Marcus Howard

When he was six, Marcus got Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas, and he’s been playing and building 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.

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In 2013 Marcus 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.

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Marcus Howard is CEO of the esports education startup 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. Today, Marcus consults with universities and businesses around the world, helping them use video games to digitally engage their entire communities.

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 “Gaming and Esports” digital course, and publishing another book, to help students and their parents/teachers understand the 100+ STEAM career opportunities the $174B video game industry. In his spare time, he scouts indie games (games made by independent game developers) for funding/distribution deals with the world’s largest gaming companies.

Marcus is excited about how video games inspire the next generation of innovators to pursue STEAM careers and is always eager to chat about video games.