Games industry raised over $5.5m for Australian bushfire relief Humble Bundle, Call of Duty DLC and Bungie T-shirts lead fundraising efforts

James Batchelor UK Editor Thursday 12th March 2020 Share this article Share

The global video games industry has raised more than $4.5 million for charities and emergency services dealing with the effects of the Australia bushfires.

At the start of the year, numerous publishers and developers announced a variety donations and fundraisers after bushfires ravaged the continent.

According to GamesIndustry.biz calculations, the total raised is more than $4.52 million across 12 initiatives.

The biggest earners were the $25 Humble Bundle, which raised $2.4 million, and the Call of Duty Outback Relief DLC, which generated $1.6 million.

The largest single donation came from Sony Foundation Australia, which pledged $132,518 (AU$200,000). The company raised an additional $12,651 with its livestreaming event, plus over $5,000 from staff donations.

There were also donations from Digital Extremes, Wargaming and Ubisoft Australia, fundraisers from Eve Online, Avakin Life, and Pearl Abyss, plus a joint venture between Bethesda and 2K Games. The GameDevForFiries auction, run by local developers, raised $13,255.

Finally, US based indie publisher Crytivo promised to donate two months' revenues towards relief efforts. The firm has told GamesIndustry.biz this generated around $20,000.

Totals are still being calculated for Kojima Productions and Bungie's respective T-shirt sales.

Update, March 20, 2020: Bungie has since revealed it has sold more than 75,000 T-shirts, raising over $1 million.

This brings the industry's total to over $5.5 million. We have amended the headline to reflect this.