General Discussion

Last week at the Austin Game Developer's Conference, SOE donated $10,000 to the local Habitat for Humanity, with the funds being gathered from in-game events during the recent demolition of unused player housing in Star Wars Galaxies.

At a cocktail reception during the Austin Game Developers Conference, Sony Online Entertainment's (SOE) Austin studio presented the local Habitat for Humanity (HfH) with a $10,000 donation to their efforts to end poverty housing in the area. The funds were raised as part of an in-game event for the company's Star Wars Galaxies Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) video game, where players were allowed to demolish abandoned or unoccupied player-created houses and buildings. Fighters from the Galactic Demolitions Crew swooped down from the stars and bombed the buildings.

A crowd of more than 150 was on hand at the Speakeasy in Austin to see SOE Austin VP of Development John Blakely present Austin HfH Executive Director Michael Willard with an oversized photo check for the donation.

Read more here.

Hey look it's sony's 2006 annual report!

www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2006/qfhh7c00000akslc-att/qfhh7c00000aksmr.pdf

they cleared 63 billion dollars in 2006. For frame of reference, lets say some guy makes 63 thousand dollars a year.

$63,000,000,000 = 63 billion

                $10,000 = 10 thousand

$63,000.000,000 = 63 thousand

       $00.010,000 = 1 cent

So in effect sony's shameless act of philantropy was equivalent to you or I chucking a penny to some bum on the street.

That is of course if you ignore the fact that the money wasn't even sony's, but rather schilled from the mindless sheep that still pay to play star wars galaxies.

 My frickin' heroes....

Maybe they are creating a Habitat for Humanity refuge for the 10,000 players that still play SWG, MXO, and Planetside...

By giving the check now HfH can begin to create the shelters for when $OE pulls the plug in early 2008 on those 3 games, to make room for the new fancy upcomming titles to replace them on Station Access. Gods n Heros, Pirates of the Burning Sea, and Agency.

 cool

Originally posted by BigBlackWook

Hey look it's sony's 2006 annual report!

www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2006/qfhh7c00000akslc-att/qfhh7c00000aksmr.pdf

they cleared 63 billion dollars in 2006. For frame of reference, lets say some guy makes 63 thousand dollars a year.

$63,000,000,000 = 63 billion

                $10,000 = 10 thousand

$63,000.000,000 = 63 thousand

       $00.010,000 = 1 cent

So in effect sony's shameless act of philantropy was equivalent to you or I chucking a penny to some bum on the street.

That is of course if you ignore the fact that the money wasn't even sony's, but rather schilled from the mindless sheep that still pay to play star wars galaxies.

 My frickin' heroes....

 

But SOE is just a Sub Division within Sony Pictures.  I imagine there isn't even a listing in Sony Pictures papers for SOE.. because then some share holder would see that "soe" just losses money.

So in relative terms they just donated more money than SOE actually makes a year for Sony Pictures.... -> Sony Corp.

oh and yes I'm being sarcastic (not to you) .. but when you think of it in those terms.. it was a huge donation.

Whoopty doo!

This is Sony we're talking about here. $10,000? Come on. I know, every little bit helps, but again it's Sony. Now if it were something like $100,000 or $10,000,000, that would be much more reasonable to gloat over. $10k is basically pocket change to them... Anyway, I guess good on SOE for giving as much as...they...could.

How thoughtful of Sony to donate 0.001% of what they earn to the local habitat. It's the thought that really counts though, at least they did something with the ton of money they gain.

At a cocktail reception during the Austin Game Developers Conference, Sony Online Entertainment's (SOE) Austin studio presented the local Habitat for Humanity (HfH) with a $10,000 donation to their efforts to end poverty housing in the area. The funds were raised as part of an in-game event for the company's Star Wars Galaxies Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) video game, where players were allowed to demolish abandoned or unoccupied player-created houses and buildings. Fighters from the Galactic Demolitions Crew swooped down from the stars and bombed the buildings.

A crowd of more than 150 was on hand at the Speakeasy in Austin to see SOE Austin VP of Development John Blakely present Austin HfH Executive Director Michael Willard with an oversized photo check for the donation.

HAHA! Looks like it wasn't SOE's money. This may not be the case, but anyone who has ever dealt with SOE knows to read between the lines and look for the worst. BAH!SOE could give all their money to charity and I would still hope the DIAF!

If the article read "an anonymous MMO company has raised and donated $10k to charity xyz" would people be so ready to criticize?

i mean, taking whatever percentages you want into account, isn't the more important thing that a charity is has $10k more to help the community then they did the previous day? Sure, a company can and should always do more, but the alternative would have been no announcement and no money going to charity.

There are enough other things to beat up SOE over aside from giving money to charity.