Thread by @capacle

Hey, you!

You like cool new games, huh?

So here's an appeal: support indie designers from the Global South.

Buy our games.

Here's why, from my perspective. 🧵 1/

We don't have access to Kickstarter. At all.

If you're born in the "wrong country", the platform simply does not allow you to have a creator's account.

So we have to make do with workarounds, such as itchfunding, or having a third-party publish our games. 🧵 2/

And that's a HUGE disadvantage in terms of visibility.

I mean, I routinely see ok-ish projects casually raising 6k on KS, while the rest of us (in most cases) pick up the crumbles. 🧵 3/

"Oh, but there was that great game from South East Asia that raised a great amount in its campaign."

I know.

Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. Trust me, those are exceptions 🧵 4/

Physical products? Forget it.

We can't print locally and send it abroad without going bankrupt or charging an insane price from our customers.

We're stuck with print on demand, with all its idiosyncrasies regarding quality, price, timeframe... 🧵 5/

And maybe you don't understand how much of a difference selling a game in USD can make for us.

Here we are, writing games in a second language, swimming against the tide, in the hopes of reaching a larger audience and making ends meet. 🧵 6/

Our local markets are more often than not not enough to support us.

For me, this is not a side gig, a fun project I do in my spare hours.

This is the difference between paying or not my rent.

And oh boy, what a difference a game can make. I'll give you an example: 🧵 7/

I once made a "game on a mug", both in Portuguese and in English.

Zero marketing budget for either.

Results?

Drum roll 🥁 8/

I raised US$100 with the English version.

The Portuguese one? US$2.50

Yup. Two dollars and fifty cents.

(And I'm not blaming Brazilian customers. It is a smaller audience with WAY LESS financial resources to invest on games. It is a fact) 🧵 9/

And we have so much to say!

So many ideas, so many different perspectives. So much creativity!

We've been talking a lot about diversity in the TTRPG scene, and that diversity HAS to include voices from the south. 🧵 10/

So if you identify yourself in a position of privilege, I ask you:

Buy our games. Play our games on stream. Invite us to your shows.

Raise our voices.

It goes a long way. 🧵 11/

. 12/

P.S. Tax cuts!

Since we don't have a BR-US treaty for taxes, we end up paying up to 30% of everything we make on US platforms.

That's on top of platform fees. And then there are currency exchange fees to actually use the money.

So yeah.

UPDATE: I have slowly started to create a collection of games from the Global South on itch.

It's humble, but it's something: itch.io/c/1832649/tabl…