"Make a difference this holiday season, and bring the gift of gaming to a child who needs it."

---

In 2003, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade started the Child's Play charity, which united gamers in providing toys and games to sick children in hospitals worldwide.

To support their exemplary work, Trion has pledged to donate $1 for every sale to Child's Play whenever you buy a RIFT™ digital upgrade from December 9-11.

Make a difference this holiday season, and bring the gift of gaming to a child who needs it.

---

I'll donate an extra dollar to Trion via their sub costs if they ended up making the game interesting.

Good for Trion.  Every little bit helps

Originally posted by popinjay

"Make a difference this holiday season, and bring the gift of gaming to a child who needs it."

 

---

In 2003, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade started the Child's Play charity, which united gamers in providing toys and games to sick children in hospitals worldwide.

 

 

 

To support their exemplary work, Trion has pledged to donate $1 for every sale to Child's Play whenever you buy a RIFT™ digital upgrade from December 9-11.

 

Make a difference this holiday season, and bring the gift of gaming to a child who needs it.

---

 

So they are basically asking us to donate money to charity. Why not just donate out of their own pockets instead of asking gamers to upgrade their accounts.

I hate it when companies tries to earn a buck using charity as a gimmick, while appearing charitable. It's all BS. It's a low form of marketing IMO

Wow, one whole dollar. How much is the digital upgrade? Could have atleast matched the price, that would have brought the gift of gaming to many more children. I guess they wouldn't have made any profit off of their 'charity' that way though. But whatever, I'm just being a cynical asshole, Bah Humbug and all that.

Well, I think that's terrific that the Child's Play charity will be receiving a nice $5 check from Trion this holiday season.  Well done, Trion.  

---

Originally posted by Quesa
I'll donate an extra dollar to Trion via their sub costs if they ended up making the game interesting.

---

I think it's a good attempt at holiday cheer and applaud them for their efforts. I guess a dollar here/there..

Personally, I would probably just give the charity $10 or $20 directly from my wallet than buy Rift again though at this time, especially with ToR coming out. At least that would represent 10 people who wouldn't be giving anything at all so the kids win anyways.

But nice job for Trion. /clap

---

Originally posted by Unreal024
Wow, one whole dollar. How much is the digital upgrade?

---

Again, I think it's a good show but I'm not sure why they only did it for three days. Why not run it up all the way until Xmas which would be a few weeks?

That's my only puzzlement about it, but even a weekend's worth of dollars might be something.

Bored of tv and with nothing better to do, I thought I'd take another look at Rift to see what was happening. Started the launcher and waited for the updates to complete before spawning in Sanctum.

Now the last time I did this maybe 4 - 6 weeks ago everthing seemed the 'same old', played for maybe an hour and I'd had enough.

Nothing prepared me for what I saw this time. Sanctum was empty apart from 2 or 3 players. I joined a warfront queue and rather than popping almost immediately as usual, there was at least a ten minute wait. Travelled around a little, still nobody and my friends list was empty.

Knowing how little attention they have payed to PvP, I always knew it would fall flat on it's ass as soon as something better came along, but for it to happen so quickly was a shock.

All those PvE'rs who think a game can survive without PvP, suck in a deep breath. It's over.

It's $10 and has been $10, meaning that they are actually giving 10% of their gross earnings away this holiday season. Not sure why people would actually complain about that. I'm also forced to wonder when the last time was that the tomato throwers in the room gave 10% of their income to anything.

Originally posted by Joarnaj

It's $10 and has been $10, meaning that they are actually giving 10% of their gross earnings away this holiday season. Not sure why people would actually complain about that. I'm also forced to wonder when the last time was that the tomato throwers in the room gave 10% of their income to anything.

No simply no

They are asking gamers to upgrade their accounts for charity. They are not giving anything away themselves. You could try and argue it's semantics but it isn't. Read the headliner. They are using charity to boost their income. Not boost charity with their income. There is a clear difference.

You could argue that the people recieving the charity wouldn't care either way and it's a nice gesture and it is. I just don't see why anybody should be clapping at Trion for this. They are blatenly using charity as a marketing gimmick to put some extra coin in their pockets. To me that's disgusting regardless. I'm happy the charity case is getting money. Trion can go F themselves

Originally posted by jacklo

Bored of tv and with nothing better to do, I thought I'd take another look at Rift to see what was happening. Started the launcher and waited for the updates to complete before spawning in Sanctum.

Now the last time I did this maybe 4 - 6 weeks ago everthing seemed the 'same old', played for maybe an hour and I'd had enough.

Nothing prepared me for what I saw this time. Sanctum was empty apart from 2 or 3 players. I joined a warfront queue and rather than popping almost immediately as usual, there was at least a ten minute wait. Travelled around a little, still nobody and my friends list was empty.

Knowing how little attention they have payed to PvP, I always knew it would fall flat on it's ass as soon as something better came along, but for it to happen so quickly was a shock.

All those PvE'rs who think a game can survive without PvP, suck in a deep breath. It's over.

 

That's funny, because I'm logged into Meridian right now and /who brings up a maximum number of 50's in the search window just in Meridian.

Two questions: why do PvPers never realize they are in the vast minority in the mmorpg market? (Not that there's anything wrong with PvPers - but there's a reason they don't get as much love as they would like.) Also - why would you choose to post this comment in this thread?

Originally posted by Joarnaj

It's $10 and has been $10, meaning that they are actually giving 10% of their gross earnings away this holiday season. Not sure why people would actually complain about that. I'm also forced to wonder when the last time was that the tomato throwers in the room gave 10% of their income to anything.

Nobody is complaining that they are giving money to charity. It's just that, as a multi-million dollar company, it seems that they could have given more than just $1 for every $10. Especially if they are going to only run the event for three days. Why not bite the bullet for charity? Match the price and give up all of your digital upgrade earnings for three days to charity.

As it is now some of the more cynical people, like myself, see this as a way to earn some profit off of the good will of others.

Originally posted by Unreal024

Originally posted by Joarnaj

It's $10 and has been $10, meaning that they are actually giving 10% of their gross earnings away this holiday season. Not sure why people would actually complain about that. I'm also forced to wonder when the last time was that the tomato throwers in the room gave 10% of their income to anything.

Nobody is complaining that they are giving money to charity. It's just that, as a multi-million dollar company, it seems that they could have given more than just $1 for every $10. Especially if they are going to only run the even for three days. Why not bite the bullet for charity? Match the price and give up all of your digital upgrade earnings for three days to charity.

 

As it is now some of the more cynical people, like myself, see this as a way to earn some profit off of the good will of others.

100% agree

Not only that but why not just write a check? Why use it in a marketing campain. Lets not paint Trion as saints for this

---

Originally posted by Joarnaj
It's $10 and has been $10, meaning that they are actually giving 10% of their gross earnings away this holiday season. Not sure why people would actually complain about that. I'm also forced to wonder when the last time was that the tomato throwers in the room gave 10% of their income to anything.

---

I agree it's a nice gesture and it would be great to see more companies do something similar.

I think a lot of gamers become skeptical when companies do this though because it actually is a form of marketing and PR. Now that I think about it, there were a slew of companies doing this throughout the year at differing times.

But in the case of Rift, which is a game it's fans say is 'doing great' and has 500k subs or whatever they've been saying, that suggests Trion was/is pulling in scads of money.

If Trion does this offer over these three days and manages to get 50,000 people to upgrade $10, they donate $50k but they made 450,000 of pure profit plus the tax write-off (as a DIGITAL item doesn't cost them anything).

I think people expected a little more than a token donation given the sheer amount of money that really doesn't cost Trion anything as the problem.

I certainly can understand their position as Trion is a private company, not one beholden to stockholders in which case they wouldn't be allowed to just donate money that legally isn't theirs; it's the stockholders.

Originally posted by Joarnaj

Originally posted by jacklo

Bored of tv and with nothing better to do, I thought I'd take another look at Rift to see what was happening. Started the launcher and waited for the updates to complete before spawning in Sanctum.

Now the last time I did this maybe 4 - 6 weeks ago everthing seemed the 'same old', played for maybe an hour and I'd had enough.

Nothing prepared me for what I saw this time. Sanctum was empty apart from 2 or 3 players. I joined a warfront queue and rather than popping almost immediately as usual, there was at least a ten minute wait. Travelled around a little, still nobody and my friends list was empty.

Knowing how little attention they have payed to PvP, I always knew it would fall flat on it's ass as soon as something better came along, but for it to happen so quickly was a shock.

All those PvE'rs who think a game can survive without PvP, suck in a deep breath. It's over.

 

That's funny, because I'm logged into Meridian right now and /who brings up a maximum number of 50's in the search window just in Meridian.

Two questions: why do PvPers never realize they are in the vast minority in the mmorpg market? (Not that there's anything wrong with PvPers - but there's a reason they don't get as much love as they would like.) Also - why would you choose to post this comment in this thread?

I was on Whitefall, your mileage may vary.

Your questions, if you can call them that... PvP being a 'vast minority', I can't agree with that at all. I believe PvP is important to a much larger percentage of players than you think.

The reason I posted in this thread is because it's one of the few Rift threads I've seen recently and it just seems a bit of a desperate attempt to keep subs to me.

They've done too little, too late with a supposedly massive PvP update coming along in March, just in time for for the 6/12 month subs. Personally I had to laugh when I read that because there will be no PvPers left by then.

EDIT:

Thought I'd add some statistics to my post:

http://www.riftstatus.net/graph/Whitefall/history/7d#!/graph/Whitefall/trends/60d

Looks like it's dying to me.

Look at all these people making Trion out to be the devil because they're donating to charity. Trion has been offering this upgrade before the charity bonus, They're not obligated to donate shit, yet they sacrifice 10% of the money they're entitled to. And for the people saying "Oh they're not losing anything", look up opportunity cost, high school economics 

---

Originally posted by GoodAfternoon
And for the people saying "Oh they're not losing anything", look up opportunity cost, high school economics 

---

I know a digital upgrade they sell for $10 doesn't require a physical box, a brick and mortar store, or any real employee costs other than sending out packets of info.

How does a $10 sale of a good that is already made/paid for relate to what you're saying about 'opportunity cost'?

Originally posted by GoodAfternoon

Look at all these people making Trion out to be the devil because they're donating to charity. Trion has been offering this upgrade before the charity bonus, They're not obligated to donate shit, yet they sacrifice 10% of the money they're entitled to. And for the people saying "Oh they're not losing anything", look up opportunity cost, high school economics 

You can't be that naive .. or maybe you can

Using charity as a marketing strategy isn't a new thing. Many businesses outside the gaming industry (which is nororious for doing this) has been using this as a way to boost sales for a long time. It's about maximizing income while actually giving little to charity. Here's marketing 101.

1. You get free advertising in several medias not restricted to the internet, not to mention the charity itself will do some promotion for you in their flyers and whatnot. -this far exceeds the value of said donation. Although this is true for all, It's still important to mention in this context

2. Just the mere mention of giving to charity imediately garners attention from people like you, whom will spread the word of mouth how great this company is above all others garnering consumer loyalty which is a priceless comodity in word of mouth marketing.

3. The "Call to Arms" if you will, is a way to be charitable without actually spending a dime yourself. You are letting a third party give the donation while reaping all the glory for yourself and reaping all the benefits while praying on peoples good will.

4. You get to sell more stuff!!. People like being charitable, so they can sit in their couches and feel like they did a good deed paying their way to a good conscience. Your increased sales far exceeds the 10% loss because your sales has multiplied in that given period which was the strategy to begin with. Not doing a good deed. The charity is secondary. Getting an increased income is primary. You get a loyal playerbase on top of that because most are too stupid to see through it

The thing with people just like you is, you see the word "charity" and you get blinded by everything else. After all charity is a good thing in all shapes and sizes right?. How can something good possibly be bad?. It happens when companies uses it as a gimmick and a buzzword to increase sales.

Oh and don't bring up economics when you clearly failed in marketing. Tell you what. Why don't you go to http://www.childsplaycharity.org/ and donate directly to them instead with the 10 dollars. That way you are actually chaitable without getting anything in return. Or you can blindly support Trion to get that cool mount and give a dollar. The choice is yours

Originally posted by Unreal024

Originally posted by Joarnaj

It's $10 and has been $10, meaning that they are actually giving 10% of their gross earnings away this holiday season. Not sure why people would actually complain about that. I'm also forced to wonder when the last time was that the tomato throwers in the room gave 10% of their income to anything.

Nobody is complaining that they are giving money to charity. It's just that, as a multi-million dollar company, it seems that they could have given more than just $1 for every $10. Especially if they are going to only run the event for three days. Why not bite the bullet for charity? Match the price and give up all of your digital upgrade earnings for three days to charity.

 

As it is now some of the more cynical people, like myself, see this as a way to earn some profit off of the good will of others.

It's good to be cynical.

But be it all the way. It don't matter if a company mentions does a charity 'deal' for a specific product (like this upgrade) or if it's for all products in their catalog.

They do it because they want you to buy their product instead of the other company. They do it because of greed.

But in the end both sides profit from it, the charity organisation and the company making the promotion. That can't just simply be forgotten, thinking "all in" in this business don't do anyone any good. That will just end up with more and more people thinking that the little that I can contribute with doesn't matter and they fail to see the big picture.

Be cynical about this if you wish. But not doing this would not be better.