I wrote the following as a guest article on Gnome Stew. I’m including it here for you regular readers!
Following the widespread protests kicked off by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed by police while in their custody, a number of tabletop game companies have responded by speaking out against such injustice. In the best cases, they’ve also taken steps to help. While it’s becoming less rare for this industry to unite and stand up for a cause, this occasion feels especially noteworthy. Here are some examples of such companies rallying to support racial equality earlier this month.
Paizo made the following statement, pledging (among other things) to start a new charity to help black communities:
Wizards of the Coast donated to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, and Black Girls Code, and released the following statement:
Steve Jackson Games donated to four charities in Austin, Texas: Austin Area Urban League, Austin Justice Coalition, Project ROAR, and 400+1 Bail Fund. They posted this statement:
Goodman Games posted this inspirational image:
Green Ronin Publishing‘s Facebook account went silent for a day to make room for other voices.
Magpie Games posted a Tweet standing with Black Lives Matter and sharing a list of black leaders in gaming to follow.
Evil Hat Productions donated to Black Lives Matter and released the following statement:
Chaosium is donating a portion of the proceeds from their latest Call of Cthulhu book to National Bail Out.
Schwalb Entertainment donated $1,022 to the Bail Project, explaining that “saying something without doing anything is uesless.”
Arc Dream Publishing donated to the Northwest Community Bail Fund in Seattle, and the publishers of Delta Green put their extensive research into criminal justice into perspective:
Monte Cook Games has made the following offer on their recent Cypher System adventure Heist on Miracle IV: “Now through June 30th, all proceeds from sales of Heist on Miracle IV will be donated to blacklivesmatter.com. Monte Cook Games will make a matching donation for the first 500 copies sold during this period.”
Pelgrane Press donated $1,000 and 10% of their June web store sales to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. They also released a longer statement on their website.
R. Talsorian Games made $2,000 donation to the Bail Project, which provides bail assistance to protestors. The company announced this with a statement; the full version is in a blog post, but the short version fit in the Tweet below…
Did you spot any game companies speaking out (or taking action) on behalf of racial equality recently? We probably missed some, so let us know in the comments!