Credit: itch.io
Donate to a worthy cause, and get a whoa-load of games in the process.
Ever since Humble Bundle first pioneered the idea of selling game bundles for charity, lots of sites and platforms all over the interwebs have co-opted the idea, bundling attractive games together for a worthy cause. I’ve lost count of the number of games in my Steam library that came from Humble Bundles; when you put together a bunch of games, charge a reasonable price, and add a charity incentive, both myself and many, many others can’t help but open their wallets. However, all of those bundles are small potatoes compared to what indie game platform itch.io has had cooking this week.
At the beginning of the week, itch.io launched the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, a positively massive charity bundle intended to support the Black Lives Matter Movement and the ongoing police brutality and racial discrimination protests. All proceeds from this bundle are donated 50/50 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund. For a minimum payment of $5, you gain access to a library of over 1,000 games. Let me write that out again in case you missed it: you get over one-thousand independently designed games, novels, asset packs, and roleplaying kits. The bundle actually started with around 700 games, but over the course of the week, more creators stepped forward and added their projects to the pot. There are so many cool indie projects here, as well as some surprising heavy hitters like Celeste, Night in the Woods, Nuclear Throne, and Runner3.
Credit: itch.io
At the time of writing, the campaign has raised $4,722,056.37 toward its goal of $5 million. As is the case with Humble Bundle, you can pay whatever you want on top of the $5 minimum. One generous soul has even gone as far as to donate $5,000. The only caveat to this bundle is that you don’t get Steam codes, but all the games are DRM free, and if you absolutely have to have a platform for them, you can download itch.io’s app. Also, just a PSA for interested parties, because the bundle is so massive, they don’t all get added to your account at once, in order to prevent overflow. If you buy the bundle, you gotta click the download button next to the game, and then it’ll register to your account. itch.io’s currently working on updating their UI to make this a little easier.
So if you want to get a big honking haul of games and do your part for a good cause in the process, you can’t go wrong with this bundle. If you need some time to make room on your hard drive, it will be available until June 15.
