The Bungie Foundation has raised $1.6 million for children in the US and Canada in what appears to be ongoing trend of leveraging streaming technology for charitable causes. Over 5,500 streamers spread among 104 countries amassed the total through 40,000 individual contributions.
The event, known as Game2give, ran from October 24 until November 10. Funds collected are used by the foundation’s iPads for Kids Program and Children’s Miracle Network, which provides patients access to curated content to make the overall process of dealing with hospitals less stressful.
To incentivise streamers to join in during the event, Bungie pushed for participation within the Destiny 2 community, which is currently still riding the waves of its increased popularity and player base following their recent expansion Shadowkeep. Bungie provided prizes for streamers if they reached certain donation milestones, and these included in-game items, Bungie store discounts, and the chance to win a tour of the studio.
This is not the first time that Bungie has raised funds for charity. In 2017 the company raised over $225,000 for victims of Hurricane Harvey, and $1 million for Nepal in 2015. The overall trend of fundraising through charitable streams has progressively evolved over the years and now streamers work towards fundraising on a regular basis.
The most successful of these in recent memory was done by Ben "Dr.Lupo" Lupo, a popular Fortnite streamer who announced he would be holding a game stream to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Using similar milestone goals for donations, Dr. Lupo raised nearly $1 million in four and a half hours. Since then we have seen charity streams for different projects succeed in raising funds and awareness, and the trend does not look to stop any time soon.
Another way that video game companies are directly becoming involved in raising funds is through the incorporation of specific in-game purchases with proceeds going to charitable organization. In 2018 Blizzard Entertainment announced the release of a limited time cosmetic skin for the character of mercy in Overwatch. Sales from this skin totaled more than $12.7 million, and another $130,000 USD came from streaming donations of the game over Twitch.
Bungie has done great work so far with their charitable streams, and it will be great to see what they come up with next in terms of fundraising efforts.
Source: gamesindustry.biz