Welcome back to Publisher Showcase, where we highlight the people and platforms powering some of the most useful gaming resources in the Nitro network.

This month, we’re spotlighting MetaForge, co-founded by Sebastian Klier and Dan James. Built as a single home for game guides and tools, MetaForge grew out of the need to scale smarter across new releases. With strong timing and a clear focus on what players need most, the platform has quickly earned its place in multiple game communities.

Read on to see how MetaForge found its footing and scaled with purpose. 👇

First up, can you tell us a bit about your career/life background that led you to start MetaForge?

Sebastian Klier:

I've been working as a software developer for nearly 20 years, mainly on websites and web applications, and have prior experience working on fairly large projects both in terms of complexity and traffic.

When New World launched in 2021, I had been working on a web app for it while it was still in closed testing, and launched it at the perfect time to capitalize on the launch traffic.  Since then I worked on more projects for other games, but always had the idea to create one single platform for all these games. After I partnered up with Dan near the end of 2024, we started planning towards it. 

Dan James:

I've spent most of my career filming for television documentaries and movies. When TV got boring and the likes of YouTube started to come about, I started to turn my focus to creating all sorts of short movies for commercial clients which they would use for educating and marketing - this led to me starting a couple more businesses of my own.

In the background I spent many hours playing MMORPG's and games in general, and when Covid hit I tried to combine my passion for creating and love for business together with my gaming addiction and after a few years of trial and error I partnered up with Takyn, and MetaForge was born.

What drove you to create MetaForge? Did you see a specific gap in the market? Was there a particular insight that motivated you to launch it?

We were running multiple individual websites for different games, and maintaining essentially the same features across each one was becoming increasingly inefficient.

On top of that, new sites take time to build up SEO authority and monetize effectively, which meant we were missing out on opportunities around new game launches. With MetaForge as our main platform, we no longer have these issues.

How long have you been running your website and how long did it take from development until it was live?

It took maybe 2-3 months for the initial version, another few months to merge some of our other sites into it, and then another few months for the parts that made up our ARC Raiders section at the time, which was our first major game launch under the new brand.

How did you decide on the specific features and tools available on MetaForge?

We usually focus on guides, interactive maps, databases and skill builders. Additional tools depend on the game and what is possible to create and makes sense for users. Often features are also the result of community feedback.

How were you able to build a strong online presence for the website?

In large parts this came from merging our existing sites together, which gave us a decent SEO boost right away. We also had some well timed posts on Reddit and other places and a few partnerships with content creators. But by far the largest factor has been word of mouth. We consistently get recommended organically, ahead of other sites (we track this).

What have been some of the most effective tactics to drive traffic to your website so far?

I think this comes down to being early to the party and having a good product. We track which parts perform well and lean into that. We also saw a need for a specific tool (marketplace) and executed it fairly well, which has become a major source of traffic even though we initially were not sure if we even wanted to do this type of feature.

Has AI changed how you manage or grow your website?

We don't use AI for content creation (like written guides) except for "proof reading" or editing. We use it sometimes for placeholder images and other small things.

For development, a lot of software developers now use it extensively and we do too, but it's definitely a double edged sword. AI lets you create features very fast, but often the code turns out to be fragile, hard to maintain, and doesn't scale well.

What are you most proud of in regards to the success of MetaForge so far? Any major highlights?

Definitely the sheer amount of traffic we've seen. We have been sharing each new milestone internally at launch as sort of small celebrations, and after the initial peak it has been fairly consistent (unlike New World back when I started).

What advice do you have for new and existing website owners that you wish you knew before you started?

If you are doing this on the side, just focus on one thing and do it well. If you are trying to do it full time, it can definitely be a lot more work and stress than you might expect.

Keeping things running smoothly and putting out fires on a daily basis can be a lot of work. If you have features that allow a lot of user generated content or interaction between users (like a marketplace), expect an insane amount of support work.

What do you like best about being a part of Nitro’s network of premium gaming/entertainment websites?

We love Nitro, especially the direct contact and very quick responses. The net 7 payout has helped us scale quickly when we needed it, as we went from 0 to being able to pay a few people to help us with development, content and support in a very short time.

What’s next for MetaForge?

We have a very large list of things we want to do, but right now we are mainly focused on ARC Raiders and then slowly adding more games in the future. We also want to slow down a little bit and make sure we get new sections fully ready before we launch them. And after that we just keep going.

A big thank you to Sebastian and Dan from MetaForge. Keep your eyes peeled for more insightful interviews like this in next month's edition of our Publisher Showcase, where we’ll continue to spotlight one of the 500+ stand out websites on Nitro, diving deep into their unique success!

Nitro is dedicated to reinventing website monetization for the gaming industry. Our ad tech platform combines uncompromised user experience, nitro-speed revenue and service with Net 7 Payouts, same-day support and the industry’s fastest ad loading.