Member Article

North East gaming platform a key player in UK social tech movement

Social gaming platform Palringo has raised almost $1m for charity over the last 4 years through the application of in-game spending.

A testament to the region’s growing ‘social tech’ movement, the Cramlington-based business links games and people to play them with, cultivating a ‘goodwill’ user experience.

The UK-based app creates multiplayer games that can be played in chat groups of up to 2000 people. The combination of chat and gaming, the two biggest categories of mobile engagement, helped Palringo to become one of the fastest growing UK tech companies last year, with chat games contributing nearly 50% to their revenues.

The unique community dynamic adds a key dimension to gaming and it’s this social aspect that has helped to grow the charity campaign year on year.

Palringo initially created the campaign in 2013 as a way to offer their large Arabic audience a tool to enhance their charitable activity during Ramadan.

By adding a charitable twist to their games, it allowed their users to continue what they were doing day to day, but with the added bonus of contributing to worthy causes at a time when charitable giving is a priority for them.

But it’s the community aspect of Palringo that helped the campaign to spread beyond the app’s Arabic community with nearly a third of players based in other parts of the world.

Gifting is a huge part of the Palringo experience and their games give the option to gift ‘boosters’ to everyone playing in the group. The combination of this gifting dynamic and the social environment helps to spread the message.

Hero Squad

This year the app launched Hero Squad, earning nearly half a million dollars over just 4 weeks by introducing limited edition, in-game charity missions that players had to complete in order to earn a special one-off Achievement.

In-game purchases could be made to increase the chances of completing bigger and more dangerous missions and 50% of the proceeds were donated to Action Against Hunger and Islamic Relief Worldwide to help fund food aid projects.

Results from the app’s charity activity have shown that in-game spending can increase by as much as 33% during the campaigns, with spending by one individual reaching $14,000. This year the app saw the average size of donation increase by 28% to $63.74.

Tim Rea, CEO of Palringo, said: “The more people in the group that are playing, the better the experience is for everyone, including the spender, which spreads the goodwill of the campaign, encourages more people to get involved and ultimately raises more cash for charity! It’s win-win for the players and the charities.

“It’s also a nice confirmation that the revenue from gifting contributes the most to the charity total, proving that a social gaming environment is a successful way to engage people with charitable giving.”

Matt White, Director of Fundraising & Communications at Action Against Hunger said; “The Palringo community are heroes. They have raised an incredible £74,000 toward Action Against Hunger’s work which aims to end child hunger.

“The success of the Hero Squad game means that we will be able to save the lives of many more severely malnourished children. A massive thank you from all at Action Against Hunger to everyone who has been part of this fantastic achievement.”

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