Square Enix Donates to Quake Relief + Donation's through SE

[Burningthought]

http://www.andriasang.com/e/posts/2011/03/17/270072/

Square Enix has announced its own generous donation to aid in relief efforts following Friday's earthquake and tsunami. Square Enix Group will donate 100 million yen and will also start a worldwide employee charity fund which will be donated through the Japanese Red Cross.

Gamers with Square Enix Accounts will be able to use their "Square Enix Crysta" points to make donations. Details will be announced via the account pages shortly.

Square Enix's efforts also include power reduction in Taito amusement facilities and online item sales. See the company's press release for details.

Press Release: http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/2011/html/0316.html

Square Enix will also host a donation program using Square Enix Crysta®, the billing system provided for a Square Enix Account that is a free service provided in all of Square Enix's online services.

I know this is a bit off-topic, but I know a lot of people wanted some sort of donation system where they could donate april's monthly for the Earthquake/Tsunami Relief. I'm not 100% sure if the crysta donations are up and running yet, but the moment I find out i'll update this post.

Update:

We would like to thank all players who have expressed a desire to donate to the victims of the recent Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Today, we are pleased to announce the establishment of the Crysta Relief Fund, which will allow you to do just that via your Square Enix Account.

At first, we considered the idea of an in-game item charity auction, as suggested by some of you. In the end, though, we felt it best to unify donations under one system that would allow everyone to contribute whatever amount they wished.

We are planning a special in-game present that will be offered to all donating players, regardless of the amount contributed. This present will be made available in the next major version update at the earliest, but players donating as early as today will be eligible to receive it.

With your support, we believe the Crysta Relief Fund will be a great success, and the generosity of FINAL FANTASY XI players a source of great comfort to the victims of this terrible disaster. Thank you.

Original Post: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...7815#post57815
Crysta Page: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/4152

[Karnja]

Naive as I was i bought crysta for around 30 EURO right at the start of ffxiv. If course I quit around 1 month after release of this shitty game. And since xiv was free until now and all of my crysta are still available I can do something usefull with my crysta.

[Burningthought]

Naive as I was i bought crysta for around 30 EURO right at the start of ffxiv. If course I quit around 1 month after release of this shitty game. And since xiv was free until now and all of my crysta are still available I can do something usefull with my crysta.

Yeah that was one of the reasons why I posted this, I know a lot of people stocked up on crysta right when XIV launched.

[Shenrien]

what the hell is Crysta even useful for? x: are they planning some sorta cash shop for FFXIV?

[Karnja]

what the hell is Crysta even useful for? x: are they planning some sorta cash shop for FFXIV?

Crysta is some kind of payment for FFxiv. You bought Crysta with rl money and paid the fee for the game with crysta.

[Gwynplaine]

Seems pointless. If you're going to donate just do it, there's no need to bring virtual monies into this.

On a related note, it seems like everyone's first reaction is to just instinctively dump their cash at the Red Cross. Did everyone forget the scandals of 9/11? If you intend to donate, do a little research and look into the charity you donate to. Every charity isn't saintly just by virtue of being a non-profit. They need to earn your donations.

[Karnja]

[QUOTE=Gwynplaine;4487952]Seems pointless. If you're going to donate just do it, there's no need to bring virtual monies into this.
QUOTE]

For example, in my case, its not pointless. Please let me try to explain: I already bought the crysta when FFXIV was released. Unfortunetly, I cant change the crysta back to real life money. So there are 2 possibilitys. The crysta will be on my account forever because I dont play / unsubscribed from 14 or I donate it. And I am pretty sure many are in a situation like me. So I rather spent the crysta worth 30 Euros to support the ppl in japan instead of dump them into se's ass.

[Esvedium]

So you can't donate through them (like put a check in a box that says put my monthly payment towards relief donations) unless you use their Crysta stuff? Meh, whatever, the wife already donated other ways, but it'd be a nice option for lazy people (like me).

On a related note, it seems like everyone's first reaction is to just instinctively dump their cash at the Red Cross. Did everyone forget the scandals of 9/11? If you intend to donate, do a little research and look into the charity you donate to. Every charity isn't saintly just by virtue of being a non-profit. They need to earn your donations.

This right here is why Unicef will never get any of my money. Look into who you're giving your money to.

[Pikarya]

This right here is why Unicef will never get any of my money. Look into who you're giving your money to.

Sad thing is, 99.9% of schools have children run donation drives FOR Unicef and nothing else. Shit's disgusting.

[Khajit]

What did Unicef do? I could fairly easily get the schools to change to another charity where i live if i can prove wrongdoing on the part of unicef.

[Appie]

For example, in my case, its not pointless. Please let me try to explain: I already bought the crysta when FFXIV was released. Unfortunetly, I cant change the crysta back to real life money. So there are 2 possibilitys. The crysta will be on my account forever because I dont play / unsubscribed from 14 or I donate it. And I am pretty sure many are in a situation like me. So I rather spent the crysta worth 30 Euros to support the ppl in japan instead of dump them into se's ass.

Also in the Crysta fineprint they say that Crysta purchased is only valid for 2 years.

While I expect SE to have the game back on a fee by september 2012 and the game being actually something I'd want to play, I'm not holding my breath for it.

[Blasta]

Sounds cool. I'm also one of those that bought crysta a bit too hasty (though the purchase system was sucky), so meh might aswell donate it all.

[ringthree]

Sad thing is, 99.9% of schools have children run donation drives FOR Unicef and nothing else. Shit's disgusting.

I am going to guess this is going to turn into a political diatribe. UNICEF is pretty widely known to be a great donor organization.

[Absolutely Virtue]

The Red Cross got into trouble because they used funds (and blood) collected after 9/11 to fund other parts of their operations. People were pissed about that, but people are generally pretty stupid. It's practically impossible to move a river of donations directly to the victims in a chaotic situation. There is bound to be mismanagement and inefficiency. If you give $10 worth of Crysta it's not going to magically turn into a $10 check deposited into the account of some Japanese person. Manage your expectations about your donation.

When choosing an organization to donate to, pick one whose mission you support. That way, even if your money doesn't go directly to the victims it will at least go to people in similar situations in need of help. Remember, the money is for people in need, not your own sense of satisfaction. You might also consider being a charitable person year round, and not just when you see disasters on television.

[Blasta]

Manage your expectations about your donation.

It's so easy to just give it away because theres no use for it. We all know that XIV won't be any good in a good while, so atleast for me It means absolutely nothing. If the money goes to someone who needs it, great! If it doesn't, I personally don't really give a damn since I work full time and the money has been wasted already anyways.

[Khajit]

The Red Cross got into trouble because they used funds (and blood) collected after 9/11 to fund other parts of their operations. People were pissed about that, but people are generally pretty stupid. It's practically impossible to move a river of donations directly to the victims in a chaotic situation. There is bound to be mismanagement and inefficiency. If you give $10 worth of Crysta it's not going to magically turn into a $10 check deposited into the account of some Japanese person. Manage your expectations about your donation.

When choosing an organization to donate to, pick one whose mission you support. That way, even if your money doesn't go directly to the victims it will at least go to people in similar situations in need of help. Remember, the money is for people in need, not your own sense of satisfaction. You might also consider being a charitable person year round, and not just when you see disasters on television.

That's not the only reason the red cross gets in trouble. Red cross gets in trouble because they will outright lie to get your donations. They had one example on TV a few years back with a family that was homeless after a fire or some random disaster that got their photos plastered across red cross photos going "please help this family" while the family in the photo was told by red cross that they cant have a dime of the thousands of dollars the people nearby donated to help.
It's pathetic how they didn't even make a token effort to help.

[Hyperion™]

inb4 Donate now and receive in-game item!

[Absolutely Virtue]

They've got 30,000 employees and over a million volunteers (I just wiki'd). Their budget is $3.5b. People are shitty. When you have that many people involved you are bound to have some bad apples. And I'm not denying for a second that they have had financial scandals. Plenty of them. But show me an organization of that size who hasn't.

I'm not trying to tell you that the ARC is the best nonprofit in the world. I had my issues with them and I left. But you're being awfully cavalier about dismissing an organization that supplies 50% of the blood supply of the United States, and responds daily to disasters you haven't even heard about. They've been doing what they do for over a hundred years, working in some of the shittiest and most stressful situations you could possibly imagine. It would be literally impossible to quantify how many people they have helped. So while you're anecdotal story "on TV a few years back" is unfortunate, you might want to cut them some slack. Maybe the other 29,900 people and 999,899 volunteers working in the other 649 chapters aren't criminals.

[ikariiiii]

nevermind

[510Meeze]

They've got 30,000 employees and over a million volunteers (I just wiki'd). Their budget is $3.5b. People are shitty. When you have that many people involved you are bound to have some bad apples. And I'm not denying for a second that they have had financial scandals. Plenty of them. But show me an organization of that size who hasn't.

I'm not trying to tell you that the ARC is the best nonprofit in the world. I had my issues with them and I left. But you're being awfully cavalier about dismissing an organization that supplies 50% of the blood supply of the United States, and responds daily to disasters you haven't even heard about. They've been doing what they do for over a hundred years, working in some of the shittiest and most stressful situations you could possibly imagine. It would be literally impossible to quantify how many people they have helped. So while you're anecdotal story "on TV a few years back" is unfortunate, you might want to cut them some slack. Maybe the other 29,900 people and 999,899 volunteers working in the other 649 chapters aren't criminals.

But if you single out every charity as bad then you don't need to actually send any money!