Adding a free donate to charity element to a game?

[Callan S.]

I was mulling over the idea of having an element to my game where playing it means the player donates to charity (free to the player). Either as a once off event or an ongoing thing with my game. Basically it'd go something like once a da they can do something and it adds a few cents to the donation total. Once it reaches $40 or so from all contributions on the server, I then go and manually donate it.

Just thinking about the receipts you get when you donate and showing I had done the donation. To me, they don't seem verifiable by anyone else - ie, I show the receipt and it's basically a trust thing that I did it. Though maybe that's not a big deal, so whatever.

In terms of financing it, well for me I'd probably just funnel part of expected ad revenue from recurring players towards the eventual donation.

There's no big coding issue or such. Just thought I'd consider the idea in public and see what anyone else thinks.

[Jackolantern]

It would be a very nice gesture on the part of the developer to do something like that. The only thing I would suggest is that if you are adding this to a free game, ensure it is either something you can keep up, or only on special events. I would probably lean towards the latter, since that way you could have more control and only open a donation event when you have the money to do it. Imagine if you always had donations running and players added 1 cent each time they killed a boss. Pretty manageable, right? Now imagine you have a community explosion when word of this hits supporters of that charity and they announce your game in their newsletter, and your game goes from 400 players to 60,000 in a week. That may not be so manageable anymore, and may rope you into making multi-thousand dollar donations you can't afford! Ads may not be a reliable way to recoup donation costs.

Also, it may be tough to come up with a charity everyone likes. So many charities are tied into religious, political or environmental ideologies that not all players support. Disease research, ASPCA, child welfare, St. Jude's Children Hospital, police and fireman charities and a few others rank among some of the "safest" that won't alienate much of your playerbase.

[Callan S.]

I was drifting toward it being a one off at first, but I agree some sort of floodgate control definately needs to be there just in case.

Well, in terms of charity and everyone liking it - I dunno, it's like any aspect of a game. Not all people like sci fi games, yet sci fi games are out there. If the charity puts them off - well, if they have evidence there's something wrong with the charity, I have some spare time to look at it. But if they just don't like it - well *shrug*. I was thinking of oxfam in writing this, and how you can donate toward a less fortunate person getting a goat. I like the idea, as it helps them to become more self sufficient, or atleast gives them a shot at that control over their life. Though 'Play for moar goats!' probably sounds funny