Yesterday I blogged about US game libraries, or the lack thereof, and then took to twitter for more searching. I came across a few gaming cafés which also struck me as a nice place to donate games to.
I strongly believe in giving back to the community and donating games seems easy.
Games let us forget our challenges for a moment and give us a wonderful way to interact with others.
For the game designer, donating games can be a bit expensive depending how your game is published.
Donating games won’t bring much attention to your games, and should not be donated with that intent, but it can make a difference. Even just one game can be played over and over again.
I’m fortunate my unorthodox approach to game design allows me to make even small quantities in an economical manner (no need to do minimum runs of 2000 games).
Erin of The Geeky Gimp expanded my perspective by suggesting shelters and hospitals and Nate of MicroStack Games added charity auctions to the list.
I’ll be creating a list of cafés, shelters, hospitals, and charities that seek game donations and make that a dedicated page linked from the sidebar with their contact info.
Personal note – at first I questioned the value of donating to gaming cafés, after all, they are commercial enterprises and some will even rent your game out. They should buy my game! But, gaming cafés nurture and share what tabletop gaming can do and in today’s hectic and stressful world, being able to unplug might benefit us all with kinder human interactions.
I know that’s lofty and such, but isn’t that a nice thought for what your game could do? =)
