It was reported a week ago that Child's Play, the charity service founded by the amazing duo of Penny Arcade, has exceeded donations way beyond US$ 1 million. Now NCsoft, the studio behind City of Heroes and Tabula Rasa, reports that they've also had successful auctions during the fundraiser. Check out the details in the full article.

Nothing like a bit of good news to end the year with a bang, eh? The Child's Play charity movement run by Penny Arcade has reportedly exceeded its projected million-dollar mark for this December. Details on this big news are available in the full article.

It's the end of the year and the developers from NCsoft have announced that this will be the last Tabula Rasa Feedback Friday for the year. Instead of giving players updates on all the changes done in the game, they decided to release some statistics of what the developers have accomplished in the last two weeks.

Interested? See the full article for the statistics the developers from NCsoft revealed.

Penny Arcade's Child's Play, a five-year-old fundraising outfit that started out dedicated only to the Seattle Children's Hospital, has now evolved into a full-time charity drive.

Child's Play is now extending its reach throughout North America and five countries. Major online retailer Amazon is also giving Child's Play a boost-up by letting participating hospitals create wishlists of items to give to children.

Read more about Child's Play at the full article link below!

 

MMORPG EVE Online developer CCP Games, a long time supporter for the Child's Play charity for children, will be conducting a silent auction in line with its EVE Online Fanfest 2007 event.

The auction aims to provide gaming equipment, toys, and crafting materials for children's hospitals for the benefit of patients and their families. This isn't the first time a gaming-related company has supported a charitable institution.

Child's Play itself was originally founded by Penny Arcade, a famous name in the web comics and gaming circle. Several EVE collectible pieces will be up for grabs in the auction, as well as a chance to own a rare EVE object.

Aside from that, solicitors will also be helping out kids all over the world by contributing to the event. One of the biggest prizes being auctioned, however, is a chance to visit the CCP offices in Reykjavik, Iceland. Winners can take a backstage look at one of the biggest sci-fi MMORPGs out there today.

Bidding starts today until November 1. Multiple bids are allowed and can be made through the EVE Online official website, which can be accessed through the Read link below.

Online games are fun and all, and those who have never been addicted to anything in their life could never hope to understand what it feels like to be totally immersed in a virtual world. In a report titled "Online Gaming Isn't Just Child's Play," CBS described the harrowing story of how a former Final Fantasy XI junkie escaped the habit that tore her family apart.

Johnson, a mother of two teenage boys, says she was hooked to Square Enix's online adventure and embarked on a four-year quest to self-destruction before she finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired. The aftermath was a divorce with a husband who was more addicted to the game than she was.

"My children would come up to talk to me and I'd say, 'wait, wait, Mom's busy. I'll be done in a minute … just give Mommy another minute,'" confesses Johnson. She said she was averaging about 50 hours a week in game time, leaving little time for everything else.

The last straw was when she and her husband quit working to have a more game-driven life. They laid all their expenses on their credit cards and waited until everything blew up in a glob of rage and financial trouble.

Right then and there, Kay crushed the game discs and ended her involvement with gaming. She says the reminders of game companies to "have a life" cannot be more futile.

Let the warm and fuzzy feelings from the holidays just gone by continue! Gabe and Tycho are glad to report that their cup runneth over! (*Sniffle*) Anyway, what we wanted to say was that the total contributions to Child's Play from generous and golden-hearted gamers everywhere have topped the US$ 1,000,000.00 mark, for a grand and tidy sum of US$ 1,024,000 in donations. Now let's see how many PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii bundles that would buy for every participating hospital, or perhaps it's going to be a PSP or DS in every kiddie hospital room.

Quite a limit breaker, and one should consider that the bar was at around half a million greenbacks at the beginning of December. That's double the money in just one month! And as the bar is filled out, chime in the Final Fantasy victory and level-up themes, as there will be a next year, and perhaps the next challenge would be to raise two million dollars this time?

Amidst the bad PR we gamers usually get, Child's Play trudges on to get the world to think otherwise. This year, it has raised around US$ 963,000 for sick children in hospitals around the world.

Child's Play is a Seattle-based charitable organization founded in 2003 by gamers Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, aka Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade. The organization donates games, DVDs, books, and other toys to sick kids around the globe, including hospitals in Canada, Britain, Egypt, and Australia. Gamers, or people who simply wish to help, can see the wish lists at Amazon.com or donate cash through PayPal.

This helps a lot of sick kids go through uncomfortable treatments and gives them some sort of relief that they would be able to play while in therapy. And some people think gamers are mindless zombies with cash to burn. Think about it, hitting the one million mark would be a great milestone for all of us.