Curve Digital and Echo Chamber Games launch blood donation campaign with NHS England

Curve Digital and Echo Chamber Games have partnered with NHS England to announce a collaboration that aims to encourage players to give blood this Valentine’s Day with its new dating game, Table Manners. 

In what’s thought to be the first instance of NHS England partnering up with a games publisher, Table Manners will feature in-game messaging which encourages players to find out their blood type as part of the ‘What’s Your Type’ campaign, as well as messaging to the game’s community to raise awareness for blood donations.

“Men are particularly in need as their blood is used to provide life-saving products like plasma and platelets – to save victims of burns, car crashes and to treat patients with cancer,” says a joint press release from the companies. The Priority blood types are O negative, B negative, A negative and AB negative.

“All our donors are amazing,” said Nadine Eaton, head of blood donor recruitment for NHS Blood and Transplant. “But we need more than 68,000 men to start donating blood this year. This is not about recruiting as many donors as possible – it’s about getting the right gender mix. We’re thrilled that ‘Table Manners’ tongue in cheek gameplay will reach new audiences and inspire them to save lives.”

“When we learned that NHS Blood and Transplant were looking to inform new audiences about the need for more blood donors, we jumped at the chance to help them,” added Simon Byron, publishing director at Curve Digital. “Table Manners like every other game out there has the power to reach and engage in a way other mediums cannot. We’re proud to have a wide and diverse audience of gamers playing Curve’s games and welcome them all. If our partnership with NHS Blood and Transplant inspires a few people to register, then we’d be very, very happy indeed.”

Table Manners will launch on Steam on Friday, February 14th, 2020, worldwide. To become a donor, head to blood.co.uk.