It's LGBT Pride Month which means there's another big bundle of games available in the Queer Games Bundle now on itch.io. Featuring 466 different items from 293 creators it's filled full with games, physical games, assets, soundtracks and more.
From the bundle page:
If we had the budget of an AAA game, we could give every solo developer in this bundle a livable wage multiple times over for a year and every single team a massive funding boost. Imagine what the developers and artists in this bundle could create a year from now if they weren’t worried about starving or how to pay their rent this month.
Purchasing the Queer Games Bundle is a direct action that you can take right now to support queer people in a life-changing way, and in exchange, you get over 450 amazing, heartfelt, fun, and radical games and artworks.
Help nurture our diverse queer arts community, fund the creation of the next great game you love, and find your new favorite game by purchasing the bundle today.
There's two different versions you can support the creators with the main bundle and a PWYW bundle ($10 minimum) for people who can afford less but still wish to grab it.
With this being the third year they've done the bundle, last year they managed to raise over $200K for all the creators involved across the two bundles.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Jun 2, 2023
Quoting: mircallaQuoting: denyasisI'm still all for supporting the community and we definitely need more diverse voices in games, I just wish the marketing around this was a little less... Corporate-y (or perhaps more honest)
I'm willing to cut itch way more slack on "happy pride! buy buy buy!" than I am for Pepsi, Target, airlines, etc, but I do feel some kind of way about it becoming an annual institution.
Perhaps. I must admit I think I'm a bit of the opposite; I think I cut those big stores a little more slack. They seem a little more honest (if not still cold and calculating) in that they are unabashedly doing it as a promo (and some of them actually offer products that can be kinda useful for people in those communities)
I couldn't think of the right words earlier, but I think what bugs me about Itch is that it feels like they are saying to the artists "You won't make much, but We'll pay you with exposure!", which seems like a pretty big no-no in a lot of freelance/artist circles and coupling that the promo of "changing lives" toward the consumer. To me, it feels worse that just a blatant "Gay Pride!!" sale.
I hope that makes some sense
Quoting: denyasisI couldn't think of the right words earlier, but I think what bugs me about Itch is that it feels like they are saying to the artists "You won't make much, but We'll pay you with exposure!", which seems like a pretty big no-no in a lot of freelance/artist circles and coupling that the promo of "changing lives" toward the consumer. To me, it feels worse that just a blatant "Gay Pride!!" sale.To be clear, it's really nothing like that. 99% of bundles on itch.io are run by the developers directly, there's only certain special itch bundles that are from them. And, on itch.io, developers can set to give itch literally nothing. Like this bundle, you can see clearly who has organised it, other than hosting it itch have nothing to do with the creation or push behind it.
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: denyasisI couldn't think of the right words earlier, but I think what bugs me about Itch is that it feels like they are saying to the artists "You won't make much, but We'll pay you with exposure!", which seems like a pretty big no-no in a lot of freelance/artist circles and coupling that the promo of "changing lives" toward the consumer. To me, it feels worse that just a blatant "Gay Pride!!" sale.To be clear, it's really nothing like that. 99% of bundles on itch.io are run by the developers directly, there's only certain special itch bundles that are from them. And, on itch.io, developers can set to give itch literally nothing. Like this bundle, you can see clearly who has organised it, other than hosting it itch have nothing to do with the creation or push behind it.
Thanks for the clarification! I do see on the page where it's founded by 2 individuals. Although to the casual reader (like me) the separation from itch isn't exactly obvious (for example that you can make/host your own bundle isn't something I knew about).
So yeah, I think it does indeed remove the scammy nature of it and looking at past years it seems like last year they netted about 540USD for each artist. Which I think is pretty good.
I think one could argue the semantics of whether of not those funds are "life-changing" and the implied promises of the text, but it's certain their hearts are in the right place. And who knows, with enough sucess, this could really help out some of those people!!
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