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.”
