"What Is Game Infinite Friends?" - The Community Turns 2!
Game Infinite was born from an observation. I was a business/gaming design major in college, and I had a lot of friends who were indie developers or aspiring to become one. I learned first hand how difficult the indie developer life was. Some people I greatly respect, worked for 10+ years on a game, impacting their personal and familial lives, and sometimes with little success or fame. They spent years building games that are truly fun and amazing but you may have never heard of them. I am not a coder, or a programer, so building the game was not going to be for me, but I knew I had a talent for sales, a passion for writing, and a desire for gaming news. Hence my initial idea for Game Infinite was a gaming news and entertainment platform. Game Infinite would be a mini IGN or GameSpot and brought gaming news as well as entertainment in the form of clips, twitch streams, and more. The point of that was that Game Infinite would build a following that it could leverage to share news and content from smaller, even single team, developers who would otherwise have few to no outlets to share. With this ground work I experimented, and tried, succeeded, and failed, and tried more things. I quickly learned that difficulty getting noticed, difficulty growing, and difficulty sharing your content was not a problem unique to Indie Developers. Other content creators like cosplayers or twitch streamers also often times had really fun and interesting content but deserved more attention. Game Infinite Friends, or "GiFriends" was the name behind a unique community, unique that it was open to all gaming content creators not just one group. This group benefits from the diversity of its members' content. We have indie developers who now can meet twitch streamers. We have cosplayers who want to stream with other cosplayers. I could have waited until Game Infinite was larger and successful to create this community, but I didn't think that was the right strategy. Game Infinite was not exempt was the difficulty of being a lone start up and benefited directly from growing with its members. Even when Game Infinite was small with only a few hundred social media followers, already several content creators believed in the idea at the start. Now, while it is still growing, the social media presence has swollen into thousands, with over 50 content creators partnered up with Game Infinite Friends. Game Infinite works to promote, share, and support these members while providing them with a website board, community hashtag, private discord, and weekly promos.
I know the first 50 of a community can be the hardest, so I am excited that this diverse, friendly, foundation could lead to a large powerful community that will only keep growing. It amazes me. When I first planned the program I expect to only have local members, but I was surprised at the early reach. GiFriends currently has members across the US with members in the UK, Europe, and Australia! In the past two years I have had to opportunity to meet several members in person, and it was truly amazing getting to work with these super talented content creators. While there are so many amazing members in the community, I want to shout some of the ones I have had the opportunity to meet in person. You can see the full list of members here on the Member Board.
Mystifying Enchantress & Flash and Clear Gaming
Kiersten isn't just one of our community members; she is one of our very first. She believed in the community before it was barely anything. She and her husband even drove up to Wisconsin to visit me and my friends helping me at the time. Kiersten helped model the prototype GiFriends t-shirt and has often volunteered to be the unofficial face of cosplay and promotional opportunity for Game Infinite, taking it upon herself to promote the community. She has done so much to promote this community I could never thank her enough. Top all of her kindness and support off she is also a super talented cosplayer and aspiring fun streamer. Her feedback, suggestions, and content have truly enriched Game Infinite. I met her husband and his friend Eric through introductions and their stream team Flash and Clear also has become a member of GiFriends. Flash and Clear will sometimes join us in twitch co-streams. You need to follow Kiersten on instagram for cosplays.
PIXELAKES
The team at Pixelakes are the talented devs behind Treasure Stack! I'm super proud to work with these guys because I truly enjoy their game. It is just super fun, and to see a indie team through their launch period was truly amazing. Building a relationship with an indie team, sharing their work, and helping promote their launch goes way back to the very core that built Game Infinite in the first place. I met them initially at Midwest Gaming Classic back in 2018, started talking and when they joined GiFriends I was very amped. I got to help share and promote through launch, and I was able to meet up with them again as full fledged members a year later at MGC19 and help promote more. They are super nice and can't wait to see where they go next! Treasure Stack is available now on Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch!
Lady Maul Cosplay
Amber is just an amazing cosplayer. She is super talented and does unique art. In addition to traditional cosplays she also does cosplays with incredibly intricate and difficult design and make up that truly show her skill. Complex cosplays like Darth Talon or Venom truly showcase her creative capabilities. I got the opportunity to meet her in person at Star Wars Celebration 2019 in Chicago, and I have to say she is a really nice down to earth person. I can't stress enough how much you should follow her super talented art! You can follow her instagram here.
NerdHerder
Nerdherder is a perfect example of being in the right place at the right time. Talk about random coincidence. While virtually every other GiFriend member has been first met on social media, I met these fantastic fellow Star Wars nerds at Star Wars Celebration. We just happened to be standing in line next to each other waiting to meet Sam Witwer. It was a long line so we got to talking. Making note of each others apparel I told him about Game Infinite and I learned about their Star Wars themed platform. We connected over our love of Star Wars and followed each other on social media. Eventually bringing them into the GiFriends community, we now get to benefit from all their amazing Star Wars twitch, youtube, and podcast content!
The Mods Program!
As GiFriends grew and Game Infinite evolved to offer more content I quickly realized I wanted to offer a new position within GiFriends, and that was became GiFriendsMODS. These individuals would be my first lieutenants, and they would help me formulate new ideas, strategies, and plans before reaching the community at large. They helped manage the platform for a week so I could take week off, help interact with the growing community, and helped with E3 week! I am excited to announce the addition of more MODS activities are coming soon, starting with a new MODS MONDAYS. More to come on that! While this program is still new and experimenting, I am happy to recognize two GiFriends who have stepped up and volunteered for this extra responsibility. Cosplayer, Brooke and streamer, Lyvyana have both volunteered to be Mods and I look forward to continuing work with them! I will also be exploring looking for a third Mod soon.
2020 Goals
Long term goals for GiFriends is continued growth into a large highly supportive community that helps content creators grow! I want to share some goals I have for 2020. I will be moving in October which will provide a new office studio for me to work in. I hope to use this space for improved streaming and a return of podcasts! I hope to blow up GiFriends to over 100 members, and I have been working with the Mods on a new promotional strategy that will take into account our growing numbers. The size of Game Infinite directly impacts the ability to promote members so my desire is to break 3000 followers on Instagram. Mostly, my goal is to make a difference in the lives of these amazing creators and help them reach their goals.
