Marcus Howard is CEO of the experiential marketing agency MetArena, and the President of Tampa Association of Gaming, a non-profit dedicated to growing the gaming industry and STEAM youth programs in the Tampa Bay region. Marcus got Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas when he was six, and he’s been playing video games ever since. Video games inspired Marcus’ interest in technology, and in the 9th grade, he started coding his own video game on the TI-83+ graphing calculator. In 2013 he launched ProjectMQ with his identical twin brother Malcolm, to solve the largest problem in the global video game industry: game discovery. Five years later, PayPal selected ProjectMQ out of 20,000+ applicants nationwide, as the top digital service of their 2018 business contest.
Today, Marcus consults with universities and businesses around the world, helping them use video games to increase their digital engagement and monetization. In 2019, he co-authored “The Business of Esports” book that was published by the University of South Florida. Marcus was a featured speaker on the “Tampa Bay and the eSports Industry” panel at the University of South Florida’s 2019 Esports Summit, and on the “Level Two & Beyond: The Future of Esports” panel of Skillshot Media’s 2019 Esports Summit at the Georgia World Congress Center. He’s currently building a “Esports, Gaming, and Blockchain” digital course, to help students understand why the $159B gaming industry is how blockchain/crypto adoption will go mainstream. In his spare time, he also scouts indie games (games made by independent game developers) for funding/distribution deals with the world’s largest gaming companies.