Meta0: The gaming platform that's taking over the world
In 2022, TikTok is still the fastest-growing platform of any kind, but it's not the gaming division head's favorite. He runs his own startup, Meta0:
In July, Jason Fung, former head of TikTok's gaming unit, announced that he left the company to launch Meta0, a startup focused on blockchain video games.
In an interview with TechCrunch, Fung said that he left TikTok to take a "giant risk" in starting Meta0. As a tech executive with extensive experience working for large companies in the gaming industry, he wanted to provide new solutions for video game developers.
A press release from Meta0 revealed that Jason Fung will have a broad range of duties, including the expansion of Meta0 as an entire blockchain ecosystem for game developers and channel partners, as well as L1/L2 blockchains running on Meta0 as a Layer-0 protocol—which is similar to what Polkadot wants to be. He will also direct fundraising efforts and other strategic decisions.
Blockchain Game Developers Can Benefit From Greater Interoperability
Fung said that the aim of Meta0 is to provide greater interoperability across existing blockchain networks, so developers do not have to be forced to choose only a small group of blockchains for their projects.
“Right now, if you look at any developer when they implement NFTs or blockchain in their games, they have to choose a single blockchain, be it Polygon or Solana or Binance Smart Chain. But imagine a more interoperable option.”
In another interview, Fung explained that one of the biggest problems in the NFT gaming industry is the lack of accessible blockchain infrastructure for developers.
“I left TikTok because I saw a clear opportunity to offer a solution to the current segregated nature of infrastructure options available to developers looking to build blockchain games.”
Meta0 will raise funds by issuing tokens and seeking venture capitalists and strategic investors. Binance, Animoca Brands, a16z, Consensus Lab, and Kardia Ventures are some of the names that come to mind when discussing Web3 projects.
The market for blockchain games has a lot of room to grow
Even though the crypto market has crashed and the industry's interest in blockchain games has waned, there is still a large, active community that hopes to find a new project or see cryptocurrency prices rebound so they can invest in their preferred video games again.
The broader gaming industry is much bigger than the more niche crypto gaming industry; however, NFT and blockchain games became popular in 2021, and by Q1 of 2022, the crypto gaming industry had already reached over $2.5 billion.
In addition, play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity, CryptoBlades, Plant vs. Undead, and Mir4 became extremely popular in a short time span—even becoming the primary source of income for many families in countries such as Philipines, Argentina, and Venezuela.
The growth of crypto games and decentralized applications helped to boost the adoption of retail users worldwide, as well as attract big institutional players. One of the best-known wallets in the ecosystem, Metamask, also saw a surge in new accounts thanks to this boom.
