The cat video game Stray benefits real cats; here's how

Thanks to online fundraising platforms, gamers are playing “Stray" while streaming live for audiences to raise money for animal shelters and other cat-related charities. Annapurna Interactive, the game's publisher, also promoted “Stray” by offering two cat rescue and adoption agencies copies of the game to raffle off and renting out a New York cat cafe. The virtual cat hero from the new video game sensation “Stray” doesn't just wind along rusted pipes, leap over unidentified sludge and decode clues in a seemingly abandoned city. Livestreaming game play for charity isn't new, but the resonance “Stray” quickly found from cat lovers is unusual. About 80% of the game’s development team are “cat owners and cat lovers” and a real-life orange stray as well as their own cats helped inspire the game, one creator said.