Video Games For Good: Itch.io Releases “Bundle For Ukraine,” Raises Millions Of Dollars
from the video-games-in-time-of-war dept
For all the posts we’ve done on the impact of video games on society, I have found myself typically either beating back the notion that gaming is a terrible thing responsible for all the world’s problems or talking about common IP conflicts. On the topic of the internet generally, well, it’s mostly the same. But we also have opportunities to talk about the good that gaming and the internet can do.
Which brings us to Itch.io and its brand new “Bundle For Ukraine.”
Yesterday, itch.io launched a bundle of 1,000 games to raise money for Ukraine, helping amidst Russia’s invasion. It’s only $10 but you can pledge however much you want. Already, it’s raised $2 million.
The bundle is up for another eight days and it has already hit its first goal of $1 million. The new goal has been set at $4 million, just under double what it has now. If you decide to donate by purchasing itch.io’s charity bundle, you’ll get $6,500 worth of games for as little as $10 while also helping those caught in the conflict.
The charitable bundle has actually done even better than what was listed at the time of that posts’ writing. You can get to the bundle through this link, where you will see that the project has now raised just a bit under $3 million at the time of this writing. And that, mind you, is with a minimum purchase amount of $10, though you can pay more if you so choose. Most folks don’t, of course, which is how it always works with pay-what-you-want setups. In this case, the average contribution is $15, though notably at least one person paid $9k. With over a hundred thousand contributors, there are certainly plenty of folks paying more than what is the required minimum.
What this represents is the world of video games, the internet, and the public coming together to do something good for the world and that deserves to be highlighted. Too often the stories we hear about gaming and the internet go the other way. And if you’re curious as to where the money for this is going, well…
- International Medical Corps provides medical assistance in the region. They have very low fundraising overhead (1% of income), with 89% of donations going to medical aid and 10% to administration.
- Voices of Children, a Ukrainian organization that helps children cope with the horrors of war, PTSD, readjusting to school, and getting back to being kids. They have also been doing a lot of grassroots impromptu work during the war, such as helping set up shelters. Our hope is that this war will be over soon, and they can begin the work of healing these kids’ hearts.
As always, you may want to look into those organizations to make sure they align with your own values. I certainly haven’t done that research, yet.
But the larger point here is what the internet and gaming can do together in times of need and crises. There are good stories out there. You just have to be paying attention to them.
Filed Under: ukraine, video games
Companies: itch.io
Comments on “Video Games For Good: Itch.io Releases “Bundle For Ukraine,” Raises Millions Of Dollars”
4.2 Million now.
It is fantastic to see people donating.
While the media was on and on about the people ghost renting AirBnB’s, many of them missed that you needed to put in a little effort to make sure it wasn’t a corporation or someone living in Russia benefiting from the rental. (Of course now that people know its a way to get money I expect a flood of new listings).
It is at a price point that most people can manage, those getting the donated funds are disclosed clearly, and it offered a way for small devs to contribute something to a great cause.
Not to mention with nearly 1k games, they will be getting more eyes on their projects they might not have been able to gain before.
This is better than overlaying the Ukrainian flag over your profile picture or hitting like on a strongly worded post.
Imagine if Meta gave a damn and gave $1 for every like of a post supporting the people in Ukraine, they could generate a large amount quickly and make their users feel they did something…
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Yeah, one of the nice things about these extra-large charity bundles on itch.io is how they’re often filled with little niche projects—games, books, comics, game assets—that might otherwise go unnoticed by a broader audience. Yeah, it’s nice to pay such a small amount for games with “name value” like Baba is You, Celeste, CrossCode, Skatebird, and Superhot, but it’s also nice to look through the smaller games and see if anything scratches the right itch (pun sincerely not intended). Maybe it’ll be something like a rules-lite tabletop RPG about luchadores or a semi-randomized Zelda-like or a number-chaining puzzle game—y’know, something you maybe didn’t know you wanted until you found it.
Related:
John Romero releases new Doom II map to “support the Ukrainian people”
(all proceeds go to the Ukrainian Red Cross and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund.)
That sound you hear is Tero Pulkinnen angry at itch.io for not sending the money to him instead.
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Well, I’ll play what he makes when he starts demostrating a basic understanding of “fun”.
Yes, I’ve suffered the terrors of Tero Pulkinnen’s “works”. You could NOT pay me to play them unironically.
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I’ve never really spent time looking at his output on itch.io due to his meshpage rambling and his clear incompetence there. But, I dare say he’d be less insufferable if he was merely a failed indie game developer rather than someone whining endlessly about how his software would beat Pixar and Blender if only they weren’t functional enough to allow imagined copyright infringement.
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All the while ignoring that if you can draw overlapping circles in two colors, you can infringe on the copyright of a certain mouse.
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If he had output on itch.io, he’s never mentioned it in his inane ramblings.
I went straight to the meshpages.
ftw
Timothy Geigner and itch.io for the win!!
Attaboys/girls/folks…all around!
#PhuckPutin
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Hey unown clear all this scam email I’m geting plz go Yukraiin
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wut?
Money collection in this way is illegal in finland...
Money collection based on ukraine situation is illegal in finland. All money transfers require actual product to be exchanged. And when they collect money based on ukraine situation, that bypasses the product exchange requirement and the main purpose of the money collection is something else than selling a product. This kind of money collection requires a permit from the government, and it has significant limitations on how the activity can be handled and how long time the money collection activity can last.
This is part of gambling regulation in finland. Basically companies that offer products to the market should sell actual products and not just air or promises of big money rewards. For example recently wikipedia was found using illegal practices based on this legislation when Jimmy Wales was begging for money on the internet from finnish users.
Re: Reminder: As of this post, the bundle is still available!
This isn’t happening in Finland, so who gives a fuck.
People are getting an actual product in exchange for their money: a collection of nearly 1,000 items such as games, books, comics, and gamedev assets. That the items are all digital means nothing to anyone but you.
Again: People are getting a product in exchange for their money. That it isn’t a hold-in-your-hands product is irrelevant.
Again: This isn’t happening in Finland, so who else besides you gives a fuck?
This bundle isn’t any kind of gambling. It is literally “give money, receive items”—you know, like any other fucking non-gambling monetary transaction between a seller and a buyer.
That’s what the bundle is doing: It is selling a large collection of items that would normally cost close to $7,000 USD for a minimum of $10 USD—with the active permission of everyone whose works are in the bundle!—to raise money for charity. You buy the bundle, you get the entire bundle, simple as that. There is no gambling. There are no empty promises.
[citation needed]
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https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-7144745