NOVEMBER 1st marks the second anniversary of the World of Tanks ANZ server launch, and to celebrate Wargaming’s Australian office held a 12 hour Twitch charity stream:
http://twitch.tv/wargamingasia
Running until midnight that day, the charity stream had three Wargaming Australia team members hosting a 12 hour marathon to raise funds for the Australian military veteran charity Red Six.
Red Six is an an app which veterans register for and then enter in the details of two or three close friends. The app then checks in with them daily, to see how they are doing.
If the veteran says they are feeling depressed or at risk of self-harm, the Red Six app immediately alerts their friends, who can then check in on them.
To raise awareness of Red Six, founder Michael Handley joining the World of Tanks stream on Twitch, along with numerous other Australian military veterans and World of Tanks players.
Speaking after the event, Mr Handley said Red Six had been able to help more than 470 veterans struggling with mental illness and PTSD in the past six months alone.
“Red Six is honoured to have ‘World of Tanks’ supporting its growth & we look forward to raising further awareness and making this technology available worldwide to veterans and their partners in 2020,” he said.
World of Tanks A/NZ product manager James Kozanecki said the game has a proud history of supporting veteran groups.
“I am very proud that we could integrate support for an Australian veterans group, which is doing groundbreaking stuff, into our activities,” he said.
You don’t need to be a veteran to understand the benefits of the Red Six app and we can’t wait to support them further.”
In addition to the stream, there will be a month of activities celebrating the server’s second anniversary, including:
- ‘Hunt us down’ event where whoever kills a World of Tanks ANZ staff member in-game gets prizes
- An infographic showcasing the achievements of players on the ANZ server
- Feature profiles on veterans who play World of Tanks, talking about their service and how the game has helped them connect with other veterans post-service
The Australian/NZ dedicated server was a hailed as a game-changer to its 2017 launch, with Wargaming Australia/New Zealand country manager Travis Plane saying at the time it had been the number one request from the community.
“Latency has been a major issue for our community for a number of years so we’re excited to be able to deliver a better gameplay experience,” he said.
“It’s a long time coming but we hope that our players and the community can see that we’re truly committed to investing in Australia and New Zealand.”
Two years later and the free-to-play game continues to go from strength to strength in the region, with an increasing number of fans and active players – not to mention a larger garage of tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles for players to take to the battlefield in.
