Fangamer

Fangamer was founded in 2007 by a group of friends who grew up running an EarthBound fan site called Starmen.Net. We started off planning to use Starmen.Net's software as a basis for other fansites, but it turns out the future of Web 1.0 fansites wasn't quite as bright as we'd hoped. We launched the Fangamer Store in August 2008 with four products (two shirts, a pin set, and a mug). Within hours the orders were flooding in, and it quickly became apparent that there was a huge demand for merchandise inspired by the older SNES-era games we grew up with. We've worked diligently ever since to create merchandise inspired by (and in honor of) our favorite games. 2009 was a busy year of expansion during which we finished/shipped The MOTHER 3 Handbook, brought on our second full-time employee, and moved from a spare bedroom into an office. In 2010 we brought on our third and fourth full-timers and began working with small, independent gaming companies including 2 Player Productions and . We also nailed down a booth at PAX East -- the start of a yearly tradition. In 2011 worked hard to expand our partnerships with independent game developers and other small gaming companies. We brought on a variety of part-time employees and prepared for our fifth full-timer to show up after Christmas. We crammed our tiny office with far more merchandise than it should have held. In 2012 we finally moved out of our hole-in-the-wall office space attached to the side of a radiator shop in favor of two attached office units, each bigger than our old office. By the end of the year, we'd added a third. During that time we focused on partnerships with folks like Attract Mode (leading to our joint art show at PAX Prime), Ashley Davis, Kari Fry, SEIBEI, Zac Gorman, and Klei Entertainment. We also handled fulfillment for several successful Kickstarters for our friends, such as 2-Player Productions' Minecraft: the Story of Mojang, the Double Fine Adventure, and our own Retrowear Kickstarter. We brought four new full-time employees into the fold over the course of the year, bringing our army up to eight. In 2013 we expanded our office again and brought on two more full-time employees. We created partner stores for fan music master Mustin, the indie game FTL, our friends at Venus Patrol, and CAPY. In 2014 we continued to expand our list of indie game friends, including Papers, Please, Octodad, and Shovel Knight! We also launched and successfully funded our You Are Now EarthBound Kickstarter project to the tune of $300k, which gave us several major projects to work on over the next couple of years. In 2015 we nailed down our biggest projects and partnerships to date. We developed, marketed, and ran a record-breaking Kickstarter project for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. We ran a strange and wonderful convention for the first time. And alongside other great indie games like Crypt of the Necrodancer, Axiom Verge, Guacamelee, and Nuclear Throne, we started working with our old friend Toby Fox as he released his own game, UNDERTALE. In 2016 we launched a huge lineup of Undertale merchandise, which quickly became the broadest and deepest product line in our history. We buckled down and finished our massive You Are Now EarthBound Project and held our second Camp Fangamer, which raised over $14,000 for Speak Your Silence. Finally, we escaped our old office park by purchasing and renovating our own building: Now it's 2017 and we're working to build partnerships with even more great game devs. We're even finally revising this "About" page! Also, we found a basketball hoop in the trash, and it was a huge boost to our quality of life.