Following is the talk I gave at an event in Ljubljana, that was meant to be an introduction into the space of altgames, artgames, arthouse games (the definition is constantly changing, so I include the most popular terms).
I’m making this my final talk.
I gave this at a fan convention. The months leading up to this have been filled with an endless stream of harassment.
The Oblivion remaster launched, and (since I came forward about sexual assault implicating the composer) every time there’s news about it I get publicly drug by the game’s fan base.
I’ve had to endure post after post after post… over social media, where people discuss why anyone would want to sexually assault me, how that is even possible to do to “someone like me”, with pictures of me being shared and dunked on, and calling me a liar because I never “went to court” (as if that goes so well for sexual assault survivors to begin with).
There are plenty of resources online about how the system treats sexual assault survivors, how little of that actually gets tried… It’s not hard to educate yourself, and I don’t have the energy to do that here.
I powered through preparing this talk, even if I wanted to pull out of the event. I didn’t want the circumstances to defeat me, because if you let this stuff get to you then you disappear and that’s what they all want.
The speaker before me talked about Lord of the Rings music. I suppose he was a composer.
When it was my turn, I went to set up, a crowd from that previous talk stayed behind to talk with him. They stood right next to me, while I was sitting in front of the computer getting everything ready.
I can’t speak Slovene. I only understand a little. He mentioned my rapist’s name, and “allegations”.
I don’t know what the nature of the conversation really was, but I assumed it must have been defending him because that’s what fans of that music do. Even though there’s plenty of information out there about how he ripped off his fans, and burned his bridges, way before I came forward.
I don’t think it is humane, defensible, or at all OK… to talk about him within earshot of one of his victims.
Even if the conversation might not have been negative (I leave room for misunderstanding because of language barrier), it is cruel to do that.
I powered through an immense anxiety attack to deliver this talk. I also powered through months of harassment to assemble it. I’m not yet sure if I’m proud of myself for not giving up, but here it is.
It exists. I hope someone out there will appreciate it…
Links in this slide…
My Games
Good experimental game curations!
itch.io/c/7037/the-good-stuff
wfgames.net
findnicegames.com
warpdoor.com
indiegamesplus.com
www.alphabetagamer.com
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If you don’t know me… I’m a solo-developer creating in a type of sub-genre of games often referred to as “art-games”, “alt-games”, or “arthouse games”.
To give you an idea you can find some amazing curation of these, in the image above.
I’ll give a special shout out to FindNiceGames.com, because that’s not English, and it’s especially inspiring to see the beautiful work that exists internationally. These all give you an idea of how prolific this game space is.
The definitions for these games are constantly changing, with developers often inventing their own words for them, but it’s strongly defined as the type of game where you could argue whether it is a game or not. “I’ve never seen anything like this before” is a common comment when people play them.
These fall into a broad category of games that use concepts of digital play in an artistic way, completely opposite to existing for the sake of entertainment. These games are made for more than just being fun, or to amuse players. They are part of a creative conversation where games are being explored as a constantly evolving artistic outlet.
Games are a complicated multifaceted artform, games are punk, games are controversial, games are political, games don’t have to be fun, they can be so much more…
Links in this slide…
That Dragon Cancer
Before Your Eyes
Never Alone
https://thecatamites.itch.io/
https://fantasia-malware.itch.io/
https://kittyhorrorshow.itch.io/
https://goosewho.itch.io/i-get-this-call-every-day
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Classic examples are ones like That Dragon Cancer, an autobiography about raising a child diagnosed with terminal cancer at twelve months old.
Before Your Eyes, an adventure game where you play entirely with your webcam, no mouse, gamepad, or keyboard.
The theme of Before Your Eyes is to take you through someone’s life, and every time you (as the player) blink, the webcam registers those blinks and forwards through another moment in the game. This makes for an incredibly moving and gutting experience.
Or Never Alone, a puzzle platformer developed in collaboration with Alaska Native people, about a native story. It is looked on as an example of how games are meaningful cultural objects.
Aside from these more mainstream examples you have an entire slew of games that are made to be extremely different, for the sake of personal expression.
Cult games based on personal experiences like “I Get this Call Everyday”, endearingly colorful work like that of “thecatamites”, glitch-aesthetic horror games like those from Kitty Horrorshow, or highly polished avant-garde work like that of Fantasia Malware.
These are all fairly established examples, but they go to show the level of experimentation and meaningful work this space has to offer. There’s now a long history of work that has gone on to inspire trends in game design, which filtered upward into the commercial AAA game space.
One important theme that resonates throughout indie alt-games is that this space exists because of individual creators. Artists, musicians, programmers, or anyone coming from any random background, creates a game on their own and shares it. It’s truly powered by hobbyists, for the love of the medium.
You don’t even need to know how to code, or be a good designer. All you need is your own personal determination to create something.
This is a space that keeps growing. As precariously as it exists, I feel it is a continuation of what has always made computers and digital culture meaningful.
Everyone gets to be part of it.
Links in this slide…
The enshittification of tech jobs
The People Deliberately Killing Facebook
The environmental burden of the United States’ bitcoin mining boom
AI bots are destroying Open Access
How AI bots are suffocating Wikipedia
Divest from the Video Games Industry!
There is an internet that is mine & I would like you to live in it with me
Glitch Feminism
Scene Versus System: How DIY Software Scenes Can Resist
“In October 2023, following onslaught by the Israeli military on occupied Palestine, players of the game Roblox organized and attended virtual marches. Bearing Palestinian flags and other symbols of solidarity, writing and voice-chatting messages of support and resistance, they marched in constructed virtual spaces of their own making.”
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There’s more to computer and tech culture than the constant grind of the silicon-valley philosophy of disruption and exploitation. Counter to the trend of enshitification that is happening across all of software, social media, and computing, are these smaller subcultures that truly care about our digital world.
They offer alternative ways of interacting with computers, participating online, and creating for our digital platforms. These spaces remind us that we are empowered to make a difference, and have an obligation to educate ourselves about the role we play in our digital world.
People have the power to participate in shaping something different. Something different has always been here.
People just need to know that it exists.
The term “video game” has always carried with it a lot of baggage. When my work was first called a “game” I hated it. “Game” meant that my art was supposed to be fun, cater to the concept of “a player”, and offer a level of traditional entertainment, that I knew my work could never be.
Over the years “video game” grew into an umbrella term that encompasses other forms of digital art.
Definitions grow, and expectations change.
I’ve been participating in this game space since about 2012, when I abandoned the “net-art” label for my work, and embraced calling my work “a game”.
This was still during what many view as the golden-era of indiegames, where PlayStation would regularly feature artistic indie games in their monthly PlayStation Plus plan, Nintendo was opening up their store to include indie games, and you could easily find a publisher for your “unconventional” work.
Before conglomeration hit the game industry, and mass layoffs as well as restructuring changed much of this dynamic, we had a glimpse into an indie and commercial space existing together. I believe it can and will still happen, but the shift is a difficult one.
The alternative space of experimental games needs support, in the form of awareness that it exists, so more people can be empowered to be part of it.
Links in this slide…
https://digitalgumballs.com/2013/06/17/e3-2013-indiecade/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jun/10/e3-2013-guide
https://indiegamereviewer.com/indiecade-e3-2014/
https://www.engadget.com/2014-05-30-here-is-indiecades-e3-showcase-lineup.html
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The very first E3 that I went to, I attended because one of my games made it into the IndieCade showcase.
IndieCade is one of the longer running indie game festivals that attracted an international audience. It became a popular thing to go to because you could meet people from all over the world, and build on this sense of camaraderie. Such centralized events are important.
Attending my first E3… I was, and still am, blown away by this type of supportive subculture that existed between mainstream people and indie. I know that might be controversial to say in today’s setting, where things have gotten a lot more high-stakes, but then it almost seemed like the mainstream part of the industry appreciated the fact that there was an indie space full of weird games.
Attendants of the more mainstream aspects of E3 showed genuine interest in the indie games.
When I talked to impressive sounding professional attendees, from all across the game industry, many commented that this was like an oasis in a sea of commercialism.
These experimental indie games, relegated to a tiny part of the convention, where viewed as a “break” from the heavy marketing noise.
Journalists from large mainstream publications came by and showed interest in this work, scouts for Nintendo or any other large platform came by to see what was new, and plenty of other people working in the mainstream, with larger established positions, wandered into the area just for a break from what they joked was the noisy monotony of AAA games.
I learned then that the grind of mainstream gaming can burn people out, and indie was a way for them to feel seen, or even hopeful.
This was the first time I exhibited my work in such a public way. The area was crowded.
My project that was featured, Tetrageddon Games, got a lot of press out of those short three days.
I still look back at that as an example of how important experimental indie games are to the game industry. They are, and always have been, another way to view gaming.
They offer an alternative way to exist, and a hopeful look at a better future.
Links in this slide…
Cave Cave Deus Videt
Counter Spy
Neverending Nightmares
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For context…
A visual novel, Cave! Cave! Deus Videt was showcased there. A narrative episodic video game dedicated to a famous 16th-century Flemsih painter. You can see how visually different it is.
CounterSpy, a side scrolling stealth video game, and Neverending Nightmares, a horror game about mental health struggles.
At the time these where very different from the mainstream 3D aesthetics.
There where also student projects, like one about growing a tree…
You get the idea, of looking at examples from this showcase, how wildly different of a contrast it is to see games like this next to the hottest and latest mainstream releases being hyped.
Even with that level of hype which could easily drown out such games, or make them uninteresting, there was a constant stream of interest.
Because of this indie community my work started getting noticed, and played.
The project that I was working on at the time was called Tetrageddon Games…
Tetrageddon Games is an online netart project that exists as a type of commentary on our online lives, gaming culture, and the internet. It draws heavily on computer nostalgia, digital malfunctions, broken systems, and error art.
It is a collection of bizarre games, packaged as a type of “alternative desktop”, where you explore all sorts of rabbit holes and easter eggs.
Because Tetrageddon Games got into an IndieCade showcase, I was able to attend the official festival at Culver City.
It’s still one of my fondest memories that capture what indiegames are.
The community was vibrant, different, full of alternatives, creative philosophy, a drive toward being in a better world, and diverse.
Queer games had their own booth where you could explore a large selection of games made by LGBTQ+ creators, giving a strong presence to a community that was otherwise underrepresented and under constant fire in game culture.
The festival showed games that I’d never seen before. This is common for such events.
You would have games you can’t play anywhere else but there, and you will likely never experience them again.
For example, here’s a small list of some of the games from that year, that you can play yourself…
Links in this slide…
Kentucky Route Zero
Luxuria Superbia
NIDHOGG
Spin the Bottle: Bumpie’s Party
TowerFall
Quadrilateral Cowboy
Classroom Aquatic
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Kentucky Route Zero, a narrative rich point-and-click interactive fiction game,
Luxuria Superbia a visually rich musical journey,
or cult hits like NIDHOGG a two-player local fighting game…
NIDHOGG is a fascinating example of this festival culture because it started out as something of an underground “indie game fable”. It only appeared at game shows, without a public release. So it kind of became a mysterious legend of a game. The nature of it’s gameplay, being entirely local, made it an easy thing for people at festivals to get into. It’s the type of game that’s visually rich, and works best in public settings.
Because of the diverse range of games, the event gave you a strong impression of the anti-fascist and anarchic community that also exists in gaming. People genuinely cared about each other, the world, and the place that games had in it.
I remember some friends that where showing a game there, urging me to check out games from the neighboring booths, because they thought they where so amazing. Like people showcasing where all driving booth traffic to each other.
One of these games was called Classroom Aquatic. A VR game about attending a fish school and trying to cheat on your class assignment by copying the work from your dolphin and sea turtle classmates. It was silly. The teacher in the game could notice you and you would get caught, and fail the test.
I think back at this moment because that camaraderie, and lifting each other up, was very different to the tech industry that I was used to… where you had to “compete” with your peers, and act like you are the only and most qualified person in the world, if you wanted a job or success… This indie space stood as a contrast where people mattered, and community cared about each other.
The people attending these booths looked out for one another, and encouraged you to look at other people’s work.
There was no sense of competition, back stabbing, or weirdness you would associate with the desperation of “having to make it” in an industry.
This is another game industry.
It’s the type of game industry that exists surrounding the mainstream.
Most people don’t know it exists until they find it, then they can’t unsee it.
These beautiful, artistic, alternatives exist everywhere.
“All these games are designed to make us play differently, not only with our fingers but with our whole body, to make us experience new feelings regular controllers can’t provide. They also have in common to be difficult of access: you can’t just download alternative controllers and enjoy them in your living room. In order to play them, you need to go to festivals, museums, bars, anywhere they are displayed.”
Links in this slide…
About Alternative Controllers
ALT CTRL GDC
Itch.io tag: alternative-controller
“An introduction to the world of alternative controller game making”
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Many of these games where ones that you can only ever experience at an event, designed for public exhibition, or to be played in very specific contexts. These are what make attending game events so special, because you find truly unique experiences that challenge your perception of what a game is.
Or to quote from the Shake That Button website:
“All these games are designed to make us play differently, not only with our fingers but with our whole body, to make us experience new feelings regular controllers can’t provide. They also have in common to be difficult of access: you can’t just download alternative controllers and enjoy them in your living room. In order to play them, you need to go to festivals, museums, bars, anywhere they are displayed.”
Shake That Button is a website documenting alternative controller video game installations. I encourage you to look it up. It’s inspiring.
This is the type of genre that comprises the ALT.CTRL.GDC showcase, or the alternative controller movement.
These are controllers that developers create to invent new ways of playing, making wildly different interactions possible.
Traditional controllers are things like keyboard, mouse, joysticks, or gamepads. Controllers built by game manufacturers, that became a standard way to interface with a game. This also creates a standard way of looking at a game. It informs our expectations, and we kind of stop being surprised by a game.
Alternative controllers occupy this fantasy realm. They are ones that invent “what if” a game could exist beyond the way we traditionally interface with them. They are as much of an invention as they are an exploration of new ways to understand games.
It’s easy to understand the relevance of alternative controllers if you look at the Nintendo Wii, for example. Now it’s standard, but before that it was a wild shot in the dark.
When Nintendo announced the Wiimote, people thought they where crazy. It was too different.
Once it launched, and people experienced games in this very different context, it is what made the Wii special. You never played a game this way before.
This is an example of mainstream success, but we forget that computers, games, and the digital world is all a fantasy space.
Anything is possible. We create that reality together.
Alternative controllers are an inspiring example of exploring new ways to look at all this.
Links in this slide…
Fantastic Arcade Games Archive
NESpectre: The Massively Multi Haunted NES
New Development on Old Systems
F2OGGY (Only one survives!)
Multibowl
Nidhogg
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Featured in the above image is a game that I designed for a custom arcade cabinet. You can play it here: F2OGGY (Only one survives!)
My work eventually made it to other festivals. One of my favorites still to this day was Fantastic Arcade.
The link in this slide documents the work shown there from 2010 – 2018… it’s something of a time-capsule of trends in the indie alt-game space. I urge you to explore what’s featured there. The breadth of work is endless.
Fantastic Arcade took place in Austin Texas, attached to a larger movie festival called Fantastic Fest.
I mention this because it was fascinating to see the cross-pollination that happened between movie people, and game people.
The video game industry, and subsequently indie games, often exist in a bubble. Game developers know all about indie altgame events and popular indie games, but outside of that space very little is known.
As a result of this, indie games can often become an echo-chamber, where a certain type of “game literacy” is required to appreciate games.
When games can break out of the game industry bubble, and exist as part of larger cultural contexts, I believe this is where they truly shine. They become deeply meaningful to people.
Fantastic Arcade featured a lot of hardware hacking projects. Where pre-existing popular systems, consoles, or other digital objects where hacked, or repurposed, to make a new game out of them.
For example NESpectre is a game for the genuine 8-bit Nintendo System. The audience can control a hacked NES and determine what happens in the game, glitching the game, and changing how the game functions in real time.
The console is transformed to accept massive multiplayer input based on the collective whims of an entire audience. The play experience is chaotic, broken, and transformed constantly by the crowd. Playing this game is kind of a crowdsourced experience.
It only works in a live setting.
Fantastic Arcade would build custom arcade cabinets for games that they funded. So you had this almost fantasy reality of games that exist entirely because of this festival. These where games that where wildly different, and offered another view of what it meant to play with a machine.
It was like looking into another world where games where chaotic, goofy, silly, and all machines where hackable.
People had the power to do what they want with electronic devices, completely turning them into something else.
The idea that an electronic device is a “black box” controlled by a large corporation, and you have it kind of “on loan” for the extent of its life, not really understanding how it works… transformed into looking at electronic devices as these empowering things that you could completely change into bizarre fantasy objects, if you knew how.
Fantastic Arcade took place in a movie theater. So they offered tournaments where you could compete to play extremely indie, local coop games, like Nidhogg… The fact that they chose to include such experimental two-player indie games in these tournaments offered an alternative view on tournament culture. One that was rowdy, silly, and communally goofy.
I use Fantastic Arcade as an example because this was such an absolutely wildly different type of experience when you say “game tournament” or “game arcade”.
You would never see something like this in the mainstream when you talk about competitive gaming. This was the opposite. This was not polished, or glamorous. This was nerdy, hackable, and powered by a love for games.
It was silly, with people in a movie theater yelling instructions at a giant movie screen, while contestants struggled to win. Each tournament showcased new hidden gems of indie gaming.
This was something incredibly artistic, experimental, and you really had no concept that games could even be this way if you didn’t go to an event like this.
It also showed the level of interest such games drew.
What was even more special about it is that you learned how everyone has the power to make work like this. Electronic hacking, developing weird games with weird engines… all that was something anyone could do. This type of work was not only relegated to a corporation, or people with resources. Anyone can participate in this space, and create a cult hit.
Community can empower this.
Links in this slide…
Playdate Gameshow
Blackroom.html
Electric Zine Maker
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In LA one of my friends started organizing an event called “Playdate Pop Up” that took place as part of the LA Zine Fest.
The LA Zine Fest is a once a year event that happens to bring zinesters and other DIY artists together to give them a space to exhibit and sell their work.
The LA Zine Fest draws an incredible amount of visitors, so you can imagine how much of an interesting crossover it was to bring indie games to it.
My friend did this with two other friends. I eventually got involved to help.
In the spirit of DIY culture, we would all round up whatever computers we had, spare power strips, electronic equipment, duct tape, and self-made posters, to assemble a low-budget space for showcasing these games.
It’s very much something that sounds like an unattainable amount of work, but it worked!
What was so special about this event was to see people in the zine community find these very different games.
Bitsy games, along with net-art pieces like Black Room, or my Electric Zine Maker… where showcased in this space that largely drew a crowd with no game literacy.
These where games made by one person, or a very small group of friends.
People attending the zine fest would be skeptical at first because their view of gaming and games was very mainstream. Many would remark that games are “not for them” or that they are “not good at games”.
Once they played one of these games, they became completely engrossed in these experiences… They discovered games that where poetic, artistic, moody, silly, unique… and would often comment that they had no idea that games could be like this.
This is a common reaction when people otherwise oblivious to this space, find this type of work.
Based on all these festival experiences… It is my strong personal conviction that if these games had more of a platform, where people would know about them and talk about them as much as mainstream games, I believe gaming would be more culturally relevant.
These games don’t get the attention they deserve, even though an audience for them exists.
Links in this slide…
My Tools Writing
The Generous Space of Alternative Game Engines (A Curation)
https://godotengine.org/
https://bitsy.org/
https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
https://www.gbstudio.dev/
https://the-l0bster.itch.io/pocket-platformer
Midia Research: Global games industry estimated to reach $236.9bn in 2025
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The indie game space exists because of the efforts of everyone taking power into their own hands to create better alternatives.
It’s a community working toward a better future with our love for games.
Community events like the ones I described are at the heart of indie. This is where we find each other, organize, and support one another. It is also how everyone else can discover this world, and understand that they can be part of it too.
It’s important to reinforce the idea that this is something everyone has the power to do.
Larger tech industry, and the mainstream, often creates this illusion that participating in tech as a creator of games, apps, programs… is something only a select few can do.
You come away with the impression that, to make a game, you need resources, a team, access to money, and investors… When the truth is that this has always existed as something that belongs to everyone.
It’s powered by the passion of hobbyists and artist.
At the heart of computers, our true digital world is utilitarian, open-source, democratic, anarchic, and punk. This is where change happens that affects the rest of the world.
When describing the game industry, I often tell people that it’s like an upside down pyramid.
At the upside-down top-base of this strangely reverse pyramid, is the indie game space. It’s actually secretly huge, and broadly relevant with all the alt-games, small teams, queer games, and solo-developers that make it what it is.
It is upside down because the biggest, most sustainable, and meaningful contributions of games, comes from this space that most underestimate.
The inspiration, ethics, values, idea that this is an artform worthy of recognition and respect, its push for something better, and hope for a better digital world coming from that space… trickles downward to eventually affect the small sliver that is AAA games.
Even if mainstream games are a huge industry, with the global game industry being estimated to reach $236 billion in 2025, this being the industry that the rest of the world knows about…
The mainstream eventually draws inspiration from indie ideals, or “digests” it based on what is popular and sells (depending on how pessimistic you want to look at it). Either way, indie is where a better future is invented.
That eventually finds its way to the aspects of the industry that everyone focuses on.
The game industry is in no way an insular bubble, one where anything interesting happens from the small sliver of mainstream culture that is perceived to be “at the top”.
The game industry is inspired by everyone else participating in creating games.
You often can’t even find this space on Steam. It’s most alive on places like itch.io.
Links in this slide…
Itch.io tag: horror/tag-psx
The Good Stuff
Itch.io tag: Bitsy
Wholesome Games
The Queer Games Bundle
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Over the years itch.io grew to being “ground zero” for a lot of aesthetic and experimental trends in the game space.
Most notable are examples like the PS1 horror aesthetic movement, where games throw back to the early PlayStation era, to capture the sense of horror these old visual styles had by re-contextualizing them in a modern sense,
to also being a place where work made in alternative small engines like Bitsy can be showcased and find an appreciative audience.
Places like itch.io contribute to a level of equality in the game industry by lowering the barrier for entry. They also create an opportunity for experimental work to exist, without threat of being crushed by mainstream storefronts.
Games that are completely impossible to distribute on major storefronts like Steam for how they are structured, have a home on itch.io.
Some of my own work can only exist on itch.io because it is just too unconventional.
Cyberpet Graveyard
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For example, I have a game called “Cyberpet Graveyard” where you “uncover” an abandoned .zip file that you found mysteriously online.
If you explore this download you find a folder structure full of abandoned virtual pets.
By digging through a folder structure that is designed to act like an adventure game, where each folder is “themed” and takes you on a journey through branching options, you talk to pets that live in the folders as .exe files.
By running each .exe you discover more about the mystery of “Cyberpet Graveyard”.
Steam would never allow something like this because of how it is structured to be played. Games on Steam need to be packaged as a standalone, to run from within Steam.
The restriction and requirements of mainstream storefronts like this is often how creative exploration or experimentation dies.
I also have another game called “A_DESKTOP_LOVESTORY” where you are given a set of folders. Within these folders live two files, each in their own spaces.
You talk to either file, and find out that they are in love with each other, but cannot meet because of administrative restrictions.
They task you with passing notes between them, so they can talk with each other.
These files generate text files, or images, with little messages in them. You place those generated items into the folder of the crush or shy file that they are meant for. The story progresses based on their response, and what they ask you to share.
Eventually they ask you to put them together in the same folder, so they can finally be together.
When you do, the two files happily dance together, talking about how much they love each other.
They then live happily ever after on your desktop.
“A_DESKTOP_LOVESTORY” is played entirely on your desktop, not in any standalone window or exe. It is packaged and designed very unconventionally to play out within folders. State is progressed based on what you put in either file’s folder.
Something like this also cannot exist on Steam, the AppStore, or Google Play. It’s just too fundamentally different.
There’s a long standing history with experimental work like mine and mainstream storefronts that is full of friction and exclusion.
For example, I’ve had my apps rejected from mainstream storefronts because of my “simulated error” (aka glitchart), because of the themes of depression, the fact that they link to magazine articles or websites, the fact that they are browser based experiences, the fact that they are designed so different…
The steep, very specific, requirements needed to put your game on a mainstream storefront, what these storefronts eventually exclude as a result of their policies, how much it costs yearly to exist on some of them… all makes the mainstream space inaccessible to a lot of experimental work.
As a result, it is obvious how valuable places like itch.io are to games that are different, or experiences you just can’t get anywhere else.
This is the true punk subculture of video games. It is a constant dream of a better digital world.
Gaming has a reputation for being incredibly aggressive and exclusive, but at the heart, where it really matters and where the art is really happening, gaming is about charity, support, and inclusion.
Over the years that it has existed, itch.io became known for its charity bundles.
Even before places like Bundle Browser began keeping track of them, it was common to see game bundles that made a surprisingly and inspiring amount of money for aid. This happened organically within the community, out of a desire to make a difference with our work.
Links in this slide…
Random Bundle Game
An article about an older Bundle, before record was being kept…
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For example…
The Racial Justice and Equality bundle made over 8 million for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Community Bail Fund, to support Black Lives Matter protests.
The Indie bundle for Palestinian Aid made well over eight hundred thousand dollars for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
The bundle for Ukraine made over 6 million…
I could keep going. There are so many it’s hard to keep track of them.
These bundles are made possible because small indie studios, solo-developers, and artists, came together to donate their work.
The community shares it, and people buy the bundle where all proceeds go to supporting a chosen charity.
When you buy a game in a bundle you permanently own it. The developers do not benefit from this. It’s truly an act of solidarity toward a cause, using your work to make a difference.
Community initiatives like this are an example of the power of art. You can make a difference just by participating.
Links in this slide…
Games Done Quick
Frost Fatales 2025
Save and Raid
fold.it
Game Audio Diversity Alliance
Gamers VS MS
starlight.org
SQUIDS_FOR_PALESTINIAN_KIDS:_Splatoon_3_Charity_Cup
videojuegosporalimentos.org
framefatales.com
blaseballcared.com
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Outside of developers using their work to incentivize support for charity, gamers themselves do similar things.
Awesome Games Done Quick is one of the most popular examples. It’s a series of video game marathons featuring speed running, and other types of play, to support charity. This happens on Twitch.
Frost Fatales is another that has raised over 150k for the national women’s law center.
Save and Raid is a multi-streamer marathon, where their community of streamers comes together to help Suicide Awareness Voices of Education. The last event raised close to $22,000.
Foldit is a known example of a crowdsourcing computer game that enables anyone to contribute to scientific research.
There are groups like the Game Audio Diversity Alliance that is dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse game audio industry.
Or there’s Gamers VS MS, a project to support MS Canada, using streaming platforms and gaming to help raise awareness and funds to fight against multiple sclerosis.
Links in this slide…
Good in Gaming
Because Games Matter
Helldivers players saved the children, so Arrowhead Game Studios is making a donation to the Save the Children charity
Play it forward: “Is men only fully exchanging when he plays?” by Manouchehr Shamsrizi
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There are also various smaller events, or developments that happen within gaming communities. Like when Helldivers 2 players where tasked to chose between unlocking a new weapon, or going in to save a “hospital for very sick children” within the game (for no reward).
Despite there being no incentive within the game, players chose the hospital, over a new weapon.
This eventually led the developers to making a donation toward the “Save the Children” children’s hospital.
I think these things are an inspiring way to view games, because it’s something that happened within a community that resonated positively outward. Fandom can be a force for good.
This was an organic development between the players and the developers, with nothing prompting this other than better human nature.
This happens often enough that you have summaries like “Good in Gaming” by SuperJump or “Because Games Matter” by Extra Credits to document these initiatives.
There’s so much of this that it’s hard to keep track. It usually happens through small communities or individuals organizing something. The results are always inspiring.
I think it’s important to detail all this because gaming has had it’s controversies, such as hate movement like gamergate.
As someone that works in this space, and is frequently under fire, I completely understand and know the dynamics of the altright and harassment toward marginalized creators.
I could go on and on about the neo-Nazi Steam groups, or how kiwifarms regularly targets people like me…
I understand how gaming gained a fairly common cultural reputation for being misogynistic or, in some cases, a recruitment tool for the altright.
There are plenty of examples of this, but it’s not necessary to dwell on them.
The “harm” gaming can cause, or “harm” games can cause (and I understand that this statement is complex and nuanced, but for the sake of brevity I’ll leave “harm” in air quotes)… all this is a double edged sword.
If you say that games are harmful, then you acknowledge they have a certain power to affect people.
If they can affect people, then they can also affect people for good. You can’t have it just the one negative way.
Games are a force for good.
On the other side of the gaming coin are artists, hobbyists, and large fandoms that have used their collective passion to make a difference in the world. All it takes in these cases is a small group of people that believe it’s possible.
Weird Games Manifesto (Documentary)
Part 1
Part 2
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When you get into game development, and you are exposed to this very vast space, you are constantly reminded that all this exists not because of corporations, or large companies, but because of all the small people.
It’s as fundamentally part of the game space as experimental games are.
We are at a point in tech right now, with the disappearance of our digital privacy, how AI poses to change the way we consume information, the disintegration of the quality of information we rely on where we see narrative winning over truth, and the general enshitification of our digital world… that it is important for us to realize the power we have with our collective decisions in what tools we use, what platforms we participate on, and the alternatives we can empower when we make choices in our digital world.
Counter-culture in our digital world is an expression of the better future we know is possible.
Gaming, fandom, artists, developers, are part of the solution.
We can empower each-other to make a positive difference here.
If anything you take away from this talk, I hope it is a curiosity about the experimental and arthouse game space… maybe you’ll even be inspired to be part of it.
