Since it first released back in 2015, Axiom Verge has been an acclaimed indie experience that many gamers have had the chance to enjoy, while the title’s publisher is seeking to provide a large portion of the game’s profits towards a good cause.
Axiom Verge developer Tom Happ released a blog post in celebration of Axiom Verge heading to retail this week for various platforms (including the Nintendo Switch), and at the post also provided a heartwarming note about the publisher’s generosity in helping to provide care for his son.
Specifically, Happ highlighted that the game’s retail publisher, BadLand Games, would be contributing 75% of the company’s share of profits from the sales of Axiom Verge‘s retail releases to go into a special fund to provide healthcare assistance for Happ’s son, Alistair, who has battled a chronic ailment for the majority of his life. Happ’s full statement regarding BadLand and their support for his son can be found below:
Before I go, I’d just like to take a moment and give a special shout out to the publisher, BadLand Games. As you may have seen elsewhere on my blog and Twitter, I’ve tried to be pretty open about my son Alastair’s health situation. In short, he was born healthy, but the doctors failed to treat a routine case of jaundice during a critical period when he was just days old. The result was a life-long condition called Kernicterus that is characterized by severe neurological damage which robbed Alastair of much of his motor control and hearing. The reason I mention this is that after we decided to move forward with BadLand Games as the publisher, they offered to donate 75% of their share to a special fund dedicated to Alastair’s ongoing health care costs. They didn’t want to publicize it, since none of us wanted to be seen as trying to use my son’s suffering as a marketing tool for the game. I hope this doesn’t come off that way. I just wanted to thank them for their generosity in offering that up, since it was definitely something they didn’t have to do.
With it being the holiday season, it’s especially encouraging to see BadLand’s generosity in support of Happ’s son, and in the time of conversations around some of the more negative aspects of the games industry as a business (such as the recent controversies around lootboxes), it’s especially nice to see a light of positivity in the industry like this.
Axiom Verge is available now for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Wii U, PS Vita, PC, Mac, and Linux.