How an Indie Studio Got 400-Plus Games Into a $10 Bundle to Help LA Fire Victims
Since January 7, wildfires have been burning their way through Los Angeles. The aftermath is devastating, with over 16,000 homes destroyed, drinking water contaminated, and more than two dozen people killed. As longtime residents attempt to rebuild, relief has come in all forms, from donations made to the American Red Cross to people giving to individual families’ GoFundMe efforts. Soon, those looking to help will have a new way to give: by buying a video game bundle.
The California Fire Relief Bundle is the work of indie studio Necrosoft Games and a collection of volunteers the company’s director, Brandon Sheffield, organized to compile the bundle. From January 12 through 19, they collected 422 games—including popular titles like Tunic, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, and Hoa—on independent game platform Itch.io. From those, Sheffield says, the collective aims to create the California Fire Relief Bundle, which it’ll sell for about $10 a pop, a good price for hundreds of titles. Proceeds from the bundle, which Sheffield aims to launch “ASAP,” will go to relief efforts aimed at helping Los Angeles-area residents get back on their feet financially.
“I’ve seen many [people] get priced out because it can be an expensive place to live,” says Sheffield, a California native. “So when a fire like this reduces total housing, inspires landlords to do price hikes, and gets unhoused folks into even more vulnerable positions, it feels like those of us in stable living positions should do whatever we can.”
Los Angeles holds a special place in the heart of the video game industry. It’s home to hundreds of developers and to studios such as Riot Games, Naughty Dog, and Santa Monica Studio. Before E3 shut down, downtown LA was the conference’s longtime home. It’s the location of The Game Awards and the venue for many smaller annual game events. It’s in part because of that association, Sheffield says, that developers from everywhere are stepping in to help.
But there’s another reason: climate change. A warming world is increasing the likelihood of wildfires in California. The same is true of hurricanes and other natural disasters. For video game developers, whose work has its own substantial carbon footprint, these environmental impacts are “a big deal for everyone,” Sheffield says.
“This crisis has deeply affected our teams, with some Rioters losing their homes and many others still evacuated,” Riot wrote in a statement about the fires. The game company also announced its own in-game fundraisers to be held within Valorant and League of Legends. Other video game companies such as Activision and Sony are also donating to relief efforts.
According to a recent report from the organizers of the Game Developers Conference, 16 percent of devs surveyed said they’d been impacted by natural disasters in the past year. Seventy-three percent of respondents to the “State of the Game Industry” report, for which organizers surveyed over 3,000 people, specified that they were impacted by water-related incidents, including hurricanes, floods, and storms. “Hurricane Milton did some damage at my home office, causing me lots of unexpected financial hardship,” wrote one developer in Florida. “I’m no longer able to pour money into my business as much as I did before.”
Other developers in tropical regions pointed to intense flooding that kept them stranded, or worse. “Four people in our team were affected by the flood [in the] south of Brazil in May 2024,” a developer wrote. “One of our colleagues had to seek shelter and couldn’t work for three weeks.”
Sheffield’s own team was also hit hard, and not just by the LA fires. “This year alone, with my small team of eight, we’ve seen people having to shelter or evacuate from storms, tornados, hurricanes, and wildfires,” Sheffield says. “One of our artist’s parents had to evacuate for this fire event specifically.”
Video games, like many organizations in the tech world, play a part in the ongoing climate crisis, from the electricity they use to the environmental issues that arise in their production. Developers are well aware of this. In the past few years, some have made games specifically to help raise awareness; major companies like Epic Games and Microsoft implemented energy-saving features into their games and platforms, respectively.
But the rise of artificial intelligence—an unpopular move already among many developers—is doing increasingly more damage as the use of AI balloons. AI also requires a huge amount of energy, which tech companies are currently scrambling to suck up. “Not only is AI contributing to climate change through emissions, they’re driving up energy prices,” says Sheffield, whose LA fires fundraising bundle specifically rejected games that used generative AI. “A lot of game developers are complicit in this right now and should maybe give that a real thought.”
