The gaming industry has been through a brutal few years of layoffs, with the most recent round at Xbox and Bethesda leading to project cancellations and thousands of game developers losing their jobs. To make the situation a little easier for those affected, a group of indie studios decided to do something about it, and the response has been remarkable.
Necrosoft Games director Brandon Sheffield, working alongside the United Videogame Workers union, put together the Game Industry Hardship Fund bundle on itch.io. For a minimum of $10, you get 127 indie games with a combined retail value of over $1,000.
All proceeds, minus itch.io processing fees, go directly to a hardship fund that distributes money to laid-off game developers in the US and Canada, helping cover rent, groceries, healthcare, and other day-to-day expenses. Workers who lost their jobs after January 2024 can apply for support through two tiers: one for requests under $1,000, and a Major Expenses Tier for amounts between $1,000 and $5,000.
The bundle hit its original $100,000 goal in three days. Over 7,000 people have contributed so far, with the average donation sitting around $14 and one person putting in $2,000. The organizers have since raised the target to $200,000, and with 10 days still remaining, that goal looks well within reach.
The games themselves are worth your time too. A Short Hike, a quiet and genuinely lovely exploration game, is in there. So is SkateBird, Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, the Doom-like immersive sim Eldritch, and over a hundred others ranging from well-known indie gems to titles you have probably never heard of but might end up loving. All of them are DRM-free PC downloads through itch.io, so no Steam or Epic required.
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As the bundle description puts it, roughly a third of developers in the US have lost their jobs in the last two years, and AI is being cited as the reason the roles they would normally move into are disappearing. Spending $10 on a bundle that gets you over a thousand dollars worth of games while putting money in the hands of people who actually made them is about as clean a win as these situations get.
