Since last September wildfires have devastated Australia, killing at least 24 people and destroying at least 2,000 homes, not to mention killing millions of animals. Support has come in from different celebrities and organizations across the world, including gamers and game developers.
Ubisoft Australia recently posted on their Twitter account that they had donated $30,000 to the Australian Red Cross Disaster and Recovery Relief Fund, and in the same post provided links to charitable locations that users could donate towards. This step was done in lieu of designing an in-game item to support relief since immediate action is understandably deemed prudent.
Other gaming companies and communities have risen to the call. Bungie has announced a Bungie Foundation effort for Australia fire relief. The Bungie store will be offering a “Star Light, Star Bright” Destiny 2 t-shirt between January 16 and February 18. The profits from this will be donated to WIRES, a wildlife rescue organization, and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.
Kao the Kangoroo: Round 2 developers Tate Multimedia will be donating all profits from the sale of Round 2 to WIRES. (A tie-in is that they are saving the homeland of Kao, who is pictured in the lead image for this story.)
As we reported earlier, Universim developer Crytivo has announced that during January and February, under the name Mission Koala, they will be donating 100% of their net revenue from their online store and 30% from their Steam sales to rebuilding destroyed homes and aiding firefighters and environmental cleanup. We also reported on Onion Soup donating 100% of Nippon Marathon Profits to Australia.
Tabletop company Chaosium Inc. has also offered support. Until this Sunday, January 12, when purchasing RuneQuest - Glorantha Bestiary you can choose to donate to Australian wildfire recovery efforts rather than paying the developers. Almost 2000 people have done so already.
Streamers on Twitch have supported relief efforts as well. Loserfruit and Fasffy hosted a stream that lasted for 36 hours and raised around 220,000 USD. Given the initial goals of the stream were to last for 24 hours and raise a little over 10,000 USD, the stream was an enormous success. The top 100 donations are shown in an illustration, made by Fasffy, on Loserfruit’s Twitter feed.
If you want to donate yourself to help fighting Australian Wildfires, you can follow these links to some of the same organizations that Loserfruit and Ubisoft Australia have linked to:
The Australian Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery
New South Wales Rural Fire Service
Victorian Country Fire Authority
Australia has a fire season each year during their summer months, starting around late July, but this year has been especially bad. Additionally, the majority of firefighters in Australia are volunteers, and are currently working excessive amounts of overtime to fight the fires bewildering the nation.
Are you or a loved one affected by the fires in Australia? Is there another disaster relief or charity organization you would like to share a link to? Please let us know in the comments below.
