Jason Fung, the former president of TikTok’s gaming division and co-founder of a blockchain gaming firm, told Reuters in an interview that the company is starting as a result of the growing interest in blockchain games despite the caution of industry titans.
The 34-year-old left TikTok last month after working there for two years. His departure coincides with TikTok and its Chinese owner ByteDance’s aggressive expansion into the $300 billion global gaming market in an effort to compete with rival Tencent Holdings. So far, this aggressive expansion has had mixed results.
A new generation of online games built on blockchains that allow players to exchange things in the form of non-fungible tokens also shows the exploding interest among investors and entrepreneurs in blockchain gaming (NFTs).
Fung, whose new business is known as Meta0, claimed he quit TikTok because he saw a chance to provide a remedy for the presently segregated nature of infrastructure alternatives accessible to developers wishing to create blockchain games.
“At the moment, every developer who wants to include NFTs or blockchain technology into their games must select just one blockchain, whether it Polygon, Solana, or Binance Smart Chain. But consider an option that is more interoperable,” he told Reuters in Hong Kong, referring to well-known current blockchains.
“So we decided to move forward. Let’s jointly found this business. Fung, who was located in Shenzhen and reported to TikTok’s chief operational officer Vanessa Pappas, stated, “Let’s leave up my comfortable corporate existence at TikTok and take a huge risk.”
In addition to the two co-founders, Meta0’s founding team consists of six other individuals, and the company has completed the first round of investment, according to Fung.
He refused to provide information on the other co-founder, the remainder of the crew, or the funding. He stated that in addition to seeking funding from strategic and venture capital investors, the firm was aiming to issue tokens.
Large brands stay away
The gaming business will be disrupted, according to proponents of blockchain games, since cryptocurrencies may make virtual goods more tradeable and even transfer game ownership to users. The virtual economies of certain games have collapsed shortly after player buy-in, and blockchain games are occasionally linked to frauds.
The majority of well-known gaming businesses, like Tencent, Sony, and Microsoft, haven’t made any sizable bets on blockchain games yet.
Fung was given the responsibility of developing gaming content and testing new features, such as hosting mini-games on the app, as TikTok’s worldwide director of strategy and operations for gaming.
During Fung’s leadership, TikTok and ByteDance aggressively moved into the gaming space, with ByteDance making purchases including the $4 billion purchase of Moonton, a gaming studio, and TikTok experimenting with mini-game elements on its app.
There have been both successes and failures in the endeavors. Data tracking company Sensor Tower said last month that ByteDance’s selection of mobile games had brought in more than $1 billion in sales globally over the previous 12 months.
However, ByteDance also shut down its 101 Studio in Shanghai last month, laying off half of the 300+ employees. 101 Studio, a byproduct of ByteDance’s 2019 acquisition of Mokun Technology, was the company’s first development division to close due to performance issues.
When questioned about who may succeed him at TikTok, Fung, who oversaw the e-sports divisions of Alibaba Group Holding and Electronic Arts in Asia before joining TikTok, declined to answer.
An inquiry for comment from TikTok did not immediately receive a response.
