childs-play-charity posts

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 charity has been a staple of the holiday season for the gaming community for a while now. While fund raising efforts for the organization begun by Penny Arcade are held throughout the year this week Child's Play officially started its 2010 holiday drive for donations of games, toys and cash to be given to a number of children's hospitals around the world.

Last year the charity collected $1.78 million and already this year the drive has collected close to $200,000. In addition to individual donation there are a number of events that are raising money to be given to Child's Play. That includes the blow out auction that will be held in Seattle on December 7 that features tons of unique items donated by the game development and publishing community.

The holidays are over but there are a lot of kids out there who got a lot of gifts thanks to the Child's Play charity. The organization, started by the Penny Arcade gang, has announced that their 2009 holiday fund raising drive have brought in over $1.78 million in cash, games and other item to be donated to a number of children's hospitals around the world.

That number blows away the $1.4 record the charity raised during its 2008 drive. While the official drive is over Child's Play still accepts cash donations all year. You can also purchase a Child's Play t-shirt with all proceeds going to the charity.

They began by just writing and drawing a game-oriented web comic strip but Penny Arcade has since grown into hosting a massive game expo, orgazising a children's hospital charity and even helping to develop games based on their strip. Now they have moved into their next venture with the launch of the PATV web site.

In short the site hosts original videos related to games. The first show is (surprise) Penny Arcade The Series with each episode following the two creators around as they do what they do. Other shows made by others are on the way. In fact the first one, Blamimations!, is live now.

In related news, The Child'sPlay web site has revealed that the 2009 donation drive has now exceeded $1.5 million in donations, a new record for the charity that helps children's hospitals around the world.