Forge launches GameLink and PayLink to test the market for direct-to-consumer games

Forge, a platform for community-driven game marketing and engagement, announced Forge GameLink and PayLink today, a new way for game companies to engage directly with consumers.

Kun Gao, CEO of Forge, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the new Forge features are a Link-in-Bio product purpose built for game studios and publishers. Building on Forge’s mission to empower game developers and foster direct connection with players, GameLink provides a centralized hub for any game to connect purchase, content, community, and launch a direct-to-consumer experience within minutes.

Forge PayLink enables any game developer to link out from their existing in-app purchase flow and seamlessly integrate payment processing, without disrupting the checkout process.

Additionally, games can feature their SKUs directly on their GameLink. Game developers can use PayLink to increase their revenue by up to 35% with just a few minutes of integration.

“In today’s fragmented digital landscape, it’s critical for game developers to have a unified direct to consumer presence,” said Gao. “Forge GameLink provides that essential hub, connecting players to all vital aspects of a game’s ecosystem in one place that’s simple to manage and PayLink enables easy mobile payment processing that boosts any game’s existing revenue within minutes.”

Unlike traditional game websites which serve as static landing pages, Forge GameLink offers developers and publishers the ability to create dynamic, customizable and easily managed Link-in-Bio style landing and community hub for their game. Forge GameLink is integrated into the recently announced Forge Direct suite, enabling a seamless upgrade path to a full featured customizable community portal complete with quests, loyalty rewards, and direct-to-player commerce.

Additionally, games can directly list SKUs on their Forge GameLink for purchase. Mobile games can link to their SKUs via PayLink to seamlessly provide support for existing MOR and alternative payment options within their existing in-app checkout experience. By providing direct payment processing options, games can boost revenue and provide increased retention through loyalty, rewards, and other incentives with the Forge platform.

Forge GameLink is taking community engagement to the next level by offering a powerful tool that streamlines how players discover and interact with their favorite games. This includes the ability to link to all popular social and community platforms, directly feature game purchase options such as Steam, showcase game trailers from YouTube, create FAQs, countdowns, and more.

“If you have this running on mobile, it looks just as good. And then for the payment checkout, it works on basically any platform, but the payment challenges have been specifically on mobile. And so I think the use case there is much more geared for mobile,” Gao said.

Going direct to consumers

At the Game Developers Conference in March, Forge launched Forge Direct, giving game companies the chance to launch direct to consumers.

“Since then, some of the feedback we’ve seen is that some of the games we work with, in addition to having Forge Direct, they also use the existing link-in-bio tools to promote all the different places that they have audiences, and then they link out from there to their socials,” Gao said.

Gao added, “When we looked at that experience, we thought it was pretty basic and not really ideal for games. And so we set about to build a purpose-built link-in-bio, just for games.”

Epic Games was recently able to restore Fortnite on Apple’s app store, after 4.5 years of antitrust litigation. Upon a final ruling in federal court, Apple must now allow Epic to sell Fortnite on the app store and also promote in its app that there are lower prices off the store at Epic’s site.

Gao said, “The second part, which I think is even more timely, has been the recent announcements and development around Epic Games and Apple, and the decision to be able to let games drive payments to wherever they want. And as part of the ability to launch link-in-bio, we also added the ability to do direct checkout. So now games have the ability to not just use us for link-in-bio, but also the ability to directly do payment checkout from within their iOS app” in a seamless way that takes them back into the app.

Forge is on the web, but this new product is mobile optimized, Gao said.

Forge GameLink and PayLink are free. Games have the choice to upgrade to the Pro tier, which unlocks the ability to host GameLink on their own domain or subdomain, access to additional analytics, and advanced customization options.

Getting started is fast and easy, and can be set up by game teams within minutes at this link.

Since launching in late 2023, Forge has partnered with hundreds of games, helping studios boost discovery, retention, and engagement through more than 25 million completed quests.

Now, with Forge GameLink, Forge provides a centralized hub for any game to connect purchase, content, community, and launch a direct-to-consumer experience within minutes.

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.

The bigger implications

GameLink is a link-in-bio that can be launched and then can quickly lead the player to a game trailer, a wish listing, or purchase on Steam. Or it can link out to social platforms for the game. That content can be refreshed regularly. And there are analytics reporting back on who is clicking on what.

“We’re pretty excited about this one. Going through Forge GameLink, you can now actually start building a direct-to-consumer experience, and one that’s extremely lightweight and very easy to get off the ground,” said Gao. “You can put in a box for users to put in their emails. Finally, games can now have a direct touch point to those players, not just on other platforms, but having a direct email relationship with them.”

Gao said it is a very big deal that mobile games on iOS now have the option to take the actual checkout for purchases outside of the App Store.

“Previously, the App Store was the only way to do it. You could not link to web shops before. You could not promote anything inside the app to go somewhere else outside the app. Now the games have the option to basically do what they want,” Gao said. “That’s why we’ve built GameLink and the payment part of GameLink to facilitate the process. It still provides developers with a full suite of payment options.”

He added, “Once the user is on the pay link, the user has various payment options, we auto detect what kind of payment options are available. And for example, you could have a new credit card, you could have a saved credit card. And then, more importantly, for the Apple ecosystem, if they have Apple Pay already.”

Savings for gamers

By choosing to buy something off store in a web shop, a player can get a savings of perhaps as much as 30%, as there is no fee going to Apple anymore. But there would be a fee of 5% or less going to the alternative payment provider.

Once the transaction is complete, the app can put the player back into the game. There are downsides if gamers don’t use Apple’s own in-app purchase, Gao said. For instance, if you don’t use it, the developer doesn’t get the benefit of the payment counting toward their listing in the top-grossing ranks for games. But for most indie games, Gao said this doesn’t matter, as they’re not likely to be in the top 20. Gao said Forge is targeting the indie game makers.

“You have to evaluate if it’s worth the loss of up to 35% of your revenue to stay in that listing,” Gao said. “The trend is that games are going to have a lot more direct control over their publishing as well as direct control over payment processing, as well as having a much more direct relationship with players going forward. And so we are building the tools to really easily facilitate that that process.”

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