Microsoft has teamed up with the Children's Miracle Network to bring the world the Gameroom Giveaway—a contest in which the winning children's hospitals will receive a tricked-out game rooms with huge plasma-screen TVs and stuff. 'What could possibly be wrong with that?' you wonder. Rosa Golijan of Gizmodo will tell you what. It's a matter of scale.
On the surface it's a wonderful bit of charity on Microsoft's part: they'll give some Children's hospitals about ten thousand dollars worth of equipment which could include several 42' Plasma TVs, a pair of Xbox consoles, some Zunes, four computers, oodles of games, and associated furniture. Except only three out of the 170 hospitals in the Children's Miracle Network will receive such an equipment package. $30,000 total, and the hospitals pay all the taxes. How generous coming from a company who spends hundreds of millions on individual ad campaigns.
If Microsoft outfitted each of the 170 hospitals with the same Ultimate Gameroom, it would cost them a measly $1.7 million. That's a lot to you and I, but to Microsoft that's .6%, point freakin' six percent, of the cost of a single ad campaign. How much more positive publicity would donating that pocket change get? I'd certainly react better to it than I did to the Seinfeld ads.
Sure, a few hundred hospitals across the country will get their own cool Xbox kiosk thingies, but a kiosk ain't a $10,000 game room.
We're not saying that companies need to give all of their profits to charity, and the contest generates interest in the promotion, but this is a relatively cheap way to generate goodwill and positive karma. Or something. Not to mention, how bad would you feel if the hospital where your child is stuck for grueling treatments came in 4th and barely missed the cutoff?
Let's hold out hope that this is all a ruse, and Microsoft will declare everyone a winner at the end. Maybe?
Microsoft Wants You to Vote Which Children's Hospitals Will Be Denied Xboxes [Gizmodo]
Gameroom Give-Away [Official Site]
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