The organisers behind indie game celebration Day of the Devs have announced a major change for the event: going forward, it will now be run by an independent, non-profit team supported by its community. While it was previously operating in similar fashion, the Day of the Devs team have now confirmed the change, to fully establish the showcase as independent.
Day of the Devs originally began as a collaboration between Double Fine and iam8bit, although this was complicated by Double Fine’s acquisition by Xbox in 2019. Now, the organisation team is removing all ties to other companies, to better outline the showcase’s function, and highlight the importance of community support and donations.
“Over the last decade we have shined a bright sparkling spotlight on many hundreds of games, hosted tens of thousands of people at our in-person events, and reached millions of viewers through our virtual showcases, and we have done all of this for free – providing our programs for no cost to either developers, or players,” the Day of the Devs team said in its update.
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“To do this we have relied heavily on industry sponsorship, proceeds from game bundles and largely donated time from our organisers, our game curation committee, and our collaborators. We have essentially always run things as a non-profit, but making it official – through a fiscal sponsorship partnership with Legacy Global – it opens us up to better funding opportunities, makes our fundraising efforts more transparent and public, and helps our sponsors and audience understand how critical their support truly is.”
As noted, Day of the Devs has partnered with charity organisation Legacy Global to enable new sponsorship opportunities, while making clear that all donated funds will be used to support and promote independent game developers going forward.
Alongside this announcement, Day of the Devs has also initiated a new charity drive with major rewards for donors – in the form of digital game codes, and physical Day of the Devs goodies – while also revealing three new, upcoming events it’s currently fundraising to hold:
- Spring Day of the Devs (In-Person)
- Summer Day of the Devs (Digital)
- Winter Day of the Devs (In-Person and Digital)
“Your generous donations will ensure that Day of the Devs can continue to have awesome events year-round. All proceeds from donations will go directly to costs related to putting on our numerous shows, from our San Francisco Edition taking place in March, to our Digital Showcase at Summer Game Fest, to the Game Awards Edition in winter!”
You can learn more about Day of the Devs and future plans for upcoming showcases on the Day of the Devs website.
