I met Jared Kim, long before he had dropped out of University of California, Berkeley. He came by to hang with me along with Matt Mullenweg. Jared, then a precocious 19-year-old wanted to start YouTube for gamers — WeGame. The company was later acquired by Tagged. A diehard gamer he couldn’t help but continue on his quest to marry video and gaming. Jared (who has since become a very close friend) started another company — Forge – and it launched today.
Jared is betting on PC platform (especially at a time when everyone says PC is dead/dying.) Jared’s big bet that PC gamers will continue gaming on the PC. Kim, points to more than 125 million active accounts on Steam and 67 million monthly active users on League of Legends as ample proof that PC as a gaming platform is not going away anytime soon. With the rise of eSports, an estimated 134 million people tuned into competitive gaming tournaments worldwide in 2015.
Forge is an online video clip sharing network, that allows PC gamers to automatically capture gameplay & share short-form clips to Forge platform & social networks like Twitter. You need to download and install their app, which runs in the background on Windows computers. It isn’t available for other platforms.
“For years I’ve been a bit obsessed with building a better social experience for gaming,” Kim said. ” I wanted to create a product that would enhance–rather than interrupt–the in-game experience.” Actually producing these clips is often still difficult, involving extra hardware and other technical hurdles. Forge has made it super simple – you should try it.
Congrats, Team Forge!
Here is what they are saying about Forge in the media:
- IGN: With Forge outputting short, looping gameplay clips, hopefully this means a new era of animated gifs and gaming Vines.
- San Jose Mercury News: Forge seems to have nailed the capturing and sharing formula of PC gaming.
