The purpose of this document is to describe the current state of the Megamod product and share our strategic priorities for 2023-2024. Megamod is a browser-based multiplayer platform, founded on User-Generated Content (UGC). Our mission is to work with creators interested in creating games and content, providing an environment where young talents can realize their potential, easily creating new game worlds for themselves and their community in a playful form and through collective communication.
Megamod consists of four sub-products, which together enable the entire cycle of content production and usage. Megamod_core (7.1) is a tool for building multiplayer games based on the game mechanics supported by the platform, creating game levels and assets for them. At the moment, the platform allows building various levels and parkour tracks for 3D platformer and arcade racing mechanics. In the future, the platform will allow players to choose other popular game mechanics from a set of blueprints, create levels for them from the existing catalog of assets, and launch full-fledged games that comply with the rules of chosen one or more game mechanics, where other players can be invited to play and develop their own game worlds and gaming communities.
The building process itself is a multiplayer game with open access, available through the Web and mobile app, as well as an interaction point for the creator and their community, right inside Megamod. Game worlds can be created, tested using the gamemode, and published in the game catalog (7.2). Megaskin (7.3) is for creating character skins that will represent each player during construction or participation in the game. MegaBuilder (7.4) is for creating props, props are objects used for building game levels in Megamod_core. Game catalog is a site where created games are published, all games are publicly available, they can be played by the creator with their community, as well as other independent players.
Unlike traditional UGC platforms on the market, Megamod allows a larger number of participants in the videogame creative economy to take part in creating new content and its market value, where each participant in the production chain, value creation, and distribution can receive fair compensation proportional to the success of a specific game world on the platform and beyond. Creators can act as Demiurges, conceiving and creating new worlds and games, attracting other creators, contributors, who perform essential tasks in administering game worlds and/or gaming communities, influencers, who help with content distribution and attracting new users, etc. Our main goal is to learn how to effectively manage the cycle of the creative economy, which consists of the following elements: Content monetization - Creative boom - Distribution development - Lego-ization tools - Lowering the entry threshold for creators - Cultural changes.
Bright successful examples of the Creator Economy are Minecraft and Roblox. 29% of U.S. children want to become a creator when they grow up, and 61% of children aged 6 to 12 are active Minecraft players. During the pandemic, Roblox revealed a large market for UGC content (in 2020, the number of active Roblox users more than doubled, reaching 199 million in August 2020, compared to 90 million in 2019), but the company's desire to moderate content and increase its quality significantly slowed the growth of creators, as Roblox's tools are too complex for the average user. To manage the cycle of the creative economy, we must maintain the simplicity of content creation and distribution tools, as well as make the rules for distributing income between participants in the creative economy transparent and meaningful for different roles of participants. This should allow us to attract and retain creators on our platform more easily.
The creator economy faces a number of issues, such as unstable income, difficulties in maintaining audience activity, and the impact on mental health from the constant need to be in the spotlight. To manage the cycle of the creative economy, we need to create a favorable environment for creators to search for ideas to implement on the platform, the simplest possible toolkit for creating new content and testing game hypotheses, as well as effective channels for attracting audience and content distribution, which will make the income of all participants larger and more stable, as well as reduce the cognitive load on creators and allow them to focus on implementing their ideas.
In 2023-2024, we plan to focus on and achieve the following goals: