When I set out to make the Queer Games Bundle in 2021, I wanted to get revenge on a world where $200 usd could mean the difference between fucking up your life or being okay. I just wanted people to be okay. I saw that countless queer people who were artists like me were struggling to meet their basic needs. I desperately wanted to help.

It’s been five years since then. I stepped down from the bundle, but I still consider it one of the most important things I’ve done with my life.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the capacity to run the bundle. The labor needed to sustain the bundle has become unsustainable. Each year the bundle has more people, which means it takes more work but earns less money. The reality is I’m just not okay enough to keep this up anymore.

I am announcing that the Queer Games Bundle is over. There will not be another bundle this year.

I believe that the core of social justice is not in thinking the right thoughts, being a good person, or saying the right things, but in actions and results that concretely improve people’s lives. I believe that artists, especially queer artists, deserve to be funded.

The gap between that belief and reality is complicated. Queer artists offer to donate work to charity bundles, because they don't have $5 usd to spend on anything. They don’t have $5 usd because our collective societies and countries no longer value artists or intellectual work outside of things that have military applications.

There is no Queer Future that can exist if we aren’t funding our own people. I still hold the belief that artists and intellectuals are essential to having a functioning society. The greatest artists alive right now are probably not making art, because they’re too busy worrying about where they’ll get their next meal or sleep tonight.

As we’ve said since the beginning, if we had the budget of a single AAA game, we could give every solo developer in this bundle a livable wage for a year. That world will never happen if everyone does nothing, and there are limits to what a small group can do. If you’re reading this, please please please consider continuing our work funding queer art through organizing bundles.

Queer artists deserve money, because in this world we live in, money is survival. Queer people deserve to survive, and I hope all of you will continue the work of helping others to live.

Thank you,
Taylor McCue

When Taylor and I started the queer games bundle five years ago, I had no idea how many folks it would affect, both the queer game devs and artists participating in it, and the tens of thousands of game players who purchased it. Our belief was that, together, queer artists could find support, find community, and strive toward a less competitive, more cooperative way of making/working/sharing.

Now more than ever, I believe in the perseverance of our various communities, artist collectives, queer organizations, found families, and DIY circles. In the face of actual, real-world dangers, erasure, and genocide, we stand up, stay vigilant, support each other, and find ways to survive. Art-making and storytelling continue to be important.

The Queer Games Bundle was just one of hundreds of nodes on a long spectrum of ways in which our communities created and found support. You all made it possible. And I believe you all will continue to be inspired to organize, generate, and contribute. I’m excited for all of it.

with love,
nilson carroll

Working on the bundle has been one of the great honors of my life. I stepped in to continue what was already going. My hero Mariame Kaba always says to do something:

"If I’m making my stand in the world and that benefits my particular community of people, the people I designate as my community, and I see them benefiting by my labor, I feel good about that. That actually is enough for me." (We Do This 'Til We Free Us)

In five years, the Queer Games Bundle earned $731,236.83 usd for over 800 artists and teams. I feel the most proud when participants tell us they've been able to release a new project because of the money.

If you can, please group up with other artists to do whatever is next for you, because there's no reason to have to go alone. I know many in the group already share Discords, forums, or group chats and do game jams and bundles together. Thank you for doing that work, and I hope others will keep seeking out those groups or forming their own.

With sincere thanks,
Caroline Delbert

editing 2/13 to add: I can no longer pull up earlier comments because of a bug or something, so I'm linking @LezLiz's important comment asking if people want to start a new bundle together: https://itch.io/post/15466160. Our friends Queer Halloween Stories also posted a hint that they might work on something, please follow them for more: https://bsky.app/profile/queerhalloween.bsky.social/post/3mepsx3atts2g