Valve confirms that it will be sponsoring this year's Game Devs of Color Expo after facing criticism for failing to make a statement in support of Black Lives Matter. While other major games companies like Destiny 2 developer Bungie have made public statements against racial injustice, Valve has not.
On Twitter, game developer Shawn Alexander Allen tweeted that Valve had signed on to sponsor Game Devs of Color Expo, which takes place in September. Allen's tweet also said that Valve had pledged support to a separate Black voices in gaming event being put together by Guerrilla Collective organizer Justin Woodward. Valve issued a statement to GamesIndustry.biz confirming that Allen's tweet was "accurate" but did not provide more information about how it was supporting these two events.
The confirmation that Valve is sponsoring two events supporting Black game developers comes after several indie game developers pulled their games from Steam over the company's lack of Black Lives Matter support. Art Sqool developer Julian Glander said he doesn't see himself publishing games on Steam "ever again." Test Tube Titans developer Ghost Time Games also confirmed that the paid version of that title would no longer be available on Steam for the same reason, giving up around $1,000 of monthly profit in the process.
Valve makes a huge amount of money from Steam each year but the feeling from these indie developers is that hurting the company's profits in some way can help change to happen.
Valve's decision to spend money supporting these events is being seen as positive, but its maintained silence on Black Lives Matter may keep these indie developers away. Some have begun to sell their games on itch.io, which has raised millions of dollars for Black Lives Matter, and this also makes it unlikely that they'll come back to Steam.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz