I don’t need to tell you how badly the games industry is doing, right? Badly in the sense of a handful of people desperate to continue making millions are laying off workers by the tens of thousands, with a new layoff story seemingly every week, of course. There’s money to be found, just not for those putting in the work. With so many out of work, Necrosoft, the studio behind Demonschool, have decided to do their bit to help out by putting together a bundle of almost 150 games where the proceeds will go towards the game industry hardship fund.
“The game industry has a problem,” the itch.io page explains. “Too many people are out of work. Reports say 33% of the industry lost their jobs in the last two years, and the jobs they could fill are disappearing as CEOs try to replace them with AI. It’s hard for companies to adjust to the new shape of the game industry, but even harder for the people they should be employing… To address this in some small way, we have created a bundle with almost 150 games. The proceeds of this bundle will go toward a hardship fund for those experiencing layoffs.”
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Games industry workers currently out of work or under-employed can apply to this fund, which is distributed by the United Videogame Workers, to help out with basic necessities like food and rent. As a note, this is only available to US and Canada-based devs, but there’s an FAQ explaining who can apply for the fund.
Outside of just being a good thing to send some money towards even if you didn’t get any games, you do get some games! Some quite good ones too. Perhaps most notably is the inclusion of A Short Hike, a game I hesitate to call perfect if only because then I might not want to play anything else ever again. There’s also the likes of Arranger, a wonderfully illustrative game about shifting through a grid-based world. You’ll also find Lucah: Born of a Dream, a challenging, oneiric hack and slash game with an arresting visual style. And then there’s almost 150 more games besides! 10 bucks! Go on, ‘ave a go.
You can check out the bundle right here.