I think a single r/GameDeals fill-in would be prudent, as it does cover the free content as well, with a Free only sub down the line when there is enough community.
If nothing seems to happen after you click Subscribe, refresh the page. It should then say "Subscription Pending". All you have to do at that point is wait a bit and it will eventually get added to your subs. The lemmy.ml server is being hammered by new users and it's constantly slowing to a crawl or sporadically going down. Beehaw occasionally has the Subscription Pending issue, too.
When servers de-federate, it just means that users on each respective instance will not be able to connect to the other instance. If you'd like to follow that community, you'll be able to either by making an account on that instance, or by making one on a separate instance and subscribing to both Beehaw and lemmy.world content(assuming that third instance is federated with both).
Thanks, this is what I was looking for, but dang, why is even just a subscription to the comnunity pending? Subscribing has to be reviewed? This federated stuff is going over my head!
"Create Community" at the top of your screen if you're on browser, just make sure you're on the instance you want your community to be on. I actually don't know on the apps. I haven't tried to make one from Jerboa yet.