Rockstar Games has committed to donating five percent of its revenue from Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Redemption Online to communities hardest hit by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The announcement was made through Rockstar’s official Twitter account. The company aims to help the smaller communities that are suffering the pandemic. The donations will come through GTA’s in-game purchases as well as online transactions of Red Dead Redemption. The donation will follow the transactions made from April 1 and it will last until the end of May.

Rockstar Games and COVID-19 Relief pic.twitter.com/9j6NrtcrFN — Rockstar Games (@RockstarGames) April 1, 2020

Rockstar has not announced any entity that will handle the donations. But, the tweet mentioned North America, UK, and India. These locations are where the main offices of Rockstar are located. That is probably the reason why they want to focus their relief efforts on the mentioned area.

Gaming companies help flatten the curve

Rockstar was not the first company to help in the fight against COVID-19. Last week, Nintendo donated around 10,000 respirator masks to the medical frontline staff at Washington D.C. The city announced the Japanese company’s help through its own press release.

Nintendo representative, Jerry Dawson, led the donation drive and delivered 9,500 N95 respirator masks to the Eastside Fire and Rescue department. The masks are one of the most essential defenses of medical practitioners to prevent infection from the deadly virus.

Danson said that the masks were on-stock for Nintendo’s emergency preparedness planning. Now that the emergency is here, the company decided to provide the masks where it is most needed.

The masks will be delivered all throughout the region including the City of North Bend.

Besides Nintendo, CD Projekt Red has pledged at least $970,000 to prevent the spread of the virus in Poland. The Cyberpunk 2077 developers released its statement through LinkedIn.

Marcin Iwinski said that the gaming studio has been in contact with the Polish NGO, Fundacja Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy, in order to produce the needed medical equipment. The funds will also be used to support medical staff in the region.

Number of COVID-19 victims still on the rise

At press time, the number of confirmed COVID-19 has surpassed one million worldwide.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of cases doubled over the past two weeks and the growth over the upcoming days is expected to grow further.

“Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new cases, reaching almost every country,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO chief.

Ghebreyesus added, “the number of deaths has more than doubled in the past week. In the next few days, we will reach one million confirmed cases and 50,00 deaths.”

Last Thursday, the number was 936,000 confirmed cases with at least 47,000 deaths.

Images courtesy of Flickr/Marco Verch, Johns Hopkins University