Day of the Devs goes non-profit, launches fundraising initiative

Indie showcase Day of the Devs is now a fully independent non-profit organization, with a freshly-launched fundraising initiative.

In an official release from organizers Double Fine Productions and iam8bit, the organization said its mission remained to “celebrate the creativity, diversity and magic of video games, give a voice to emerging or underrepresented talent, and to connect players with developers, and their games.”

“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,” the organization wrote. “And we have done all of this for FREE – providing our programs for no cost to either developers, or players.”

Previously, the organization had relied on industry sponsorships, proceeds from game bundles and “largely donated time” to make this all happen.

The move to officially becoming a non-profit “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,” the organization said.

While not stated outright, this also means Day of the Devs is moving its showcase away from any affiliation with Microsoft, which is Double Fine's parent company. “This establishes Day of the Devs as being fully independent from other video game related organizations, which clarifies our commitment to being 100 percent platform agnostic,” the team wrote.

Day of the Devs is now asking for its community to rally round and support its ongoing plans for 2024, and surely beyond. “Please consider donating to Day of the Devs, so we can all continue celebrating the majesty of video games together,” he wrote. At the time of writing, the Day of the Devs fundraiser is sitting at $34,700 raised of its $500,000 goal.

As for the future, the team has mentioned several events coming in the next 12 months. These include its in-person Day of the Devs: San Francisco event, which will be held in March. It will also host a digital showcase at Summer Game Fest, and a Game Awards Edition in December.

At last year's Game Awards Day of the Devs showcase, we heard more on Coal Supper's distinctly British cartoon comedy caper Thank Goodness You're Here, Kind Words 2 and more. You can refresh your memory on these titles in Eurogamer's Day of the Devs Game Awards indie showcase round up here.