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Child's Play Goes Live For 2006
GiovanniZero writes "Child's Play, the Penny-Arcade based charity just kicked off their 2006 season. Stop by, donate and bring some cheer to sick kids all over the world. 'Since 2003, gamers have banded together through registered Seattle-based charity, Child's Play. Over a million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception ... Last year's drive raised over $605,000 for sick children, and we're hoping to smash that record total this winter. Check out the wish lists, read up on the local events and let's show the world what the gaming community is all about!'"
I understand the reasons, but I do wish that we could donate used games/systems. All the same, it's a very worthy cause and plan to donate again this year.
Okay I adore the idea and I'll be supporting it, but I have to ask WTF is with some of the gifts. Theres a lot of cool stuff requested but maybe it's just me but is animal crossing and RPGs (Pokemon mysterious dungeon and mario and luigi) really the best idea? These kids arn't going to have very long with the toys let a lone enough time to really understand an RPG (and even so with mysterious dungeon one person could majorly screw your entire game up in 1 swift move change). Is it really the best idea to be buying these sort of games?
Mario kart, Mario 64 and Lego star wars I can dig. Simple pick up and play games which are fun and get to the point. But RPGs seem a bad choice of games.
I'm not saying don't support (infact the opposit), but I can't see a single reason to want RPGs for kids who will only get a couple of hours a week with the games and very unlikely be able to keep their save file let alone learn the mechanics.
I like muppets.
There are sick kids dying in hospitals all over the country and you are trolling guys that are on the Internet talking about video games?
I am not going to validate your argument, but even if it is true, I guarantee you that the money raised for the sick kids is several orders of magnitude greater than any related merch revenues. Hell, the t-shirts they sell for Child's Play are going 100% to the charity. How would you suggest organizing and promoting a charity of this size without some type of name behind it? Do you also deny the legitamacy of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation?
First, the people donating are anonymous. Anybody can donate money to this PARTICULAR charity. Donations are anonymous, the charity is an organization. Second, the PA merchandise is not generally the type that's going to be purchased by sympathetic people who buy it "because of that nice charity they sponsored", so I doubt they'll make that much. Third, there's probably a fairly significant organizational cost in running Child's Play, which might be slightly compensated for by a few more Cardboard Tube Samurai shirts sold.
USE colorful confetti ON heavily-armed clown
Thats funny. The fact is that Penny-arcade is huge and Child's Play is the kind of charity that their readers would contribute to. It would be VERY detrimental to the charity to disassociate it with something as popular as Penny-Arcade.
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
They have a page with banner graphics. Donating is great, but if your site/blog whatever can have a banner, place one of the Child's Play banners for a while. Already did that with my own site. It's great if you can donate money, but really spread the word, so more people can donate. I plan to put up a few flyers as well at school.
I realize that Penny Arcade is a gaming comic and all, but Child's Play is something that all nerds can get behind! This should be on the front page!
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
If everyone is talking about how these kids have 8 - 20 hours a day to do nothing but play games, isn't there some way we can put them to good use? Why not get them PC's and WoW accounts and let them spend all that time power-leveling? Then the hospital can keep a cut of the profit they make when they sell their characters. Heck, maybe if people in WoW knew they could donate their gold to a good cause, people could help them that way. I can't believe we're missing out on such an opportunity!
The only thing I hate more than hypocrites are people who hate hypocrites.
Hi, I help run Child's Play for PA. The hospitals don't want us to send them used items--too many germ issues. We do have a solution: sell your stuff on eBay. We're all set up with eBay's "Missionfish" program, which lets any user selling anything to donate a portion of the proceeds to Child's Play. When listing your item just select that you want to donate. You'll be taken to a popup with a list of charities and a search box. Just search for "Childs Play" and click on the result. Done. The process sounds a little weird, since eBay/Missionfish is set it up in such a way that the charity doesn't get screwed: when the item sells, eBay charges the LISTER'S credit card for the designated percentage. Then the lister collects the full amount from the buyer. So once you're set up, you can list a million items and never have to worry about calculating the % and mailing checks--eBay handles each % donation automatically. Like I said, a little weird but it makes sense. Bottom line is that people have expressed a wish to donate used systems, and this is the easiest and cleanest solution. Thanks for all the support, by the way. You all should be proud of the success of this charity. Being completely fueled by the gamer/geek community, Child's Play just wouldn't exist without you.
Hi, I help run Child's Play for PA. Granted that the "anonymous coward" OP is retarded, but sadly his affliction isn't rare. That's why we've set up Child's Play as a seperate entity, a charitable nonprofit 501c3 corporation registered in the state of Washington. Aside from email addresses, image copyright notices, and the historical info in the "about" section you won't find any mention of Penny Arcade. The cartoon characters are on there because we want to reassure those familiar with the comic that, yes, this is the "real" Child's Play site. But we don't call them out, or introduce the site as "Gabe and Tycho bring you... Child's Play". Unless you're ALREADY familiar with the characters, they could just be random cartoons of gamers.
I realize the OP is a troll but the fact is, CP is it's own thing. We could all die in a meteor strike tomorrow and CP would continue. Advocating CP on Penny Arcade, or on Slashdot, or on a personal blog, or on any site isn't self-back-patting. It's giving kids a bit of comfort while they're stuck in hospital. No more, no less.