TheVille

I got the cheap one, so a little from me.

I think this is great, I won't be getting these hats but I've already donated what I could to the Red Cross. Kudos to valve for attempting to raise more money for Japan.

But quite honestly if you needed a hat to persuade you to donate to this worthy cause then well :/

And this shall be the first thing I buy from the Mann Co. Store.

I've been considering making a donation for a while now. I'm really short on personal funds at the moment, and have been for a while, but my job mowing the lawn at my church should start up either this week or next, which means I'll finally have some income again at a rate of $20 per week (I'm pursuing a regular job, but so far haven't gotten there yet).
My everyday essentials stuff is covered by my parents, but for extra stuff like this I'm down to lower than I've been in a couple years.

Still not certain whether I'll go through the Mann Co. Store or not if I make a donation, but I might... I just might.
Whatever happens, this is a seriously awesome move on their part. Way to be, guys.

[TOAD] Fano wrote:I think this is great, I won't be getting these hats but I've already donated what I could to the Red Cross. Kudos to valve for attempting to raise more money for Japan.

But quite honestly if you needed a hat to persuade you to donate to this worthy cause then well :/

As long as the money's getting where it needs to go, does it matter how it's raised?

The post I made after I donated to the Golden Wrench Charity seems to fit this situation as well:

TheCarpe wrote:It's true that nobody needs a real "reason" to donate to charity. I'm not sure there's anyone outside of the blackest of souls who doesn't get some sort of good feeling from donating to charity such as Child's Play. It's the vehicle, however, that brings in the money. The Girl Scout Cookies, the fundraiser dinners, events such as this. Throw a little something for the individual on top, and people are much more willing to open their wallets. Maybe it sounds greedy, but the person offering a box of cookies will always get more money than the person sitting at a table with a "Please donate" jar.

Its a convenient way for me to donate since steam already has my billing info so I did. Kudos to the valve for coming up with this. I will be curious to see how much they raise.

I've seen at least 6 or 7 of us (including myself) with the 100 dollar hat in the last three hours, by now they've probably broken the 50 thousand or even the 100 thousand mark.

Only takes 500 people to hit 50 thousand and i'm already hearing stories (PC gamer article in the news column) of people buying everything as a result. It's no golden wrench destruction but it's gonna be a big one.

If I actually some cash, I'd buy the $100 hat. Unfortunately I'm a broke student but I'll give what I can.

I have family friends in Japan, thankfully I got an email saying they are all safe, they might have been evacuated from one of the plants though.

I went back and bought the 100 hat also i figure i can afford it and they definitely need all that we can give.

A great thing about virtual items is the reduced overhead. Real life items - cookies, t-shirts, tote bags, whatever - have a real life cost, and somewhere along the line that's less money that's going to the cause.

And TF2 hats are significantly less fattening than a box of Samoas.

TheCarpe wrote:The post I made after I donated to the Golden Wrench Charity seems to fit this situation as well:

TheCarpe wrote:It's true that nobody needs a real "reason" to donate to charity. I'm not sure there's anyone outside of the blackest of souls who doesn't get some sort of good feeling from donating to charity such as Child's Play. It's the vehicle, however, that brings in the money. The Girl Scout Cookies, the fundraiser dinners, events such as this. Throw a little something for the individual on top, and people are much more willing to open their wallets. Maybe it sounds greedy, but the person offering a box of cookies will always get more money than the person sitting at a table with a "Please donate" jar.

Thom Yorke Obliterator wrote:A great thing about virtual items is the reduced overhead. Real life items - cookies, t-shirts, tote bags, whatever - have a real life cost, and somewhere along the line that's less money that's going to the cause.

That pair sums up my stance. Do people need incentive to make a donation? No. Do incentives promote increased donation? Yes. I bought 'em all because they were all there. If they'd only had the $20 one, or only had the $100 one, I'd have just bought the one. Having 5 items caused me to buy all 5. It's an old fundraising trick, to have "giving levels" that are just a hair higher than people might automatically think to give at. People want to be a part of the crowd, and giving them some way to prove it has always been successful for developers.

This is an absolutely perfect incentive - it has zero incremental cost - they can give away as many as they want, with no more cost or effort than the couple hours of set-up time at the start, and they're tapping in to a huge base of people who might not otherwise be directly reached.

As a side-effect, wearing the hat around in games where others see it acts as a motivation to "join the club." TF2 hats are a game of peer pressure if ever there was one. That's why I'm wearing mine - I don't like how it looks, but I know it can make others want one (or at least, remind them to go help out).

I think the headband one is pretty neat anyway, was happy it was the one I could afford.

There was another community doing something similar for the Red Cross as well - Hats for Help. Basically, you can either donate your hats and other valuable weapons to them, which they will then auction away. To bid on items, you essentially use credits ($1 donation = 1 credit) to buy various TF2 items that people have donated. They've raised about $2K so far, and this is also an excellent way to help out the Red Cross if you don't have the cash to spend.

Also, since they're using donation direct to Red Cross, they do end up being tax deductable.

updated the op.