Forge Launches Forge Direct: The First Gamified Hub for Community-Powered Growth

Forge opens platform to enable any game to launch feature-rich community portals, drive player engagement, and unlock new revenue streams

Forge Launches Forge Direct: The First Gamified Hub for Community-Powered Growth

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Forge, the leading platform for community-driven game marketing and engagement, announced Forge Direct today, enabling game developers to launch fully customizable, feature-rich community portals that they can host on their own domain to complement—or even replace—a traditional web presence. Unlike traditional game websites which typically serve as static landing pages, Forge offers developers an easy to use interactive engagement solution complete with quests, loyalty rewards, and direct-to-player commerce, so that they can drive discovery and monetization on their own terms.

Forge Helps Developers Take Back Control

For years, game developers have relied solely on platform-driven discovery through storefronts like Steam, iOS, and Google Play, where visibility is controlled by algorithms and revenue is limited by high platform fees. Forge Direct changes the equation, enabling developers to go direct-to-community and retake control of discovery and monetization.

With Forge Direct, developers can launch a fully customizable game hub on their own domain that leverages the power of community led growth. These hubs come stocked with dozens of quest types that can be curated to drive social growth, discovery, wishlists and reviews, in-game actions, friend referrals, and more. By completing quests, players can become brand advocates and earn Loyalty Points that can be redeemed for exclusive in-game content and rewards.

Webshops have become common as a means of helping developers retain revenue, but driving webshop usage can be a challenge. Forge Direct integrates with leading webshop providers, and acts as an ecommerce amplifier, creating new ways for game developers to reach players, and rewarding direct purchases with loyalty points.

Finally, Forge’s 360 Analytics and analytics pixel integrations gives developers unparalleled access to deeply understand their players and track the performance of their marketing campaigns.

"Game Discovery is Broken—We’re Fixing It"

“Marketing costs are skyrocketing, and developers need a direct connection to their players, not just a presence within walled gardens,” said Kun Gao, Co-Founder & CEO of Forge. “With Forge Direct, studios finally have a system built for community-powered growth that fuels discovery and commerce—rather than relying solely on expensive ads and unpredictable platform algorithms.”

At launch, Forge Direct is powering a diverse lineup of games across multiple genres, including IMMORTALS: Gates of Pyre (RTS), The Legend of Baboo (Adventure) published by Midwest Games, Portal Fantasy (RPG), ONE Fight Arena (Puzzle), Shrapnel (FPS), SolForge Fusion (TCG), KAI: Sangokushi Taisen - Battle of Three Kingdoms (TCG), and more.

Getting started is fast and easy, and can be set up by game marketing teams without needing to write a single line of code. In celebration of GDC (Game Developers Conference, March 17 - 21) Forge is offering indies 3 months of Forge Starter pack for free for a limited time. Developers can learn more about this offer at forge.gg/gdc.

About Forge

Since launching in late 2023, Forge has partnered with over 75 games, helping studios boost discovery, retention, and engagement through more than 25 million completed quests. Now, with Forge Direct, Forge is putting the same powerful feature set directly into the hands of game developers—giving them the tools to build thriving communities, drive meaningful actions, and unlock new revenue streams.

Founded by gaming pioneer Dennis “Thresh” Fong, Crunchyroll founder Kun Gao, and Cyence founder George Ng, Forge originated as a project within GGWP, an AI-powered game moderation platform that the team launched in 2020, Forge’s mission is to make user acquisition and community engagement accessible and effective for all developers, enabling them to focus on creating amazing games.

The platform launched in late 2023 with an $11 million seed funding round, co-led by Makers Fund, BITKRAFT Ventures, and Animoca Brands. Forge’s existing investors include industry-leading strategics such as Griffin Gaming Partners, Riot Games, and Sony Innovation Fund. Forge’s angel investors include gaming industry leaders Riot Games founder Marc Merrill, Twitch founders Emmett Shear and Kevin Lin, TSM founder Dan Dinh, Kabam founders Kevin Chou and Holly Liu, YouTube founder Steve Chen, Krafton CEO CH Kim, former Discord CMO Eros Resmini (The Mini Fund), and ESL founder Ralf Reichart.