At 18, Doctors Said He Had 3 Hours To Live. He Now Runs A $10 Million Gaming Empire

Zhenghua Yang's freshman year at the University of Illinois took an unexpected turn when a simple nosebleed escalated into a life-threatening crisis. At the age of 18, during his first semester of college in 2008, Yang developed chronic refractory idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a rare autoimmune disease. Doctors gave him just three hours to live due to a severe platelet shortage. He survived this experience, but spent the next two years in and out of hospitals.

During this challenging time, Yang found solace in video games like League of Legends, Minecraft, and World of Warcraft. This experience inspired him to create meaningful, emotionally impactful games that challenge how people think. He went on to found Serenity Forge, a game development studio focused on creating meaningful experiences, with a mere $1,000 investment. 

"Games like League of Legends weren't really made to help me, but in the end, they basically saved my life. What if I start making games with the intention to help people? What kind of power would that be able to unlock?," Yang told Fortune. 

More than a decade later, the studio has published around 70 titles, including the highly successful Doki Doki Literature Club, and brings in between $10 million and $15 million annually. 

However, for Yang, success is all about the impact his games have on people. This approach has led the studio to turn down lucrative opportunities, staying true to its goal of pushing the world forward with creative and emotional gaming experiences.

"There are so many games over the years that were pitched to us where we looked at it was like, ‘Yeah, this is gonna make us, like, $20 million but we're gonna say no to it, because it's not a Serenity Forge game," he said. 

"There will be all these fans, teenagers, that would line up, talk to me. They will cry, they would give me hugs and tell me, ‘you're the reason that I realised that I was in an abusive relationship and I'm now way healthier and way happier because of the art that you created. That, I think, has always been the thing that drives me way more so than the bottom line or like your employee count or all the other stuff," Yang added. 

Yang's mantra for founders is to "fail often and do it quickly." He believes the key to success lies in learning to navigate failure swiftly and intentionally, especially in competitive fields like game development.