With Pink Mercy and her recolor flying off the virtual storeshelves by ravenously-enthusiastic gamers, I think it would be accurate to say that this event has been a resounding success.
Why not pick other type of cancers, attach each of them to a Support hero skin, and replicate Breast Cancer Awareness charity drives with those skins?
For example, many men are affected by prostate cancer, and it can be a huge risk to human life. Bliz could take Baptiste, (or any other male support, since this is a type of cancer affecting men) and do a featured charity focusing on the cancer.
It’ll give Overwatch a lot of good visibility and make fans of other supports a moment in the pixellated limelight.
Corporate bs, this could all be a tax write off things for all we know
The game will try to fill its own pockets first before collecting for charity
Repeat charity events are likely to fail or not gather enough funds
Connections and investments - you cant just pick a place and fund it, tomorrow if something happens you will get blamed with it, so there is a lot of politics and trust/pr that goes in with this event
You can keep making more of these but the average player can hardly afford one, they are unlikely to buy multiple.
would be my answer, too, although for additional reasons to those already listed.
Believe it or not, a donation campaign relies heavily on marketing to be successful. And it relies on public perception.
The cause to cure breast cancer is an ideal target for a charity event. There’s a lot of publicity, and a large number of people who’ve been personally affected by the disease, either directly or indirectly. You’d be hard pressed to find anything negative to say about supporting research to cure breast cancer.
Other types of cancer are not so… suitable targets, let’s say.
Try and run a campaign for prostate cancer, I guarantee within five minutes you’ll have a crowd shouting we’ve basically already cured the damned thing, why do we need even more attention on men when women are in a disadvantaged position. For what it’s worth, we have, indeed, managed quite well with prostate cancer, the survival rates for early stage detection are nearing 100%, so we have a definite win at least there. We’ve also developed very successful treatments for testicular cancer, which is considered a huge success for modern medicine. Annnd you see where this is going with public perception and coverage, right?
Try and run a campaign for pancreatic cancer, which is a bloodthirsty monster and… nobody cares. Because it’s distant. It’s not popular, it’s not marketable. Considering how lethal it still is, it’s in dire need of research for new treatments. But while BCRF’s brand is widely known, how many people have heard of the Lustgarten Foundation, for example?
In the end, we cross our fingers, because any research into cancer treatments can be beneficial for other types of cancer as well. And right now, thanks to the mercy skin, a lot of money will be poured into such research. So I guess that’s something to be thankful for.
