Sony's Virtual Game Item ‘Cherry Blossoms’ Collect Money for Relief Funds

Creating a very effective amalgam of gamming and charity, Sony Online Entertainment has now introduced in-game virtual items for sale, which any player can buy during their game and the money deducted will be used for supporting those affected of Japan's recent earthquake and tsunami.

Several SOE games players now have a new item for sale, which is titled cherry blossom; it is available in the market place of specific games. This strategy is designed for raising awareness among the audience for the tragedy of the day, SOE has promised to donate a $10 for every cherry blossom purchased for the dates; 25^th to 28^th of March. All the proceedings collected will be sent to the American Red Cross to assist in their relief program. Moreover, several other items similar to cherry blossoms will also be available alternatively for the same purpose.

This latest innovative relief effort of SOE is credited by Sony Corp., which has already contributed $3.6 million for the relief of their own native country so far. Interestingly, the concept of molding social media with charity is undoubtedly a very effective one.

Previously for the tragedy of earthquake in Haiti, Red Cross experimented its text-to-donate initiative, which was again a huge successful and turned out to be backbone for the organization in their relief efforts in the area. This time again, Red Cross has again announced text-to-donate feature for Japan. Whereas PayPal, Jiwire, Tumblr and all those other means by which donation could have been collected, has been offered and all kinds of alternative routes are being adopted to gather as much funds as possible for the victims in Japan.

Popular Game-Makers Zynga, which has to its credit Facebook’s most played game FarmVille along with many others, has also caught up with the idea and is offering plenty virtual items to its players which will then be donated for the same cause.