Two weeks ago disaster struck Haiti in the form of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Last week, Zynga created the Relief Fund for Haiti to raise money to give to the UN World Food Programme to use in Haiti. Five days after Zynga started the relief fund, they have already gathered over $1.5 million from users in over 47 countries!
Zynga encouraged Facebook gamers by selling limited edition virtual items in their games, such as the white corn in FarmVille, the Haitian Drum in Mafia Wars, and the special chip package in Zynga Poker. All profits from these items went to the fund. To encourage Facebook users further, the company promised a special prize for all players, if the Relief Fund reached $1 million. In addition, other online users could donate directly to the fund through Zynga’s webpage.
From this experience, it is undeniable that there are many helpful souls out there, even if they appear not to be concerned because their eyes seem to be stuck to their computer screens. In addition, Zynga has over 1 billion monthly active users in just the three games mentioned above. The game with the biggest number of monthly active users is FarmVille, with almost 75 million. Because Zynga could reach this many users, it is not a wonder that they could also raise enough funds for Haiti.
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