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Humble details Black Game Developer Fund

Humble details Black Game Developer Fund

Games firm Humble has provided more details about how it will be supporting black game developers.

In a post on Twitter, the company said that the Black Game Developer Fund would be a pot of $1m annually that is designed to help black creators with publishing, production and marketing support via its Humble Games label. The company also said that the $1m is "not a cap, but a target." Cash will be given out based on what individual titles need.

This is open to studios that are 50 per cent owned and operated by someone of African origin, regardless of their nationality and citizenship.

"We want to help Black game developers to have increased access to funding and make great games," the company wrote in its FAQs for the fund.

"The fund is for developers who do not currently have a signed publishing agreement for a specific game. We offer multiple ways we can support teams, from publishing your game, providing you funding to help you self-publish your game to giving you a startup fund to help you build a prototype to pitch. $1 Million is not a cap but a target. We may fund more or less depending on applications received. Funds are allocated based on the individual needs of the project and its projected success upon launch."

Humble said that it would be supporting the black games development community at the start of June as Black Lives Matter protests took place in the United States and around the world following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Many games companies have voiced their support of the Black Lives Matter movement, but Humble is one of a handful to put its money where its mouth is. Double Fine has donated $12,000 to anti-racist charities, while fellow Microsoft studio 343 is donating microtransaction revenue from Halo 5 to the NAACP. Don't Starve studio Klei has also donated $1m to Black Lives Matter causes

League of Legends maker Riot is putting $10m behind minority-led studios, as well as donating $1m to social justice causes, while indie platform Itch.io has raised more than $5m for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Community Bail Fund with its Bundle for Racialist Justice and Equality.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.