Social game developer Zynga says its users raised more than $130,00 through virtual goods purchases to benefit Water.org, a non-profit devoted to providing safe drinking water to people in developing countries, and the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA).
The company held two five-day campaigns in its games, inviting players to buy limited edition digital goods for the causes. Around 24,000 gamers bought a virtual teddy bear for the HDSA campaign, which will go toward research efforts for finding a Huntington's Disease cure.
The Water.org campaign sold 70,000 virtual fish to
FishVille players, benefiting over 500 Haitians living in makeshift dwellings as the disease-filled rainy season approaches. Zynga added that over 60,000
FishVille players visited Water.org to learn more about the non-profit, directing 10 times more traffic than usual to the site.
The two campaigns follows three months after the
FarmVille developer and its users raised $1.5 million through virtual good sales for Haiti aid. So far, Zynga has raised more than $3 million for charity causes through its social games.
"Even before the earthquake, the water crisis in Haiti was severe," said Water.org co-founder Gary White, according to a report from Mashable. "Like so many other places on our planet, people living in poverty struggle to obtain the basic needs of water and proper sanitation."
He added, "The partnership with Zynga will allow us to more quickly scale our efforts to reach the people of Haiti with life-saving safe drinking water projects."
