Gamedevmap has been a passion project for 20 years by Gaurav Mathur, a game developer who created the map of the game industry’s companies in his spare time. And now he is raising money via donations for the map to make it sustainable.
The map has been a staple resource for anyone figuring out how and where to get a job in the game industry. And in a form of celebration of this personal community service passion project, Mathur said in an interview with GamesBeat that his company was granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status in December 2025.
The mission is to provide a freely accessible, curated online directory to advance public understanding of video game development at a global scale.
“I spent last year working on gamedevmap full-time after realizing that it had quietly become a critical global infrastructure resource for workforce development, studio discoverability, and more at a time of significant challenge for the game industry. gamedevmap.com is used by thousands of people a year from over 100 countries,” Mathur said in a post on Facebook.
The map isn’t a beautiful work of art. But it has a lot of data. And said he anticipates crossing 10,000 companies in the database by the second quarter of 2026.
The goals for this year include implementing a responsive web design to improve usability and the mobile experience. He also wants to continue tool development to support data validation. And he wants to add Bluesky profiles for as many dataset entries as possible and develop the map’s social media presence to better support studios.
The goal is to raise about $30,000 for 2026. Here’s the company’s link on LinkedIn and on BlueSky.
He said Gamedevmap is powered by an incredible working board, advisory board, and a small volunteer team delivering monthly updates and community engagement in ways he could never do on his own.
Gamedevmap’s Advisory Board includes Kari Zanotto, Independent Strategy and Marketing Consultant at Stardust Guild; Kate Edwards, CEO, Principal Consultant & Geographer at Geogrify; and Laila Shabir, Founder & CEO at Girls Make Games and the GMG Scholarship Fund.
The map was accessed via Google more than 1.46 million times in 2025. Over 212,200 sessions were logged.
Last week, Mathur’s team launched its 2026 annual giving campaign with a modest goal: covering yearly operating costs ($5,000–$7,500). Any funds raised beyond that will help it fund three paid internships for senior-year university students contributing to data entry, outreach, and social media.
If Gamedevmap has been useful to you, or if you have the capacity to help sustain work on this open, independent resource, a donation of any amount is impactful (tax-deductible to the extent permitted by applicable law).
“After twenty years as a mostly solo project, it makes me especially happy to share that the gamedevmap team is grateful for your support,” Mathur said.