As an 18-year-old, Zhenghua Yang expected his first semester at the University of Illinois to be nothing out of the ordinary: classes, late nights, and the awkwardness of freshman social life. Instead, just weeks into campus life—on Halloween—his world collapsed.
What began in 2008 as a seemingly simple nosebleed had turned into a life-threatening crisis: his body was critically short of blood platelets, and at one point, doctors told him he had only three hours to live. Yang survived, but not before spending two years in and out of hospitals.
During that difficult stretch, Yang found an unexpected lifeline: video games like League of Legends, Minecraft, and World of Warcraft.
“Games like League of Legends weren’t really made to help me, but in the end, they basically saved my life,” Yang, now 35, told Fortune. “What if I start making games with the intention to help people? What kind of power would that be able to unlock?”
Those questions followed him when he transferred closer to home to the University of Colorado Boulder and began studying business. With a $1,000 initial investment, he launched Serenity Forge—a game development and publishing company built around the mission he scribbled in between lectures: “We create meaningful and emotionally impactful experiences that challenge the way you think.”
More than a decade later, the over 40-person studio has published roughly 70 titles, including Lifeless Planet and Doki Doki Literature Club(which has been downloaded 30 million times), and brings in between $10 and $15 million annually. But for Yang, success has not been defined by copies sold or revenue made—but impact.
Profits aren’t the north star, inspired by the former CEO of Whole Foods
Before Serenity Forge, Yang did summer internships at Wells Fargo and the Federal Reserve—but it was a quote from John Mackey, the cofounder and former CEO of Whole Foods, that he heard in school, which shaped his career the most: “Just as people cannot live without eating, so a business cannot live without profits. But most people don’t live to eat, and neither must a business live just to make profits.”
That framing has become core to Serenity Forge’s strategy: pushing the world forward with timeless creative and emotional gaming experiences. But keeping true to that mission often means turning down lucrative opportunities, Yang admitted.
“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,’” Yang said.
And while prioritizing impact is not always easy, Yang said it is reinforced by the company’s customers who even run up to him in public.
“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 realized that I was in an abusive relationship and I’m now way healthier and way happier because of the art that you created,’” Yang told Fortune.
“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’s advice for founders: fail often—and do it quickly
The secret for success, Yang said, isn’t talent or timing—it’s learning to move through failure quickly and deliberately. That’s especially true in crowded industries like game development, where thousands of studios compete for attention and only a sliver break through.
He pointed to Rovio Entertainment, the company behind Angry Birds, which created over 50 other games before striking gold with the mobile game franchise. Serenity Forge has faced its own version of that reality, with Yang being the first to admit not every one of its games has landed.
But what founders can control, Yang added, is how they move forward—ideally with diligence and discipline.
“Life can be complicated,” he said. “When you’re starting a business to do things, be as nuanced as you can about it, and try to try to keep an open mind about the realities of the world.”
