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Publicity iconJupiterResearch

This Publicity article was posted by Brekkee at 11:35 AM on January 05, 2005

Joseph Laszlo, a blogger at JupiterResearch.com posted this on his blog:

Virtual World Helps Real World Yet another, kind of odd, entry for the list of ways that online communities are pitching in to help with tsunami relief efforts.

Some guy named CrazyJoe (no, no relation to me, I swear) is having people in Ultima Online donate gold pieces to him (the virtual currency of that virtual world), with the promise that he, in turn, will sell the pieces on eBay, and donate the resulting, real-world proceeds, to the Red Cross.

See also Slashdot coverage, including the priceless, Onion-esque headline, "NEWSFLASH: US GIVES 10,000,000,000 GIL in AID, 300 DEXTERITY POINTS, and 5,000 HEALING POTIONS." If only it were that easy...

Thus far the effort has garnered nearly 400m gold pieces, and at current exchange rates (about 1m gold pieces=about US$8-$10) CrazyJoe is looking at several thousand very real dollars, if he can convert it all.

It makes it at least slightly harder to dismiss MMORPGs as a waste of time...

Read more of his blog here