Fortnite Has Already Raised A Stunning Amount Of Money For Ukraine
Since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict began in late February, the global gaming community has come forward in a massive way to support humanitarian efforts in war-torn Ukraine. The past few weeks have seen companies like Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, Unity, and Pokemon joining in efforts to raise money for Ukrainians. Last week, Humble joined the fray and launched its "Stand With Ukraine Bundle" to raise funds for organizations providing humanitarian assistance in Ukraine.
The latest entrant to this ever-growing list is Epic games — the makers of Fortnite, who recently announced that it would donate two weeks of its revenue to humanitarian charities working in Ukraine. A blog post announcing the launch of the campaign lists several organizations that it intends to donate to. Most of these companies are "on the ground" in Ukraine and involved in providing emergency aid, health support, food, and clean water.
Barely 24 hours after Epic made the blog post, the company revealed that it managed to raise more than $36 million in relief funds.
Where is the money going?
Fortnite's blog post has listed the organizations it is donating to, and these mainly include UN agencies like UNICEF, UNHCR, UN World Food Programme, and Direct Relief. The blog post also mentions that the existing list shall be updated to include newer agencies.
If you're wondering what transitions and purchases count towards relief efforts, the blog post confirms that as well. Fortnite has assured that all real-money purchases made on the platform in the two-week period of March 20, 2022, and April 3, 2022, shall be kept aside and donated for relief efforts in Ukraine. This effectively means that all proceeds from additional packs, battle passes, and cosmetic packs purchases on Fortnite will be donated. If you purchased in-game cosmetics from a retail store and redeemed the same during this two-week window, those proceeds too will go in for relief efforts in Ukraine, the blog post confirmed.
In addition to Epic, Microsoft is also chipping in and will contribute proceeds from the sale of all Fortnite content on the Microsoft Store in the same two-week window, the blog post confirmed. With two weeks still left for the campaign to end, it is now evident that Epic games will be able to raise a considerable amount for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.