The Global Gaming Initiative company has chosen an interesting way of promotion. She announced that she will release the Sidekick Cycle game, part of the proceeds from which will go to the charity program World Bicycle Relief.
Stories from the category “buy a newspaper, help the starving children of Africa” are difficult to perceive without skepticism. You start being even more critical of them when the details are clarified.
So, the Global Gaming Initiative company was founded in 2010. She hasn’t released a single project in three years. Nevertheless, its executive director Elizabeth Sarquis stated in an interview with Mobile-ent that “we are a company that creates games.”
Global Gaming Initiative literally asks to buy a game to help the children of Africa
Against the background of such statements, the Sidekick Cycle development story, which sounded in the same interview, sounds very nice. To the question “do you develop the game yourself or involve independent developers“, Sarkis’ answer was as follows:
“At first we tried to develop it ourselves. We licensed the Unreal engine (!) and started creating it. But about four weeks before the game was sent to the App Store, our advertisers and marketers said that this was one of the most miserable games they had ever seen. After that, my PR manager said that we were going to Finland to meet with developers, and we met with people from Rovio and Remedy, among others. Our goal was to find a team that understands what we want from the game. Eventually, we found an It Matters studio in Berlin.”
Apparently, Elizabeth was misunderstood in Rovio. Indeed, it is difficult to understand the person who licenses Unreal to create an infinite two-dimensional runner, which is Sidekick Cycle.
As for charity, the main feature of the project, there were also incidents. The Global Gaming Initiative promises that 50% of the money earned by the game will go to charity, more specifically, every 387 downloads of the game will turn into one bike for residents of developing countries. Considering that the Sidekick Cycle will cost $0.99, the company plans to spend about $135 on a bike for children in Africa. Sarkis assures that this will be enough, because according to another charity program – World Bicycle Relief – one bike costs $ 134. Where will another 50% go? According to Sarkis, in the pocket of the Global Gaming Initiative, which “is a commercial organization.” It’s strange to hear this, considering the purchase of the same Unreal Engine.