Itch.io is hosting another massive game bundle to help raise money for charity. Just like last year's Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, this new bundle consists of 1,020 indie games, assets, soundtracks, and more for just $5, all from independent game developers banding together for the cause of Palestinian aid. Any and all money made from the bundle will go straight to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, who has already helped over a million individuals affected by the ongoing situation in Palestine. All of the content within the bundle is DRM-free, and includes games such as Liyla and The Shadows Of War, STRAINGE, To Duel List, The Count of Monte Carlo, and many, many more. The bundle will be available until June 12th. At the time of writing, the bundle has raised nearly $120,000, with a hopeful goal of $500,000.

This is a grassroots bundle by indie devs who want to help Palestinians.

All profit from this bundle will be donated to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The UNRWA has provided food assistance for over one million Palestinians, and continues to do so in the territories with heavy destruction. They also provide emergency mental and physical health protection for those in the region. https://www.unrwa.org/gaza-emergency

Indie games are unique in that they can tell stories not seen in AAA or other games. We pour our life experiences into our games and share a piece of ourselves with the world. Palestinian game developers are no different in this aspect, but have the added challenges of limited access to basic services, like clean water, electricity, medical care, and food security. They live under Israeli authority that discriminates and subjugates Palestinians to the point of persecution and apartheid, simply for being Palestinian. Furthermore, they develop games without all the resources that come with being in a western hub for game development.

Palestinian game developer Rasheed Abueideh did exactly that when he made Liyla and the Shadows of War, which tells a story of a little girl who lives in Gaza during the 2014 war, in which 30% of civilian casualties were children. Liyla and the Shadows of War was showcased at IndieCade and A MAZE and earned numerous award nominations, including a win in Excellence in Storytelling at the International Mobile Gaming Awards Middle East/North Africa.

This bundle is pay-what-you-want (above $5 U.S. dollars) for Liyla and the Shadows of War, and you will receive hundreds of additional games, assets, and soundtracks graciously donated by game developers and media creators around the world for free. The bundle will run through Friday, June 11th. Together, we can raise funds for UNRWA for food and medical assistance for Palestinians AND highlight a game developer who is directly affected by the cause we are rallying behind.

Source

 

[Dominator211]

I was wary to cover last year's racial justice bundle from Itch.io because of this exact problem. Personally, looking back, I regret it, but it also would have caused a lot of trolls to pop up and make pages of mess. I'm pretty sure I covered a Humble racial justice bundle later on and was not surprised to find it devolved quickly iirc. Regardless of what your political take is, there's a bunch of games available for cheap, and that's the main focus here. If you want to support it, you can. If you want low price indie titles, you can get them. If you don't support the cause or want the games, that's cool too. But it's always touchy covering these sorts of topics because they're bound to wind up as angry political mud slinging fights.

No no, I totally get where you're coming from. The point to me at least got across but I also didn't expect for it to become politicized.

 

[Hells Malice]

Chary: "Behold 1000+ indie games for $5"

*GBAtemp monkeys just throw their own poop at eachother*

 

[Seliph]

In light of all the political discourse going on about this topic why doesn't itch.io create a bundle for developers that want to support Israel? Now instead of people debating over topics they know nothing about they can just throw money at whichever side they choose, like a football game.

Believe it or not ethnic cleansing isn't "like a football game" and it should never be treated as such.

Anyways based itch.io

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

Believe it or not ethnic cleansing isn't "like a football game" and it should never be treated as such.

Anyways based itch.io

my favorite sport, racial genocide

 

[Seliph]

my favorite sport, racial genocide

Palestine is a very diverse region so it's moreso ethnic genocide but yeah same principle

 

[Brighton]

Palestine is a very diverse region so it's moreso ethnic genocide but yeah same principle

The reality is that Palestinians and Jews have very similar DNA. Not unsurprising considering they both originate from that land.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11543891/

 

[Seliph]

The reality is that Palestinians and Jews have very similar DNA. Not unsurprising considering they both originate from that land.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11543891/

That article was retracted by the very journal that published it so I don't really trust its findings, it's also pretty outdated seeing as it came from 2001. It tries to posit that the Israel-Palestine "conflict" is due to genetic reasons, not cultural/religious reasons. This is obviously very silly for many reasons and does not stand up to even a bit of scrutiny. It is blatantly false.

It would be more accurate to say Palestinians and Israelis, not Palestinians and Jews. There are Jewish Palestinians and there have always been Jewish Palestinians. This is not between Palestine and Jewish people, this is between Israel and Palestine. Israel does not represent all Jewish people. The state of Israel is not and should never be a Jewish ethnostate no matter how hard they try to make it one because to create an ethnostate would be the genocide of Palestinians, something that has already been going on for decades since (and even a bit before) the Nakba. Certainly, there is overlap in DNA between Palestinians and Israelis (just as there is DNA overlap between every human being) but I don't really see how this is significant because Palestinians are persecuted for their ethnicity/nationality, not their DNA.

It's also worth noting that Palestinians have been evicted from their homes for decades to be replaced by Jewish (and non-Jewish) settlers from all over the world who are incentivized to come through events and organizations like Birthright Israel. More and more the original inhabitants of the land have been replaced by settlers who don't know a lick of Arabic or even Hebrew so to say that Israeli citizens "originate from the land" isn't very accurate. Palestinians certainly, Jewish people certainly (Jews have always lived in Palestine, just like Muslims and Christians), but not most Israelis at this point. Israel is a settler-colonial state after all, just like the US. It exists solely to replace the existing indigenous Palestinians with Israel-aligned settlers in order to expand the US's influence in the Middle East via Israel as a satellite state, which is why Israel receives so much funding and support from the US.

 

[erikas]

Would you donate money to Germany during world war 2 to help the German citizens? Because they were suffering. Any money you donate to Palestine will help fund Hamas.

 

[Brighton]

That article was retracted by the very journal that published it so I don't really trust its findings, it's also pretty outdated seeing as it came from 2001. It tries to posit that the Israel-Palestine "conflict" is due to genetic reasons, not cultural/religious reasons. This is obviously very silly for many reasons and does not stand up to even a bit of scrutiny. It is blatantly false.

It would be more accurate to say Palestinians and Israelis, not Palestinians and Jews. There are Jewish Palestinians and there have always been Jewish Palestinians. This is not between Palestine and Jewish people, this is between Israel and Palestine. Israel does not represent all Jewish people. The state of Israel is not and should never be a Jewish ethnostate no matter how hard they try to make it one because to create an ethnostate would be the genocide of Palestinians, something that has already been going on for decades since (and even a bit before) the Nakba. Certainly, there is overlap in DNA between Palestinians and Israelis (just as there is DNA overlap between every human being) but I don't really see how this is significant because Palestinians are persecuted for their ethnicity/nationality, not their DNA.

It's also worth noting that Palestinians have been evicted from their homes for decades to be replaced by Jewish (and non-Jewish) settlers from all over the world who are incentivized to come through events and organizations like Birthright Israel. More and more the original inhabitants of the land have been replaced by settlers who don't know a lick of Arabic or even Hebrew so to say that Israeli citizens "originate from the land" isn't very accurate. Palestinians certainly, Jewish people certainly (Jews have always lived in Palestine, just like Muslims and Christians), but not most Israelis at this point. Israel is a settler-colonial state after all, just like the US. It exists solely to replace the existing indigenous Palestinians with Israel-aligned settlers in order to expand the US's influence in the Middle East via Israel as a satellite state, which is why Israel receives so much funding and support from the US.

Apologies, I honestly completely missed that they'd retracted the article. I wonder why? I've seen similar findings though and I don't think it's a novel idea that both Jews and Palestinians have a genetic connection to each other and the surrounding lands.

Contrary to what you wrote that article says the conflict is NOT connected to genetic differences:

"Thus, Palestinian-Jewish rivalry is based in cultural and religious, but not in genetic, differences."

I’m not quite sure what the rest of your post has to do with the point I made but it’s completely erroneous to say Israelis can’t speak Hebrew / Arabic and that they weren’t born in the country. 70% percent of Israelis today were born in the country, 60% originate from Arab countries that kicked them out, and the majority of Jews DO originate from the land. Their DNA and history show this.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Would you donate money to Germany during world war 2 to help the German citizens? Because they were suffering. Any money you donate to Palestine will help fund Hamas.

We don’t know for sure that the money will end up in the hands of Hammas but it is a very real possibility.

Palestinians receive per capita more aid than any other people in the world. In fact more than double the next largest recipient. However, as was stated earlier in this thread many in the West Bank don’t even have access to basic necessities. So where is this money going? Hammas certainly don’t seem to have a lack of rockets or weapons or underground tunnel networks that go into Israeli civilian areas or Egyptian land…

 

[Skelletonike]

I'd buy if there were any of those adult games in there, sadly I can't filter by adult. :'(

 

[Necron00]

Fake news. Palestinians did not welcome them with open hands and give them land. Britain seized Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. The Palestinians did not give the Jewish people land, the British did because the British now owned the land. The British divided the land up between Palestinians and Jews and that is how Israel was born. Palestinians had the opportunity to have peace and control of their land. Instead Palestinians and other terrorist Arab countries repeatedly started conflicts with Israel and lost. Arabs want to kill Jews, plain and simple. If history tells us anything, whoever is victorious in a war has claim to the land. Israel beat Palestinian ass and continues to do so. Israel is the rightful owner of the land.

OK???? at first glance of your word i know you hate muslim very much and try to correct my correct history there is fake news??,did i say it a NEWS? more like history of jews and i know you not going to give up because that what british people always do to proven that they always correct and i don't need to argue with you because it's pointless no need for me to say and insult. Because you don't event know what i'm talking about . i wonder why this kind of people study more just to become potato.

 

[Foxi4]

So we should stay quiet and watch as Zionists massacre Palestinians in fear that our aid will reach Hamas? Hamas barely shot a few homemade rockets, that's hardly a massacre. On the other hand, calling the ethnic cleansing being done by Zionists a massacre is an understatement.

The blockade has nothing to do with humanitarian aid and everything to do with smuggling weaponry for HAMAS, which, lest we forget, is a terrorist group.

There's a weird perception that HAMAS fires rockets made out of straw and propelled by fairy dust - this is incorrect. They use enormous volleys of admittedly low-tech Quassam rockets, as well as strike drones and even attack submarines, firing at random, usually at civilian areas, in an effort to overwhelm the Iron Dome system which can only shoot down so many projectiles at a time. This is a deliberate strategy of quantity over quality - they cannot compete on the technological field, but they sure can mass produce simpler weaponry in huge quantities, and they do. Between the 10th and the 18th of May this year HAMAS shot over 4000 rockets at Israel, so the idea that it's just a couple of militants with RPG's is straight up misinformation - rocket production is a booming industry, kickstarted by Iran in 2014. They still have ample supply too - according to correspondents the group had an arsenal of 7000 rockets, so they've only gone through half of their stockpile.

I feel for the Palestinian civilians, but if they keep electing "officials" who are less concerned about the well-being of their citizens than they are about bombing Israel, and ones that have no qualms about stationing their rocket batteries in schools, buildings occupied by the press or hospitals, that's on them. Israel is entitled to defend its borders, and they have better gear. They will win every time, and HAMAS knows this - they're just okay with sacrificing their own people in the pursuit of their political goals, regardless of collateral.

Should we ignore the displacement of Palestinians? No, absolutely not, but the Palestinian Authority was offered their own independent state multiple times and they rejected each and every offer, so it's clear to me that the intention is not to establish a free and sovereign Palestinian state, but to be a thorn in Israel's side, even if it's a fight that Palestinians are destined to lose and one that only leads to more civilian casualties. If you want to see some change, start advocating it at home instead of expecting Israel to just lay down and take it. If you actually believe in what you say and think that HAMAS is some kind of a righteous organisation defending the interests of Palestinians, I'm sorry, but you're misguided and misinformed, and that's all I'll say about that.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-05-20/hamas-amass-arsenal-rockets-strike-israel

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidh...tacks-on-israel-claims-hit-on-chemical-plant/

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/military-assessment-israel-hamas-conflict

 

[ZeroFX]

erm, no thanks i wont buy at epic, or support terrorism,

 

[Deleted User]

lmao I don't care about palestine I just want 1000 games for 5 bucks

 

[Phenj]

why the fuck would i donate for a muslim country lmao​

 

[HarveyHouston]

Headline should read as Itch.io becomes politically correct. Why not Israel?

 

[Vila_]

the $5 bundle is still pretty cool though...

 

[Gronbar]

I'm not surprised that mostly Israel supporters have USA flag beneath their avatars.

 

[Necron00]

why the fuck would i donate for a muslim country lmao​

Why the fuck do you think people care about you going to donate or not you racist

 

[Phenj]

Why the fuck do you think people care about you going to donate or not you racist

cope and stay mad lmao