Any streamers who love cats can combine their interests through the new Pawsome Players Play with Purrpose program. Run by British organization Cats Protection, the program gives streamers everything they need to raise funds for the charity's work to rescue and help cats.
Cats Protection and associated volunteers operate hundreds of cat rescue sites across the United Kingdom. The organization has an extensive website that allows prospective cat-adopters to find potential matches. Given the emotional bonds many players form with virtual cats in games, some may try to jump into the cat adoption process impulsively. Thankfully, Cats Protection offers detailed webpages and counseling services to help prospective owners ensure they are ready for a cat.
The Pawsome Players Play with Purrpose program provides streamers with promotional assets and suggested best practices, but leaves many fundraising details up to the individual streamer. As this is a grassroots effort, in contrast to campaigns like the Fall Guys corporate charity bidding war, streamers do not have to promise any specific final total to participate. As a start, the program encourages streamers to create a fundraising page on Tiltify or JustGiving, and then stream on a platform of their choice. If possible, streamers should utilize the UK government's Gift Aid program to relay funds to Cats Protection. Given this requires the donor to be a UK citizen, however, not all participating streamers may qualify.
This isn't the only way in which Cats Protection engages with the gaming community. The organization is also partnering with The Tentacle Zone at Payload Studios, a program that highlights indie games, to conduct a cat-themed game jam in the middle of October. Game jams have survived the COVID-19 pandemic through at-home participation, and the cat-themed game jam will seemingly be conducted remotely as well.
The Pawsome Players program comes at a particularly exciting time for cats in video games. For example, the next-gen game Stray features a stray cat as the main character. Plus, games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses have added cat-petting as part of larger DLC additions, letting players appreciate their virtual feline friends more than ever before.
Of course, streamers who participate in the program do so for the good of real-life cats, which is important in ways that adopting cats through Skyrim mods is not. The pandemic has led many to focus primarily on the issues that impact humans, but cats still need to be rescued and cared for. Cats Protection allows streamers to shine a light on the plight of cats in need, and that is good for streamers, Cats Protection, and (of course) cats themselves.