Games industry bands together to support indie developers financially impacted by GDC postponement

Wings Interactive has partnered with gamedev.world, the Games and Online Harassment Hotline, and a number of publishers to create GDC Relief Fund to assist indie devs who may have lost money on paying in advance for the now-cancelled GDC. To date, the partnership has raised $76,500 (£59.7K). 

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) was postponed at the end of last week, and while attendees can expect a refund in full and those who had made hotel reservations via the organisation will be able to cancel without penalty, developers who’ve arranged their own accommodation might still be open to cancellation fees. 

Indie developers who are unable to refund travel/visa and accommodation payments are invited to apply to the fund via wingsfund.me/gdcrelief. 

The publishers – Redbeet Interactive, Landfall, Raw Fury, Modern Wolf, Warhorse Studios, Versus Evil, 11 bit studios, Those Awesome Guys, United Label, Triband, Makers Fund, and gamedev.world – are also accepting online pitches via the scheme for indie developers who may have missed opportunities to showcase their games at GDC.

“The postponement of GDC at such short notice is completely unprecedented, and we’ve been blown away by how quickly the games industry has come together to help independent game developers suffering hardship as a result,” said Wings co-founder, Cassia Curran. 

“More companies are donating to the GDC Relief Fund all the time, and gamedev.world is moreover launching a fundraiser between March 27th and April 3rd with all donations going to the fund. Our hope is that the GDC Relief Fund will make it easier for individuals and small teams that have been disproportionately impacted to deal with the recent developments.”

Kojima Productions, Sony, EA, and Facebook – which owns Oculus – first pulled out of GDC, as did Microsoft, Epic, and Unity. The city of San Francisco – the city that was set to host the upcoming GDC conference next month – had also declared a “local health emergency” over coronavirus.