May 14, 2007

Pocketwatch Games Donates 4% of Venture Africa Income to The WILD Foundation

Video Game Studio and Eco-Charity Team Up to Help Protect Animal Habitats

Pocketwatch Games, LLC announced today that it has donated 4% of the income generated in 2006 by the video game Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa to The WILD Foundation, a Boulder, CO based non-profit dedicated to protecting animal habitats in Africa.

Pocketwatch Games will also motivate others to support The WILD Foundation by providing a link to the WILD website in their upcoming game, Venture Arctic.

Pocketwatch Games has described the "Venture" series of PC/Mac video games as the ultimate "Interactive Nature Documentaries". The games allow players to create and control animals in a variety of biomes around the world. Venture Arctic also requires players to deal with challenges facing modern ecosystems such as global warming and deforestation.

"When we released Venture Africa, we made a promise to our customers that we would help to protect the animals that inspired us," said Andy Schatz, CEO and Founder of Pocketwatch Games. "I know our donation to The WILD Foundation is working directly to protect the precious animal habitats in Africa."

The cash donation is significant since it is coming from an independent video game studio. Typically, "indie" studios operate on such a small budget that they cannot afford to make charitable contributions. Pocketwatch Games founder Andy Schatz was the sole programmer and designer of Venture Africa (PC), which had a total development budget of 8,000 dollars.

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