{"id":87227,"date":"2026-08-06T15:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=87227"},"modified":"2026-08-06T15:37:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T19:37:44","slug":"indie-game-bundle-aiding-laid-off-developers-is-nearing-200000-raised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=87227","title":{"rendered":"Indie Game Bundle Aiding Laid-Off Developers Is Nearing $200,000 Raised"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After soaring past an initial goal of $100,000, a <a href=\"https:\/\/itch.io\/b\/3802\/game-industry-hardship-fund\">Game Industry Hardship Fund<\/a> bundle on Itch.io is now nearing $200,000 raised with seven days remaining.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bundle has so far raised more than $163,000, and features 127 games for the minimum price of $10, with the proceeds going towards helping laid-off developers pay for everyday expenses. There are some bigger-name games included as well, including indie titles like Skatebird, A Short Hike, and Arranger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s the brainchild of Necrosoft Games director <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/brandon.insertcredit.com\/post\/3mruw7y5bzc2z\">Brandon Sheffield<\/a> and United Videogame Workers, a CWA union benefiting game developers, who in response to repeated waves of mass layoffs in the past two years wanted to offer affected developers a lifeline.<\/p>\n<p>  https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/itch.io\/post\/3msauex3trk27  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The game industry has a problem,&#8221; reads the bundle. &#8220;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&#8217;s hard for companies to adjust to the new shape of the game industry, but even harder for the people they should be employing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ti-ATJAz94k  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Developers in the United States and Canada are able to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After soaring past an initial goal of $100,000, a Game Industry Hardship Fund bundle on Itch.io is now nearing $200,000 raised with seven days remaining. The bundle has so far raised more than $163,000, and features 127 games for the minimum price of $10, with the proceeds going towards helping laid-off developers pay for everyday&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":87229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87227"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87230,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87227\/revisions\/87230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}