I finally put thought and words to something nagging me for the past two years. With my work in founding and working on Ümloud! and a new video game non-profit project (I’ll post later), I’ve worked with a number of people in different aspects of the video game industry. Lots of journalists, lots of PR personal, and lots of people not working in the biz. Yet in the two years I’ve worked in the game related non profit world, I find myself with very few contacts from actual game developers. Which leads me to state:
Very few game developers work with non-profit organizations (NPOs).
As with any overly broad statement, there’s nuance here. I’m setting the bar to beyond monetary donation, but committed infrastructure involvement. I don’t have hard facts to prove or disprove this statement; Believe me, I wish I had hard facts. There are some developers who do great NPO work out there, some even volunteer with Ümloud!, whom do count and are doing good things.
What is clear to me is an overall lack of willingness from developers to work on NPOs. I’m trying to figure out is why I’m the only developer involved with these projects. Of the Child’s Play community organized events I know of, I can’t think of any developer that’s founded any (please tell me if I’m missing something). I see involvement on a corporation level, which is awesome, but I’m trying to find individuals acting on their own. I should not that I’m not limiting the argument to only Child’s Play, that’s just where I’ve done my research though the years.