Zynga, Save The Children Raising Money To Support Japanese Relief Efforts

Zynga announced a partnership with Save The Children to support relief efforts in Japan following last week's earthquake and tsunami disasters, raising money through virtual good sales. As part of the fundraising initiative, Zynga has made available newly created virtual items, such as Kobe cows and Japanese-style furniture/architecture, in seven social games, including massively popular Facebook titles like CityVille, FarmVille, FrontierVille, and Zynga Poker. The social game developer will donate 100 percent of the purchase price from those virtual items to Save The Children's Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children Emergency Fund. Facebook says it will donate all of its Facebook credits generated through these purchases, too. The developer intends to roll out limited edition items to more games in the coming days. Save the Children has also set up a page on its site where players of Zynga games can directly donate however much they would like to the Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children Emergency Fund. Zynga has run several fundraising campaigns through virtual goods sales in recent years, raising over $6.8 million for international groups like the United Nation's World Food Programme, Water.org, and various organizations providing relief to those affected by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. "It's inspiring to see the Zynga teams spontaneously take action to partner with our game players worldwide to help Japan," says Zynga CEO Mark Pincus. "We hope that the millions of people who connect through our games every day will also take action to connect with Japan as we saw them do with our Haiti relief efforts."