The Virtual Playtesting group was founded by Chris Backe, a nomadic game designer from the US at entrogames.com, and Ian Brocklebank, a game designer based in Leeds, England. As the world was locking down to guard against the coronavirus, it started meeting in mid-May 2020 to give designers based in Europe another option to virtually playtest their games on European time zones.
Along with several US-based hosts (or mods or admin, if you like), the group has welcomed more than 1,500 members from at least 5 continents and 10 time zones.