childs-play posts

The Child's Play game-themed charity is expanding its reach once again in an unique way. Today it was announced that in association with the ESA Foundation, the charity will host its first annual golf tournament to raise funds for the many children's hospitals it supports.

The tournament will be held on June 5 at the Brookside Golf Course in Pasadena, California, just a couple of days before E3 2011 is slated to officially begin in nearby Los Angeles. More details and sign ups for the tournament are now available on the Penny Arcade web site. The entry fee will be $150 or $175 with club rental.

Last December, the free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes from developer Digital Illusions announced that a portion of the proceeds from selling two in-game outfits, the Santa Holiday Set and the Nikolaus Holiday Set will be given to the game-related Child's Play children's hospital charity. Today the game's web site announced that the total amount raised last month from the sales of those items was $ 4,594.

The game's publisher Electronic Arts said that it would match the contributions if the total went over $8,000. While the final amount fell well short of that goal, EA decided to go ahead and match the fund anyway, bringing the final total raised for Child's Play up to $9,188.

The final numbers for the 2010 fund raising drive for the game-oriented charity Child's Play have been released and its clear that there was a lot of good hearted folks out there who wanted to help the organization help children's hospitals around the world. The final total for the 2010 drive was $2,294,317.53, which blows away the previous highest number achieved in 2009 with $1.78 million.

The charity was first launched by the Penny Arcade web comic strip team back in 2003. That year the charity raised over $250,000 for one children's hospital (the Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle, Washington). The charity now helps over 70 children's hospitals around the world and has raised a total of nearly $9 million during its lifetime so far.

The second incarnation of the Humble Indie Bundle is now over and, thanks in part to the organizers extending the deadline by five days, the latest "pay what you want" indie game bundle brought in $1,815,934.53 in revenues for the five indie games (Braid, Machinarium, Osmos, Cortex Command and Revenge of the Titans) plus two charities (Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play). The six games from the first Humble Indie Bundle were added later in the week if people donated more than the average per-person amount.

More detailed financial stats will be revealed later but the average per donation was $7.80 with Windows users averaging $6.63, Mac users averaging $9.25 and Linux users donating an average of $13.75. The largest single donation was made by an anonymous bidder who gave $5,555.

Update: There's been some updates to the site since we posted. The final revenue number is now $1,822,482.80. Plus a person calling himself "Nexus Scorpion" is the new number one contributor with $6,132.96.

The Child's Play 2010 fund raising drive isn't quite over yet but the game industry-support charity that helps children's hospitals around the world has already exceeded 2009's $1.7 million amount. The charity's official web site has announced that it has raised $1,853,894.59 in donations.

The official fund raising drive is still ongoing which means that the final total will actually be higher than this week's already impressive amount. For example the Humble Indie Bundle, which is scheduled to end on Christmas Day, is giving part of its donations to Child's Play. The final donation numbers for Child's Play 2010 should be reveal in early January.

The team at the Humble Indie Bundle have been generating a lot of money already with the second batch of games with its 'pay what you want" business model. But now the team has upped the anty. The Humble Indie Bundle 2 now includes all of the games from the first Humble Indie Bundle.

Yes, you can get all of the bundle's current games (Braid, Machinarium, Osmos, Cortex Command and Revenge of the Titans) plus all of the game's in the original bundle (World of Goo, Gish, Aquaria, Penumbra Overture, and Lugaru HD plus the freebie Samorset 2). People who have bought Bundle 2 can download the Bundle 1 games now. People who have yet to purchase Bundle 2 can get the Bundle 1 games if they pay more than the current average which is currently $7.35. Paying $7.35 to get a whopping 10 great indie games (plus one freebie) is still a massive bargain.

It is truly the season for giving, especially as game developers and groups contribute to the Child's Play children's hospital charity during its annual fund drive. Today there's a game on Steam that is giving all of the proceeds to Child's Play today and Saturday.

That game is Delve Deeper, the turn-based adventure-strategy game from developer Lunar Giant Games. Just in case you are not familiar the game has you commanding a team of dwarves as they mine their way into dungons filled with monsters and creatures. There's even support for multiplayer for up to four players along with a level builder. Finally the game is just $4.99. So you will be getting a cool, cheap game while helping others.

Last year the team at indie game developer Wolfire launched the Humble Indie Bundle which let people pay what they wanted for five indie games. The bundle generated over $1.2 million over the length of the deal. Now the same team is doing it again with the Humble Indie Bundle 2.

Five more indie games are a part of this new deal: Braid, Machinarium, Osmos, and two games that technically are still in beta versions: Cortex Command and Revenge of the Titans. All five games are DRM-free and come in Windows, Mac and Linux flavors. You can choose to spend any amount of money you want to get all five games and like the last bundle you can also choose to donate a portion of your money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play. This year there's also an extra option to tip the Humble Bundle folks. According to the Wolfire web site, "We have some humble ideas on how to change digital distribution that we're going to try out." The Humble Indie Bundle 2 lasts until December 21 at 4 pm Eastern time. You can check out the launch trailer for the bundle after the jump:

We are still two weeks away from Christmas but the gamer-focused charity Child's Play is already generating a ton of money and donations for its many children's hospitals. The official Child's Play web site has just announced that it has already exceeded the $1 million mark with the current total at $1.18 million.

Part of the big boost came from the official Child's Play charity auction in Seattle earlier this week with some one-of-a-kind donations from many game developers and publishers. Over $183,000 was raised just from that auction alone. There are also many other Child's Play sanctioned fund raising events happening this month and you can check them all out at the Child's Play web site.

On this first day of Advent, the Battlefield Heroes free-to-play multiplayer shooter is opening up its own Advent calendar. For the next 24 days there will be new holiday-themed content that will be unlocked every day for players of the game. That includes things like new holiday themed outfits for your characters to new scoped-based weapons. You can check out some of what will be included in the updates in the above YouTube video.

But that's not all. Battlefield Heroes is also offering the chance for players to help others with their in-game purchases. A portion of the sales of the game's new Santa Holiday Set and the Nikolaus Holiday Set will be given to the game-related Child's Play children's hospital charity.