It's well and good to say, “I damn near wanted to kill myself when I found out Ghouls and Ghosts was twice as long as I thought,” but if you're talking real, actual, inexpressibly tragic self-slaughter, the Street Fighter X Tekken developer is dead against – and has the charity partnership to prove it.
Suicide is the single largest killer of young men in the UK*, a figure the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) aims to rectify. CALM says that since its launch in 2000, suicide rates in the charity's base of Merseyside have dropped by 55%. CALM's Simon Howes says the charity is “delighted” to be working with Capcom on its next partner campaign, demonstrating “how the gaming industry can work for social good” while raising funding and awareness of an issue that plagues the industry's key demographic.
Capcom's contribution sees the company auctioning off two enviable SfxT-related lots. The first auction will be for 30 exclusive SFxT prints, signed by producers Katsuhiro Harada and Yoshinoru Ono. The second auction is for “a very limited number of tickets” to the Street Fighter X Tekken Grand Final media event, with the highest bidders also attending a private launch event on March 9. Both auctions' proceeds will be donated in full to CALM, whose website offers a look at the campaign's initiatives and community.
* In the US, suicide is in the top 5 killers of young people; US suicide rates per capita across the general population are almost double those of the United Kingdom. While this story focuses on a UK initiative, American readers wanting to find out more about suicide danger and prevention can start here.
