In this month’s edition of Meet The Sandboxer, our post comes from Akinola Verissimo, an Influencer Manager here at Sandbox. You can follow him on Twitter here!

What do you do/when did you join Sandbox?

I joined Sandbox right at the end of February 2023. Coming up on a year of Influencer Management, I get to work with cool studios and assist them in finding the best online creators for their game. Seeing marketing activations come together at the end of a campaign is always a fantastic feeling.

Favorite experience at Sandbox?

My favorite experience continues to be hanging out with my coworkers at our offsite meetings. We’re a remote company, so being able to bridge that distance a couple of times a year is always something I look forward to. Still waiting on a chance to do karaoke…

First video game console/memory?

My first video console was the NES, but my formative video game experience involved the Sega Genesis with the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 bundle. Sonic 2 and Streets of Rage 2 were the first games I was able to beat, allowing me to challenge tougher games like Earthworm Jim, and groundbreaking experiences like Sonic 3 & Knuckles, collecting all emeralds and super emeralds.

What are you playing now?

League of Legends stopped working on my PC for some reason, so I have invested heavily into console gaming. I own a Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series S, so I’m playing Super Mario RPG, Spider-Man 2, and Yakuza 0 respectively.

What are some of your hobbies outside of games?

I really enjoy cooking. I don’t consider myself amazing at it, but I like to experiment with flavors and one day serve up some delicious food at an event just to hear from the crowd, “Man, that Akinola guy really knows his way around food!”

Bonus Round – As a fighting game fan and a fellow Final Fantasy 7 ~e n j o y e r~, who are you maining in a hypothetical FF7 2D fighter? And who would be the toxic, no-skill character dominating tournaments?

This is easy. I would main Tifa. Air combos, punches and kicks all day. I feel like the spammy no-skill character would be Cloud or Sephiroth. I hate fighting against people with weapons that don’t have a hurtbox. Smash Bros. has hurt me enough.

You can check out our last Meet The Sandboxer post here!