What is Charity Games?
Charity Games is a community of developers, designers, artists, musicians, and gamers united by a common goal: using the power of gaming to create a positive impact on the world. Charity Games has built an online arcade dedicated to creating fun and free browser games that help support charitable causes. Our mission is to make the world a better place by harnessing the power of gaming for good.
42% of people who don't donate to charity say it's because they don't have the financial resources to do so. Charity Games aims to change that by allowing people to donate to charity without spending any money. Instead, Charity Games rewards players with in-game tokens that can be used in lieu of real money to donate to charity. This unlocks a new demographic of donors who may not have the financial means to donate to charity, but still want to help make a difference. This is different from most charitable gaming platforms like Humble Bundle, Child's Play, or Extra Life, which require people to spend money to donate to charity.
How does Charity Games generate money for charity?
Every year over 10,000 games were released on Steam alone, and the gaming industry is expected to be worth over $200 billion by 2023. Charity Games aims to tap into this massive market to find rewards which we can give to our players. At it's core, we are supported through non-monetary donations such as steam keys and contributions from the gaming community: developers, designers, artists, and musicians who are passionate about using their skills to help others.
These prizes become incentives for players to play games in our arcade and participate in raffles to win prizes. Some games show advertisements to help generate the revenue needed to donate to charity. We pledge to never show intrusive advertisements that players don't specifically opt into. This means no pop-ups, no auto playing videos, and no obnoxious banners. We believe that the best way to generate revenue is to create a fun and engaging experience that players want to come back to. Our dream is to take the contributions from the gaming community, their creations, and multiply it's value through a raffle system that rewards players for their time and effort. The more people play, the more we can donate to charity. We lack a lot of the support from the gaming industry that other charitable gaming platforms have, but we believe that we can make up for it through the power of the people who believe in our mission. At our core we aim to be a grassroots organization that is powered by the people.
We've partnered with a number of charities to help raise awareness and funds for their causes. Currently we're supporting Water.org and Gamers Outreach.
Why did you start Charity Games?
My name is Miguel Campos, I'm the founder of Charity Games. I believe that humanity needs to unlock every single person's potential before we move onto bigger problems. That's why I'm building a non-profit organization with the industry that I love with the aim of helping people. I want to use a strategy no one else is using to unlock a new demographic of donors who may not have the financial means to donate to charity, but still want to help make a difference. That's why I picked browser games as the medium to achieve this goal.
Browser games were invented in the late 1990s and have become a staple of the internet ever since. I've grown up with browser games; I've played them my whole life and I still do. For as long as I can remember the most frustrating thing has been the annoying, obtrusive advertisements that ruin the experience. I've always wanted to create a platform that would allow people to play games without having to deal with these advertisements. And I know what you're thinking, isn't it a bit ironic that Charity Games is using the same strategy that made me get upset in the first place. You're right, but we're trying to flip the script. Instead of forcing ads down your throat we're creating incentives for you to opt-into them during game play and rewarding you with tokens that can be used to donate to charity. I want to build a system that is fair to the players and the developers; I want to make a difference in the world and I believe that this is the best way to do it.
My long term vision for Charity Games is to become a publisher who can help developers get their games on platforms like Steam, Epic Games, and GOG. We would then use a large portion of the revenue generated from these platforms to donate to charity. In order to achieve this vision we need to build a strong community of players and developers who believe in our mission. We need to show the world that we can make a difference and that we can do it in a way that is fair to everyone involved.
Disclaimer
At the time of this writing we are not showing any advertisements, but we are sharing our vision for the future. We also have not generated any revenue to donate to charity yet, but we hope that will change as we grow.
We are a small team of volunteers who are passionate about our mission and are working hard to make it a reality. We are always looking for more volunteers to help us achieve our goals. If you are interested in helping us, please reach out to us at our contact page.
