Team Fortress 2 Hats Raise Over $300K For Japan Relief

Following Japan relief efforts carried out via popular multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2, Valve has revealed that a total of $300,000 has been raised so far. The publisher announced the initiative last week, rewarding those Team Fortress 2 players who donated money to the American Red Cross Japanese disaster relief fund with special hats to wear in-game. The three available hats can be purchased for $7.99, $19.99 and $99.99, and are still available up until April 6. In a new post on the TF2 blog, the development team explains that, with still one week to go, over $300,000 has been raised so far. "Take a bow, TF2 community" the post exclaims, "because that is an incredible, frankly astounding, amount of money from a dedicated number of gamers, to one heck of a lot of people in some real need right now." Virtual item purchases were added to Team Fortress 2 last year, signalling a major change for the game's business model, which up until that point had relied on attracting new players and retaining current ones by constantly providing free updates. Team Fortress 2 was originally released in 2007.