The Itch.io Ukraine bundle has done extremely well, raising $6.37 million, which is over $370k of its goal of $6 million. The Itch.io Ukraine bundle featured 991 games such as Celeste, A Short Hike, Toree 3D, and Wandersong, and the bundle started at $9.99. This was close to one cent a game, so while you were supporting a good cause, it was also virtually impossible to buy the Itch.io Ukraine bundle and not find a game that you didn't want to at least try.
Where did the money go?
Good question! The money was evenly split between two charities according to Necrosoft Games:
International Medical Corps. https://internationalmedicalcorps.org/country/ukraine/
They provide medical aid and training in the field, and have ongoing operations in Ukraine now. They have very low fundraising overhead (1% of income), with 89% of donations going to medical aid and 10% to administration. Honestly I don't mind them paying their workers.Voices of Children. https://voices.org.ua/en/who-we-are/
This is a Ukrainian organization that helps children cope with the horrors of war, PTSD, readjusting to school, and things like that. As they are not an international organization I don't have insight into their financials, but they have a really positive message, they've been in foreign news so may have had some vetting there, and I really wanted to help an org that is actually Ukrainian. If anyone has information I should know about them, please reach out.
Both of these are for great causes, and it's nice to see that with all the horrible news coming out of Ukraine some good can come of it too. There's been a bunch of donations and charitable causes for Ukraine so far, and they're almost certainly will be more in the future to help the beleaguered nation as the war continues.
For more information on how the Russia-Ukraine war has affected the gaming and tech industries, stay tuned to TechRaptor.
