{"id":35274,"date":"2022-08-04T12:50:42","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T12:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/stray-cat-video-game-brings-some-benefits-to-real-cats\/"},"modified":"2022-08-04T12:50:42","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T12:50:42","slug":"stray-cat-video-game-brings-some-benefits-to-real-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/stray-cat-video-game-brings-some-benefits-to-real-cats\/","title":{"rendered":"“Stray” cat video game brings some benefits to real cats"},"content":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The virtual cat hero from the new video game sensation \u201cStray\u201d doesn’t just wind along rusted pipes, leap over unidentified sludge and decode clues in a seemingly abandoned city. The daring orange tabby is helping real world cats as well. <\/p>\n
Thanks to online fundraising platforms, gamers are playing \u201cStray\u201d while streaming live for audiences to raise money for animal shelters and other cat-related charities. Annapurna Interactive, the game’s publisher, also promoted \u201cStray\u201d by offering two cat rescue and adoption agencies copies of the game to raffle off and renting out a New York cat cafe. <\/p>\n
Livestreaming game play for charity isn’t new, but the resonance \u201cStray\u201d quickly found from cat lovers is unusual. It was the fourth most watched and broadcast game on the day it launched on Twitch, the streaming platform said. <\/p>\n
Viewers watch as players navigate the adventurous feline through an aging industrial landscape doing normal cat stuff \u2014 balancing on railings, walking on keyboards and knocking things off shelves \u2014 to solve puzzles and evade enemies. <\/p>\n
About 80% of the game’s development team are \u201ccat owners and cat lovers\u201d and a real-life orange stray as well as their own cats helped inspire the game, one creator said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI certainly hope that maybe some people will be inspired to help actual strays in real life \u2014 knowing that having an animal and a companion is a responsibility,\u201d said producer Swann Martin-Raget, of the BlueTwelve gaming studio in Montpellier, in southern France .<\/p>\n
When Annapurna Interactive reached out to the Nebraska Humane Society to partner before the game’s launch on July 19, they jumped at the chance, marketing specialist Brendan Gepson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole game and the whole culture around the game, it’s all about a love of cats,\u201d Gepson said. \u201cIt meshed really well with the shelter and our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shelter got four copies of the game to give away and solicited donations for $5 to be entered into a raffle to win one. In a week, they raised $7,000, Gepson said, with the vast majority of the 550 donors being new to them, including people donating from Germany and Malta. The company also donated $1,035 to the shelter.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really mutually beneficial,\u201d Gepson said. \u201dThey got some really good PR out of it and we got a whole new donor base out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n