Tag: Charity

Frogster: This Is How You Charity


The Blokes At ROM

Here at MMO Fallout, I never turn down a good charity story, and today is no different. Frogster has a yearly run on Runes of Magic for Save The Children (Germany edition), a children’s rights organization that engages in all sorts of projects, with the goal of improving healthcare and education for all kiddies no matter where they be.

Between December and January, players of select Frogster games could purchase exclusive items where, after VAT and third party costs, the proceeds went to Save The Children in Bhutan. In total, $112,500 USD was collected.

“In Bhutan, there are suddenly children surfing the Internet and zapping through 400 television channels. Their parents, on the other hand, are people who haven’t learnt to read or write. They have never in their lives been bombarded with advertising. In other words, what we have here is a clash of two ages of civilisation.”

You can read more here: http://game-newswire.com/index.php/the-news/338-frogster-donates-82000-euros-to-children-in-bhutan.html

Hello Kitty Online: This Is How You Charity…Adorably.


Put on your :3 face.

In January, Haiti was struck by a massive earthquake that resulted in countless damage, over two hundred thousand dead, and millions left without a home. In the following months, we witnessed an enormous surge of companies looking to get their players involved in donating to the cause: Participants including Blizzard, CCP Games, Frogster Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment, and more. These events offered players an opportunity to purchase items with real money, with a portion (or all, or more) going to charity.

The folks over at Hello Kitty Online had a different idea on charity: Instead of requiring cash donations, why not allow people to donate just by playing the game? Food For Friends 2, the charity initiative, was set up to allow players to donate any type of in-game item, with the worth of that item being translated to real cash and donated to the Haiti relief efforts.

So far only one of the two servers has chimed in with its results: over eighteen thousand dollars from more than a million items donated. By my own calculations, and the current count of items on the other server, the total donation should be somewhere along the lines of twenty five thousand dollars, to be donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Obviously the titles on MMO Fallout have been a joke, but when it comes to the idea of companies fighting over who can donate the most to charity, trying to spark a little competition can go a long way.

Blizzard: Put Your Loose Change Away, THIS Is How You Charity…


Welcome to the tip of the mountain.

Make a wish, kids, because Blizzard just donated one million dollars to make your wish come true. Last year, Blizzard ran a two month long charity drive with a simple premise: Purchase a Pandaren Monk pet for $10 USD, and 50% of that purchase will go towards the Make-a-Wish foundation. Despite the usual complaints on the forums, over two hundred thousand of Blizzard’s subscribers pulled their wallets out and made a purchase during that time period.

Although 50% isn’t nearly as much of a percentage as I’d like to see companies (especially Blizzard) give from a non-tangible item that costs barely a couple hours to code into the game, given that the Pandaren wasn’t made for the charity, I think I can give it a pass. The sheer girth of the donation, combined with Blizzard being up front about how much they were donating, makes it an alright move in my books.

Meanwhile the PLEX for Haiti event ended last week on Eve Online, with more than forty thousand dollars being donated. In Eve Online, if players donated PLEX, it was converted directly into cash and sent to charity.

More on Blizzard, CCP, and Charity as it appears.

Hello Kitty Online: No, THIS Is How You Charity


Gustav says: I may be an undead ex-hero turned villain, but even I donate some of the money I steal to charity.

Hello Kitty Online has a proposition: How would you like to donate money to charity by playing video games, and by video games I mean Hello Kitty Online? If you answered yes, then do I have the deal for you!

In Hello Kitty Online, a special drive is going up next week in the form of a guild game, called Food for Friends 2. Players needs to go to HKO’s version of London, and speak to an NPC named Cinnamaroll, who is collecting consumable items for charity. Players have to be in a guild for this event, and the more they donate, the more points their guild generates. The points are converted to donations that will be paid for by the sponsors of the event, and the players who donate consumables will also be able to receive points for the item mall.

You can find the announcement here, and this donation drive is perfect for people who have a couple extra hours next week, but don’t necessarily have extra cash to donate. Is helping disaster relief worth playing Hello Kitty Online? Do I really have to ask that?