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Thursday, November 17th, 2005
Time
Event
8:07a
GP loves stories about gamers doing good.
Child's Play, the charitable organization created by the videogame comic strip Penny Arcade, announced that it has expanded to more than a dozen children's hospitals in the United States and Canada. The organization, started three years ago as a fundraiser for the Seattle Children's Hospital, has raised nearly a million dollars in toys, games and cash for sick kids through its online toy drive and annual charity auction.
"Kids around the world speak the language of fun and games," said Robert Khoo of Child's Play. "With the gamer community's continued generosity Child's Play is helping to raise the spirits of children during hospital stays."
Child's Play has extended its network of beneficiary Children's Hospitals to California (Oakland and San Diego), New Mexico, Tennessee, Seattle, Nebraska, the Midwest, Hawaii, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Toronto and Nova Scotia among others. Hospitals in the U.K. and Australia are expected to join soon.
Child's Play works in conjunction with Amazon.com to create wish lists for participating hospitals. Individual donors can choose to give new items ranging from toddler toys to music CDs, videogames, game consoles and accessories. Gifts are delivered directly to hospitals in need and are tax deductible.
The annual Child's Play Fundraiser Dinner Auction will be held December 13, 2005 in Bellevue, Washington. The semi-formal evening is Child's Play's primary fundraising event and features a silent auction, dinner and live auction. Early auction highlights include Penny Arcade signed and numbered game consoles, Limited Edition Laser Cels, tours of local developers including Bungie and Wizards of the Coast, game collections and even an appearance in a Penny Arcade comic strip. All fundraising proceeds go directly to participating hospitals.
Child's Play is seeking corporate donations for giveaway at children's hospitals as well as auction items for the fundraising dinner. For information on how to become a corporate or individual donor or how hospitals can become involved, swing on over to Child's Play.12:44p
Xbox 360 shortage? It must not be spoken of...
At least not if you're a hired gun in the employ of Best Buy. Ace game journalist Brian Crecente of Kotaku scored a major coup last week when a corporate mole leaked Best Buy's Xbox 360 launch plans to him.
Said "plan" seemed primarily to involve running out of 360's. Most locations will have only 60 to sell.
In any event, the suits in the executive dining room at Best Buy were not in the Best Mood when they saw the nitty-gritty about their inventories and mark-ups appearing online.
Today Kotaku reports that the big-box retailer dropped a cease and desist order on them. Readers can thus expect no more airing of Best Buy's dirty laundry. That's not really a problem for Kotaku, since Brian already milked eight articles from the leaked documents he had on hand.2:24p
As reported on GamePolitics, a Federal Court hearing on Illinois' video game content law began on Tuesday. Attorneys representing the video game industry sought a preliminary injunction to bar the Safe Games Illinois Act from taking effect on January 1st, as scheduled.
An informed source has told GP that U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kennelly heard two days of testimony on the scientific evidence upon which Illinois is basing its defense of the law.
Testifying on behalf of the state were Dr. Craig Anderson of Iowa State University and Dr. William Kronenberger of Indiana University. The game industry called scientific experts of its own in an attempt to refute the state's witnesses.
On Wednesday Judge Kennelly heard legal arguments. During that phase of the hearing, he suggested that he found the state's scientific evidence unconvincing.
Most significantly, the Judge promised to rule on the merits of the case - not just the injunction request - by the end of November. This means that we will have a final outcome in the Illinois case very soon.
The Safe Games Illinois Act was signed into law by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (above) on July 25th.
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