14 DAY TRIAL // Gaming, and gamers subsequently, have been accused of a lot of bad things over the years, such as being very violent or inclined to acts of selfishness. However, slowly but surely, companies in the gaming industry are beginning to show the mainstream media another side to this branch of entertainment.
We've already seen Electronic Arts make a special edition of its very popular Madden 2009 NFL football simulator, from which a part of the profit went to a foundation researching breast cancer, and now another big charity act has been made by Sony Online Entertainment to the Child's Play charity organization, as the company raised over 20,000 dollars.
The money was gathered through Child’s Play 2009 Winter Charity Drive, in which SOE donated 10 dollars for each and every item that players of EverQuest and EverQuest II bought from the Marketplace of the games, with the newly introduced Station Cash in-game currency. All of the money raised will be directed to improving the lives of hospitalized children across the United States of America.
“The ability of our players to make a donation of this magnitude in these tough economic times is beyond anything we could have hoped for,” said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. “As we continue to diversify with programs like Station Cash we will be able to offer unique items that benefit not only our players, but other partnerships and organizations such as Child’s Play in this case.”
It's truly nice to see that even gamers and gaming companies try to make charitable events for foundations that try to improve the lives of those less fortunate. Hopefully this will make the mainstream media more aware of the positive sides of gaming in general, and not accuse video games of teaching violent behavior to children or corrupting their ways of thinking.