A number of indie developers have removed their games Steam citing Valve’s failure to address the Black Lives Matter movement.
Developer Julian Glander has taken down his firm’s games ART SQOOL and Lovely Weather We’re Having from Valve’s storefront and encouraged others to do the same. He also said he won’t publish on Steam again. The developer described Steam as “beholden to a base of white angry male gamers”
Gabriel Koenig followed suit, pulling his titles Test Tube Titans: Taster Trial and Jettomero: Hero of the Universe. On Twitter, the developer explained that “Giving up Steam was not a decision I took lightly. I’ve been making ~$1000 a month in sales lately, and leaving that behind made me feel uncomfortable. But if I continued to profit from their store I’d be complicit with their silence on hate.”
First Winter creator Dan Sanderson also said he would be removing the title from Valve’s platform.
No AAA studios have announced their decision to leave Steam. Nor have any studios pulled down games from Epic Games Store, which has so far only issued a formal statement in support of the BML movement.
Meanwhile, other companies are taking a more active stance. Itch.io’s Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has been purchased by over 810,000 people, raising more than $8.1 million for charities involved in the BLM movement. Humble has set up $1m Black Game Developers Fund, and Riot Games is giving $10m to black startups.