Dirt 5, Dirt Rally 2.0 and GRID players will start seeing health-related awareness banners on tracks from today. This is a UK government initiative in partnership with Codemasters.
Players of games made by Codemasters will now see two messages in the banners:
"Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives."
"Every Mind Matters"
The first sentence is to encourage people to stay in their homes during the pandemic. The second was made to support people's awareness of the importance of mental health.
Campaigns about COVID-19 related care started appearing in Codemasters games last year. Game developers King, Rebellion, and Codemasters have placed ads in their games that read:
"Stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives"
Unfortunately, this Codemasters initiative will initially be restricted to the UK region only. In partnership with Bidstack, a company that specializes in geographically targeted game advertising banners, Codemasters intends to limit the reach of its health promotion campaign to UK gamers only.
Codemasters Chief Marketing Officer John Merchant says:
"We are delighted to be able to continue to support government messages as we wait for the lockdown to be relaxed.
It's great to be able to use our games to direct players to mental wellness advice. Even if we can only help one person, then this was a valuable addition."
Bidstack CEO James Draper adds:
"We are very proud to be working with the UK Government, Public Health England and our Codemasters partners again to reach audiences who may not have engaged with these important messages in other media channels.
Conveying health messages, and particularly those around mental well-being at a difficult time for many people, is something we are very pleased with with our technology. For those who need support, it has the potential to make a big difference."
DIRT 5 no Xbox Game Pass
Last week, subscribers to Microsoft's gaming service, Xbox Game Pass, were given the opportunity to download the DIRT 5 game on the platform.
