SimCity and the Red Cross have something in common, despite appearances: they both make natural disasters their business. EA have recognised the opportunity to make something quite special of that tenuous link: they’ve developed a Red Cross-branded DLC pack for the game.
Buy it, and next time you direct a meteor to the centre of your cityscape you’ll find you’ve set a sobering series of events in motion. Tents will pop up across the disaster zone, and aid workers will attend to the critically wounded who would otherwise remain that way. And then, once the tents start to come down, 10 healthy Sims will be released from each back into the wild.
The £7.99 / $9.99 Red Cross set includes the tents, a Red Cross Relief Cent and two vehicles that’ll whizz about the place in response to errant earthquakes or tearaway tornados. Throughout the year it’ll be on sale – until September 17, 2014 – EA will donate at least 80% of the proceeds to humanitarian groups belonging to Red Cross National Societies. They’ve pledged a minimum of $100,000, but I imagine they’ll tot up a lot more.
“Our creative partnership with EA will inform players of the key services that the Red Cross provides during real world disasters,” said Neal Litvack, chief development officer of the American Red Cross. “This will bring the Red Cross mission to the public and consumers in an exciting and interactive way while raising funds to support the work of the Red Cross to provide humanitarian services around the world where it is needed most.”
So: that’s an unambiguously cool thing to do, isn’t it? The second such thing EA has done in as many months, come to think of it.
Thanks, Wired.