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Donate to Help Haiti by Playing Halo

That's a sacrifice everyone should be willing to make

Jan 20, 2010 11:59 GMT  ·  By
Working with Microsoft rends the soul
   Working with Microsoft rends the soul

If you stepped away from your games at any point in the last couple of days, you might have heard about the natural disaster that hit Haiti. After an earthquake that registered 7 on the Richter scale, and following aftershocks of almost 6 on the same scale and tsunamis, the Island of Haiti is in what you could definitely call a "bad shape." A relief fund has already been put up, and there's more than one way to make a difference. While giving money would be the noble gesture, there's a far simpler way to do it, and it feels a lot more natural than giving away money.

Giving us a way to help out with our controller in hand, Bungie has offered to donate up to $77,000 to the Haiti relief fund. But there's a catch. It will only do so if we're playing Halo 3 or ODST online. It may sound a bit too scrupulous to be considered charity, but at least hear out its offer until the end. For every 1,000 people that play these games online, starting from 12:01AM PST on Wednesday and ending at 11:59PM PST on Thursday, Bungie will donate $100 to the American Red Cross for Haiti relief fund.

But in order to be counted among the people supporting the fund, you'll have to wear a special emblem. This is just in case you want to play either Halo 3 or ODST online, but don't want to help Haiti pull itself back together from the disaster. Which would be a very "Mini-me" thing of you to do. Putting on the emblem or not makes all the difference in the world, so, to make things easier, there's a set of instructions posted below.

Edit your appearance settings so your character is wearing the RED HEART emblem. Press START. Select "SETTINGS" / "APPEARANCE." Select "EMBLEM." Select "Hearts" ICON, "Circle" BACKGROUND. Back out to the APPEARANCES menu and select "COLORS." Set "EMBLEM PRIMARY" to RED (or MAROON / BRICK / ROSE depending on which game you're playing!). Set "EMBLEM SECONDARY" to WHITE.

But as far as donations go, Bungie didn't stop here. All profits made by the developer that are generated by apparel and accessories sold by the Bungie store up until the end of February will also be donated. This includes the special Superintendent T-shirt Bungie made available for $20, but does not include the items that don't generate any actual income for the developer, like Xbox 360 games or HDTVs.