itch.io: Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality
It’s time to fight stereotypes!
It’s time to fight stereotypes. Well, it is always been the high time, but the newest developments deliver the proof. The old stereotype, meandering within the media and society is following: video gamer community consists of white young men, who don’t care about reality and just want to shoot another target in another Bloody Killer Multiplayer Shooter Video Game. I know, this conception sounds already unbelievably cheesy, but — alas! — seems to be the most popular one.
There are so many aspects opposing this bias:
- Gamer community is highly diverse (regarding their age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, hairstyle, and favorite book).
- Video game makers' community is highly diverse as well.
- Video Games are (actually from the early beginning) an art form, based on transmedia storytelling.
- There are so many genres in video games as in the literature.
- And: Gamers do care about things outside their monitors or VR glasses.
The recent tragedy, as George Floyd was murdered in cold blood by Police officers, was another last drop that caused the glass to overflow: racial profiling and hatred leading to death is the old problem, but a still everyday actual one. In every country — in this case in the US. People took to the streets. Enough!
Every branch, every area considered what is the best they could do to support the fight against suppression.
The indie game platform itch.io had a brilliant idea: a game bundle, which “all proceeds will be donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Community Bail Fund split 50/50”. And raising awareness for #BlackLivesMatter as well.
So it begun on the 2nd of June 2020 with around 500 projects from 340 creators. The goal was to reach $500.000 (as I purchased this bundle). They opened submission for further game developers.
Some weeks later:
People do care.
Think about this sum of money coming for a good purpose. Think about the huge awareness of the (unfortunately still ongoing) issue of racism. Around 570k people purchased the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality — and this is definitely a great sign of solidarity.
In the following, I want to present and review here some of the gems in this treasure chest of human imagination, creativity, and kindness. Even if the offer ends in 3 days, the symbol for good will remain for ever.
Here is the list of my favorites in this huge list.
Stay tuned!
