Hello Kitty Online Users Raise $12,000 For Charity By Creating Virtual Food
Users of Hello Kitty Online (HKO) - a virtual world based on Hello Kitty - raised $12,000 for Unicef and the Asian Youth Orchestra. Sanrio Digital, the company behind the Hello Kitty brand, made the charitable donations based on the number of virtual food items players created. Sanrio explains more here.
For those of you who missed it, the basic idea was to craft and a number of food items and hand them in to a GM. Sanrio Digital then made a donation to charity, the amount of which was determined by the total number of crafted food items submitted by players. As you can see this means that the event generated real world charity that was directly proportional to the efforts of the player base.
The Hello Kitty players created 344,965 in-game food items. Allakhazam writes about how the HKO players had to produce the raw materials on their farms before they could make the virtual food items which included lemon pies and strawberry cakes.
From Nov. 1-6, players produced raw materials on their farms and crafted them into food items. Each item carried a different value based on how difficult it was to create that item. Foods included chocolate milk, lemon pies, strawberry cakes, roasted vegetables, oat biscuits and more. This really was a wonderful event. Every MMO should follow Sanrio Digital's lead when it comes to charitable events.
It's a novel way to raise money in a virtual world. Congratulations to the hard working HKO players.
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