Frogwares has announced a less than usual giveaway today, giving its fans the chance to have a message of their choice written on a Ukrainian artillery shell before it's used in the war against invading Russian forces.The giveaway is taking place on Twitter via the developer's official Twitter account and is asking fans to Like and Retweet a video of three Ukrainian soldiers next to a piece of artillery. The tweet also includes a link to the developer's Kickstarter page for its latest project, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. Three people will be chosen at random to have their message on a missile, subject to the developer's approval.Reactions to the giveaway appear to be pretty mixed, with some eagerly encouraging people to join in to help Frogwares as a developer. Some have quite rightly pointed out how strange the whole giveaway is whilst others have accused Frogwares of capitalizing on the war with Russia in order to promote its Kickstarter campaign, which has 43 hours left at the time of writing.
Worst of all, Frogwares didn't even really need to invite potential controversy with the giveaway in the first place. Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened has already smashed its funding goal by a country mile and has even managed to meet all of its stretch goals. Any further funds are being used to "secure the future" of the studio, but the campaign for the game's funding has been a huge success.
If you want to help out in a less morbid way, Frogwares has also included a PayPal email address that fans can use to donate money directly to the soldiers featured in the video. Frogwares claims the soldiers are currently trying to raise money for "a new team SUV, secure radio stations, and additional tactical comms."