For the next seven days, 11 bit studios, the developer behind the 2014 anti-war game This War of Mine, will donate all of the profits from the sale of the game and its DLC toward the Ukrainian Red Cross to support Ukrainian citizens affected by escalating conflict from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
11 bit made the announcement in a statement today following Russia’s open attack of Ukraine, condemning the conflict with a succinct “fuck the war” and saying that the the subject matter of its games like This War of Mine give it the responsibility to support Ukrainian victims of war however they can.
“As a Polish game studio and creators of the globally recognized anti-war game, This War of Mine – one that directly speaks about the suffering and misery of civilians who are affected by war – we’d like to hereby announce our company statement: we stand against the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” reads the statement from 11 bit studios.
“Just words would be empty without a meaningful act though, and the timing is crucial, so the act is as follows: for the next seven days, all profits from This War of Mine, all its DLCs, on all stores and all platforms will go to a special fund. A week from now, this money will be donated to the Ukrainian Red Cross to directly support victims of war in Ukraine.”
This War of Mine aims to tell the stories of civilians living their lives during conflict in a fictional war-torn country. As a game, it uses sometimes brutal survival mechanics to show the hardships of the people enduring scarce supplies and emotional turmoil as war wages on around them.
11 bit studios has long used the game’s subject matter as a vehicle for awareness of such real-word struggles, with This War of Mine having helped raise over $500,000 for the charity War Child as of 2019. With today’s violence against Ukraine, the studio is once again using the game to drive both awareness and financial support for the people impacted by war.
“Let this message resonate with everything you know about this war and how war kills people, devastates their lives and homes. Let us – players and developers together – do everything we can to support victims of war in Ukraine,” continues the statement.
11 bit studios’ move has since been mirrored by GOG, the PC game marketplace notably owned by the Polish parent company of CD Projekt Red. In a separate statement, GOG has pledged to donate its portion of all This War of Mine game and DLC sales on its platform to the Ukrainian Red Cross as well.
Other developers within and around the country have spoken out against Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Ukraine-based studio and STALKER developer GSC Game World issued a statement earlier today on Twitter, condemning the war and urging the worldwide community to offer financial support to those in need. Frogwares, the Ukrainian studio behind The Sinking City and the Sherlock Holmes games, similarly tweeted against the attacks, saying “We can’t just stand by. Russia attacks our homeland and denies the sovereignty of Ukraine. We are trying to stay safe, but this is war, there are no two ways about it.”
Elsewhere, publishers like Crytivo and tinyBuild have made similar shows of support for Ukraine and Ukrainian citizens, with Crytivo pledging profits toward the Ukrainian Red Cross and both it and tinyBuild making shows of support for staff that call Ukraine home.