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

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

In an official release from organisers Double Fine Productions and iam8bit, the organisation 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 organisation wrote. “And we have done all of this for FREE – providing our programs for no cost to either developers, or players.”

Previously, the organisation 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 organisation 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 organisations, which clarifies our commitment to being 100 percent platform agnostic,” the team wrote.