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Child's Play Breaks a Million Bucks
Utoxin noted that Child's Play has raised the bar for their annual games for hospitals charity. They say "Not only did we break the million dollar mark, but we decimated it with our new total of $1,135,000! This significant achievement made this holiday season a happier, brighter one in our fifty partner hospitals. To everyone who has contributed to this amazing milestone, thank you!
The hospital wish lists are still online, and some have seen new items added. While we try to get lots of new games and more to the children in time for the holidays, the hospitals have a need for equipment year-round. Likewise, we will continue to accept donations through Amazon, PayPal and the mail until next year's fundraiser kicks off."
It did better than that! It grossed $44 million world wide!
It's like... donations made a quantum leap! What a sea change!
Bravo! This kind of grass-roots charity warms my heart.
If this sort of thing sounds good to you, check out Rotary International because they do this sort of thing, on a global basis, year round. There are plenty of other similar organizations; shop around to find one that works for you.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
..because games are "murder simulators".
I wished this kind of stuff made the news instead of the numerous violent video gamer portraits that are painted by TV and Paper news.
I saw this on Penny Arcade the other day, and it is good to see that Tycho and Gabe have used the power of running a top ranked webpage for a greater social benefit.
Kudos the them, and to everybody who enjoys successful and a love for charity.
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You may want to look up the meaning of the word 'decimate' and consider how surpassing your goal by 10% is actually pretty close to the spirit of the word.
Hello??? HARLAN ELLISON! He totally owns everyone in the raging-prick-ego-maniac dept; Gabe had a small victory... but Harlan is still the world's biggest dick.
Does this count the donation that they made in Jack Thomson's name when he welshed on donating a large sum for making a violent video game to his specifications... Or was that last year?
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
if 100,000$ isnt that much to you, id be happy to take it off your hands
Didn't the dollar drop by more than 10% in value in the last year?
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
A million dollars is going to take a lot of money to replace. Hopefully they'll be more careful next year.
Yeah this is exactly the type of thing pricks like Gabe do; help raise over a million dollars for sick children. What a prick...
Congratulations on putting murder simulators into the hands of our kids. I vow to put a stop to this! I won't rest until the people responsible are made to pay for their crimes.
Regards,
Jack Thompson
P.S. Gabe and Tycho just threatened me.
What's amusing is that when The Master orders the population be decimated, he then further explains that he wants one tenth of the population killed.
Maybe, but it will buy just as many Nintendo DS games as last year.
Most charity is fundamentally egotistical in nature. In fact, most everything we do is egotistical, even stuff we think of as altruistic. We've just been taught that ego is shameful, and so we dress our actions up in language which hides the self-gratification.
So, frankly, wanking Gabe's ego in exchange for coordinating the flow of $1m of toys and games to kids coping with chemo is a fair trade to me. Does mean I have to like the guy, or hang out with him on Friday night.
Hehehe.
From one of Isaac Asimov's books of humorous anecdotes.
A long time ago at a science-fiction writer's convention a few authors were standing around talking when another author walked by. One author explained to the group, "That's the next Harlan Ellison." Whereupon another author said, "Should we kill him now?"
To decimate is to reduce by one tenth. It was a punishment for mutinous units in the Roman army, where all the men would be lined up and every tenth man executed.
Since their goal was 1,000,000, and they exceeded this by one tenth, their usage of the word 'decimated' is actually not too bad. All too often people use 'decimated' to mean 'completely destroyed', but at least here there's a factor of 0.1 involved.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
This from the person who used the name Peter Cooper.
Proving, every year, that people who play GTA do more than just kill real people.
-Matthew Riley "TofuMatt" MacPherson
I have a website
Ego-stroking? You've got to be kidding me. It's more like feeling great about helping others. Did you donate?
"Too bad Gabe is such a prick. Seriously, not since Theo DeRaadt has the world seen such a total asshole."
Tycho, is that you? Harlan? DivX?
so Gabe kicked your ass at Halo 3. get over it.
While I do not have any idea the issue at hand here, I'm not a big fan of the ends justify the means.... children getting X amount of toys doesn't just make something okay.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I'm interested in knowing what possible damage the alleged shameless self-promotion has done to anyone that offsets the benefits Child's Play has brought.
If Gabe were using it to get good PR after beating his wife to death or something, you might have had a point.
Was speaking in general, know nothing about the alleged issue in this case.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Actually, I'm pretty sure Child's play was started after Jack Thompson started his raving about how games only create deviants, and the Penny-arcade people wanted to show him up in a way that was more constructive than responding directly to his infantile arguments.
So far, Child's play has raised a huge amount of money, and helped make being hospitalized less sucky for lots of children, and given Gabe/Tycho a way to thumb their nose at Jack, which I'm all for. Not that it'll matter to Jack, mind you, since he's a raving lunatic, and incapable of dealing with rational arguments anyway.
ash
Do let everyone know about it won't you?
Nah, it's actually Gabe himself, posting as Misfit.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
As for the OP in this little thread... accusing somebody of being a raging egomaniac in comparison to Harlan Ellison is almost mind bogglingly ironic. If it's true this must have been a real case of unstoppable force meeting immovable object.
Well, if you consider the goal at $1M, they accomplished that goal and added $1 extra for every $10 of the goal. That's kinda like killing every tenth dollar in line. I admit, it's a stretch, but seems like an somewhat appropriate (though unintentional) usage to me. :-)
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
The reason "decimated" is the wrong word in this article is because there is a perfectly good, perfectly correct word to use. This word is "obliterated," and it means completely destroyed.
Seriously? Come on.
The one day I don't have mod points. >100000K to be exact which meant > 10%.
That's decimating a goal when it comes to raising money, and more so when your "reaching" for your goal.
This isn't an investment, this is a charity any money raised is a good thing, and they deserve a little stroking.
I say you lend em a hand...
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I believe Child's Play was created in response to this article - http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20031118/LIVING/311180742 At the bottom of the about page on Child's Play's site, the original PA news post, as well as the author's response is posted. The link to the original column doesn't work anymore, but I'm pretty sure that's the one. Apologies if this was posted elsewhere, I looked but didn't see it. And I'm on board with the opinion of if Gabe is aiming for some shameless self-promotion, that's perfectly fine with me. They've raised three million, maybe three and a half by now, for kids in children's hospitals in just five years, I think? Yeah, shameless self-promotion is alright with me.
I don't think this is actually an argument with what he's claiming. I think you're just agreeing with him from a different angle.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
And for a second I thought Chucky was back.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
I have a game that donates to charity, more precisely to Heifer International (www.heifer.org). In fact, as I have tired of programming the thing, the donation aspect is one of the main motivators for actually working on it.
It is a clone of risk called Grand Strategy (www.denizengames.com).
Our motto is: Good can come from global domination.