shows up. And eventually it gets turned into something very much real...

A discord post.

That's about it, really. Practically all partnerships boil down to both platforms sending each other an invite link and saying "We've partnered! They're friends now! Yay!", and then everyone forgets the whole interaction. No sense of accomplishment, no connection between the two. Simply, a discord message.

But it doesn't have to be that way... introducing federations.

The Feds Are Here

And not the glowing type. OpenSBC's latest update gives every operator the ability to federate their platform, in simple terms: your sandbox can talk to other sandboxes.

So what does "talk" mean?

You go to Manage, hit Partners, type in the other platform's address and send a request. The other operator gets a ping, has a look at who's asking, and hits accept. That's the entire setup. No discord message required (you can still post one, we won't stop you).

From then on you pick what you share, and every switch is set per partner:

• Places. Your games show up on their site under Partners. Their players hit Play and land in your game, on your servers.
• People. Friend requests, messages, the lot, across both platforms. Your blocks and friend limits still count.
• Groups. Their players can join yours, or ask to.
• Forums. Tick the categories you want to share and they show up read-only over there, with a link back to reply here.
• The shop. Off by default. If you both turn it on and agree on a rate ("10 Bricks are worth 5 Blocks"), players can buy each other's items. You keep a cut, the creator gets their usual share, and there's a statement of who owes who.

"So do they need an account on my site?"

No. This is the good part. Someone from a partner shows up as grace@brickland: logged in at home, playing your game, under their own name. Your platform treats them like any other player, because as far as it can tell, they are one. Nobody can log into that account directly; it's only there so the rest of your site never has to know federation exists.

"And if they're a menace?"

• Ban them and their home platform hears about it. Same the other way round: ban one of your own and every partner blocks them too.
• Moderators get a Visitors page listing who's been coming over, with a block button right there.
• Forums and the shop stay off until you say otherwise.

What's next

Right now partnerships are invite only. Open partnerships are coming, where anyone on a list you control can connect without an invite. And because the whole thing speaks the same language as Mastodon and friends, an ActivityPub bridge is planned too. Also on the list: a Partners tab in Discovery, live status while a partner's game boots, and automatic settlement for the shop.

So go on. Find your really, really good friend, and send them something better than a discord message.