By Krysten Brenlla
For Raul Faife and Gino Rey, gaming was always a big part of their lives. Mix that in with the community of friends they met by joining Florida International University’s INIT organization, they felt like they had everything they needed.
“I’ve always been interested in technology. When I was younger, I’d run Minecraft servers, and later in high school, I made my first mobile app. I was just really passionate about what I was doing,” Faife, the CEO of HitBox, said. “When I started FIU, and met the community at UPE, which is now known as INIT, it changed my life completely.”
“I came on to tech when I was 20 – I didn’t even know anything about technology, but I loved playing video games growing up,” Rey, the CTO of HitBox, said. “I started learning Python, and I taught myself everything. When I got to FIU, I knew I needed to find a group of people who loved tech and gaming like me, and that’s what led me to INIT.”
Nonetheless, after completing internships in college and leadership roles in INIT, Faife and Rey felt they could do more. So, they took the tech and leadership skills they learned throughout their college careers, and decided not to go after full-time jobs after graduation.
Instead, they took a risk, and launched several startups together. After many ideas, developments, obstacles and failures, they finally found one that stuck. They completed the Telora Fellowship, and with the feedback they received, they launched a new application that has helped them make waves for hundreds of gamers just like them.
“HitBox is like TikTok for gamers – if you see a game you like, you can play the game instantly in one app,” Faife said. “Just download the app and scroll. You’ll see video previews of the game, and you can decide whether you want to play it instantly within the app, without having to download anything else.”
To use the app, users can download the HitBox application (for free) from the iOS Apple App Store (the founders have plans to publish the game to the Google Play store for Android in the near future), and scroll through the application to view previews of games that were published directly by different game developers across the world. Once a user finds a game they like, they can play it instantly on the application – which, according to Rey, takes up as much space as a photo or video. For game developers, they can easily upload their game as a web-file. Once uploaded, the game can be hosted on the different versions of HitBox – the application, browser version, and future Android app.
“The games on HitBox are micro-games – they’re around 5-10 megabits, and the user never has to wait for games to download to play,” Rey said. “When we initially did our research, we saw that everybody wanted short-form content, and they wanted to see a lot of it. We’re seeing the same thing happening with games.”
Since launching in mid-June this year, HitBox has nearly 200 games on the application, with more than 500 gamers using the app. Additionally, they’ve on boarded three people to their team to help with marketing and further developments.
“The way we got to this was just by talking to our users and other gamers in our community,” Faife said. “I was never able to get the app I built in high school on the iOS App Store – it costs money, I needed a MacBook, and the review process was horrendous for just a small game I wanted to share with my friends. So, Gino and I started thinking about how we can make gaming easier for not only gamers, but also game developers – and that’s how we got the idea for HitBox, to mainly help game developers get found.”
For the future, Rey and Faife are looking forward to building out leadership boards, profiles, and customizations for users. They’re also in the process of building out an inbox system so users can socialize with friends and enjoy every aspect of the gaming entertainment industry. And, they were nominated to participate in the Startup World Cup Miami competition, the world’s largest startup conference and pitch competition.
When asked about their excitement for HitBox, Rey and Faife both expressed their enthusiasm for having hundreds of games developed by passionate gamers from around the world for users to enjoy. They also shared their advice for future entrepreneurs, emphasizing that people should think about what’s really important to them without ever giving up, and expressed their gratitude for all they learned from their peers at INIT.
“I think something very valuable for people to recognize is that things will work out, as long as you do things that make you happy,” Faife said. “If you move toward your curiosity, you will end up creating the path that you’re meant to create.”
To stay updated on all things HitBox, visit their website at https://hitbox.gg/.
Photo at top of post: Gino Rey and Raul Faife, co-founders of Hitbox.
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