Ubisoft's first charity bundle linked to the Sixth Guardian program for Rainbow Six Siege has reportedly raised $171,183 for AbleGamers, a non-profit organization that provides custom control setups to disabled gamers so they can play the same releases as friends and family. More such partnerships will be announced in the future, the publisher says.
Sixth Guardian is a series of planned charity bundles, originally announced in November 2020. Rainbow Six Siege players can buy one of the packs to get exclusive operator gear - in return, all of the (net) proceeds from these sales will go to their associated charity. In the case of AbleGamers, Ubisoft said that was a minimum of $6 per purchase. It's not uncommon for product-based charity drives to donate only a portion of proceeds, one example being (PRODUCT)Red-branded devices and accessories from Apple.
The AbleGamers bundle was launched at the beginning of Rainbow Six Siege's Year 5 Season 4, GameSpot reports. It consisted of cosmetic items for Doc, among them a uniform, charm, headgear, and weapon skin. All of these were decked in the orange, gray, and white of AbleGamers, with Sixth Guardian emblems located in strategic places. It cost 1,200 R6 credits via the in-game store, which translates to $9.99 in the real world – suggesting that Ubisoft was taking about $3.99 of that to cover design work and other expenses.
Accessibility remains a real problem for disabled gamers since most interfaces often don't take everyone into , and specialized controllers can be rare. It was a major development when Microsoft launched the Xbox Adaptive Controller in September 2018 - the product serves as an officially ed hub for external buttons, mounts, and other add-ons tailored to each player's needs. It works with Windows 10 and the Xbox One, and was it was in fact developed with the help of AbleGamers and other organizations like the Cerebral Palsy Foundation. There's no first-party equivalent of the accessory for Sony or Nintendo systems, and VR is often completely out of bounds for many.
Ubisoft hasn't identified any of the other charities it's preparing bundles for. Rainbow Six Siege may be a strong vehicle for fundraising, however, since it remains a popular online game almost six years after launch. It only recently hit its all-time record for concurrent players on Steam, topping 201,000 in late March. The game is also available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, meaning that the total live player count is likely much higher - it's simply harder to collect cross-platform data.
Rainbow Six Siege is available on PS4, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: GameSpot
