He is the founder of a metaverse start-up called Meiyo and we caught up with him to find out about his exciting vision to create new possibilities for the gaming community.
We hear the steps Andy is making to help bring it all together: building the community, metaverse development and finding investment.
Andy: Meiyo aims to build the
ultimate gaming metaverse and ecosystem for independent game developers. The
ecosystem consists of a free, open source game development framework that
provides the tools to help developers make games, and an asset marketplace
where developers can buy 3D art to bring their game worlds to life.
In the metaverse, players
will be able to seamlessly transition from one game to another without any
issues, meaning they can buy a set of armour in one game and wear it in other
games within the metaverse.
Independent game developers spend a lot of time 'reinventing the wheel'. It takes a long time to learn how to make games; you need to be a programmer, an animator, an artist, etc., so you spend a lot of time watching tutorials and reading documentation.
But what if the 'indie' community came together and contributed to a single,
open source framework made up of these tools?
Your task would be simplified as
you'd only have to learn how to use the tools, not necessarily how to make them
- more time would be spent making your dream game, and less time would be spent
learning what goes on under the hood.
There are asset marketplaces where you can buy 3D art for your game, but the
truth is they're cluttered with assets of different qualities - anyone can make
and sell those assets - so it's difficult to know if you'll get value for
money. Added to that, downloaded assets are non-refundable (it has to be this
way, because you can't prove that someone has permanently deleted the files
from their computer after the refund).
My solution is to build a premium asset
marketplace that offers the highest quality assets made by professional games
artists. Together, the open source framework and the asset marketplace form a game
development ecosystem that provides the foundations on which to build a
metaverse of interoperable games.
The idea was born from my struggles as an indie developer, as I have spent many years learning all aspects of game development and understand the challenges faced by those on the same journey.
The scholarship has enabled me to focus on this business full-time,
improving my ability to network my way to investors and grow a global community
of artists for the Meiyo Asset Marketplace.
What are the best aspects of running a business?
The best thing about running my business is growing a global community of
likeminded people who see Meiyo as a solution to a common problem. It has become clear that by working together, we can help each other reach our goals much more quickly. But more importantly, everyone who has joined the community so far has been a pleasure to meet, and I look forward to meeting even more great people from around the world.
The hardest thing is that since 100% of your focus is on the business, it can be hard to manage your private life. The challenge is to find the right balance.
It's not what you know, it's who you know. Your primary objective at the earliest stage is to network, network and network - and be confident when doing it.
What is the biggest takeaway from your experience?
It's about the journey, not
the destination. My destination is the ultimate gaming metaverse for indie
developers, but that is multiple rounds of investment in the future. The
journey should be broken down into stages, for example:
1. What is the quickest route to revenue, and therefore seed investment?
For me, it's building the professional art community and a marketplace for
them to sell their assets. There are other ways to monetise the community, such as acting as a
recruitment agency and/or outsource studio.
2. How can I use this revenue and investment to achieve my goals and close another investment round?
This stage involves investing in the developer side of the ecosystem and driving sales to the marketplace. The objective is to unite indie developers around the open source developer framework and support them in making games.
3. What do I need to do next to reach the destination and close further investment rounds?
I think this stage involves building a metaverse from the ecosystem that has been developed in the previous stages. We've got an artist community making art and a developer community making games - all we now need is a platform for developers to submit their games, and a player community to play them.
So, the biggest takeaway? Stop thinking so much about the destination, and think more about what it's going to take to get there - in stages.
Find about more by visiting the Meiyo website here.
With thanks to Andy Morrin
Added by Bob Lee
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