NSPCC Game Safe Festival 2024 Case Study

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children  (NSPCC) is the largest UK charity that campaigns and works in child protection across the UK and the Channel Islands. As a non-profit organisation, NSPCC relies on donations and fundraising to keep these vital services current and working 24/7/365. 

One of NSPCC’s goals is to reach new audiences with the mission of both raising awareness to their causes and reaching new communities interested in helping raise the funds needed to educate children and families on how to have a fun, safe online experience.

We partnered with NSPCC for their Game Safe Festival – offering support and moderation for the duration of the events, eSports tournament, parent workshops and social media channels. 

StrawberrySocial moderated 18 hours of live streamed gaming, featuring over 200 gamers, culminating in 16 live finalists streamed on Twitch. 

The Festival raised over £130,000 for the NSPCC in financial and gift in kind income thanks to generous donations from corporate partners as well as people who signed in to watch the Game Safe Cup; the safeguarding workshops for parents and professionals who work with children; and the creators who streamed for us as part of the Press Play campaign. 

We spoke with our partners at NSPCC who helped orchestrate the entire festival, including David Smith, Catriona Boyle (Head of Social) and Lewie Procter (Head of Gaming Partnerships) to find out how our partnership for the festival resulted in its success.

What is the Game Safe Festival all about? 

The Game Safe Festival was NSPCC’s event to explore ways to play and act to keep children safe online. [NSPCC] celebrated everything that’s best about the world of gaming: The community, collaboration and creativity.

With the help of their community, [NSPCC] took action to make gaming safer for children.

89% of children in the UK play video games, but online harms are increasing.

The organisation brought together key players to make sure children have positive gaming experiences, while helping the adults in their lives have the knowledge, confidence and tools they need to help keep children safe when they game. Their first tournament focused on eSports gaming. 

What were the primary goals or objectives of the Game Safe Festival?

The number one goal of hosting a gaming festival was to prove that Gaming could be both entertaining, and safe, for children. Primarily, NSPCC wanted to highlight celebrity gamers while they competed in real time, while simultaneously hosting eSafety events where parents and children could engage in their favourite eSports games and learn about keeping safe while playing.

What were the online safety requirements for the duration of the Game Safe Festival?

• Ongoing moderation of the NSPCC Game Safe Discord Server while all events were happening live. 
• Ensure any content that was inappropriate would be flagged or removed as quickly as possible
• Remove and report content that breaks community guidelines.
• Escalate potential disclosures to the NSPCC Helpline.
• Escalate PR or other issues to the NSPCC within the parameters of current government policies. 
• Ensure all instances of Live Chat and streaming were opened and/or closed during scheduled times. 

What specific challenges or problems were you facing when you approached us?

As part of our Game Safe Festival, we were launching the NSPCC on two new platforms – Discord and Twitch, and wanted to ensure that we could do so with the same high standard of moderation across our other platforms. With limited knowledge of the functionality of Discord and Twitch, we looked to StrawberrySocial to advise on how we could implement our current moderation processes into these new platforms. 

What were your main goals or desired outcomes for addressing these challenges?

Our main goals were to have robust moderation processes for these new platforms, bringing together all the relevant teams including Social Media, Helpline and the Project team, and successfully implementing them as part of our inaugural Game Safe Festival. 

How did you come to the decision to work with us?

We workshopped several solutions and processes before coming to a decision. We knew whatever we decided, we would have StrawberrySocial’s help and support to implement it, which indeed we did, and this was particularly beneficial when it came to the out of hours support. 

Our conversations and discussions with you throughout made us feel confident in taking forward the solution, as well as our experience of currently working with you. 

Can you describe the process of implementing the solution or project?

Because of the number of teams involved, the main part of implementing the solution was focused on communication and training. This included ensuring all teams were happy with the solution proposed, as well as delivering the training to other teams to allow them to implement it. Again we had StrawberrySocial’s support on this which really helped us get it up and running.

Were there any obstacles or difficulties encountered during the implementation phase?

With an organisation as large and complex as NSPCC, most of our obstacles centred around getting the right people together at the same time, and ensuring everyone who needed to be involved, was. 

How did our services or products contribute to addressing your challenges or achieving your goals?

Being able to launch these platforms meant we were able to use them as part of our Game Safe Festival, working with creators, reaching new audiences and building new partnerships. 

Looking back, what do you feel were the key factors that contributed to the success of the project?

Having external expertise on the platforms themselves, combined with current moderation knowledge. Thorough discovery and scoping processes also helped to ensure we had all eventualities covered.

Are there any aspects of the project that you would approach differently in hindsight?

As is often the case, timings were tight for the project and as it was all new ground for us, it was difficult to effectively plan for what needed to be put in place. However our learnings from this year puts us in a good stead for the future. 

What advice would you give to other charities looking to experiment with Gaming for Giving as a fundraising or brand awareness strategy?

It’s a really exciting area to be involved with, with lots of opportunities and things to explore. I’d suggest immersing yourself in it as much as possible – get on Twitch, join Discord, see what other people are doing, and this will really help. 

How do you plan to build on the success of the Game Safe Festival in the future?

We’re continuing to expand our gaming strategy in a variety of different ways. Partnering with a variety of games companies on different fundraising initiatives, developing resources to help the games industry improve its approach towards child safety, and exploring further ways to connect with the public via game streaming.

Are there any additional projects or initiatives that you are considering in light of the results achieved?

We heard from several folks in the games industry during the festival that there is a real appetite for having us enter the space and advocate for child safety, so we’re definitely motivated and inspired to continue along those lines.

Do you have any final thoughts or reflections on the project as a whole?

We also used it as an opportunity to start a conversation with companies in the sector about how we can work together to keep children safe; equip parents, carers and professionals who work with children with the tools and knowledge they need protect young players; and introduce the NSPCC and its services to the gaming and creator community. 

To this end, we were delighted that over 100 sector organisations attended the festival; 2,600 parents, carers and professionals signed up to safeguarding workshops; and our Game Safe Cup and creator streams were viewed over 370,000 times.