OneBigGame strikes a chord with studios

The industry is beginning to rally behind charity effort OneBigGame, director Martin de Ronde has told Develop, with 10 studios firmly committed to providing games for the company’s upcoming casual games portal already.

Although the names of the studios set to produce games for the portal are still to be officially announced, de Ronde promised that they were all "well-known names" that have each worked on games that have sold over a million units.

OneBigGame was announced in March this year, described by de Ronde as "An industry wide initiative that mobilises the development community and the publishing community so everybody can participate, donating their time and creativity in order for us to sell games for charity."

And in the five months since, de Ronde has been courting studios for their input.

"We are getting more and more support," he explained to Develop last week, adding that the idea had really resonated amongst developers who are now "looking to give back".

"Five years ago people would have been reluctant, but now the time is right."

The team is hoping to launch the games portal roughly in Q2 2008, with the games set to retail for around $10-15 each, supporting a number of global children’s charities which are also to be officially announced as partners shortly.