I'll imagine that everyone who sees this post has already heard of
penny-arcade's
Child's Play drive. But I wanted to note that this year Shand's Children's Hospital is one of the listed hospitals. Also, I
felt like re-posting Gabe's original letter to PA fans from back in 03'
If you are like me, every time you see an article like this one, where
the author claims that video games are training our nations youth to
kill you get angry. The media seems intent on perpetuating the myth
that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. I know for a
fact that gamers are good people. I have had the opportunity on
multiple occasions to meet hundreds of you at conventions all over the
country. We are just regular people who happen to love video games.
With that in mind we have put together a little something we like to
call “Child’s Play”. Penny Arcade is working with the Seattle
Children’s Hospital and Amazon.com to make this Christmas really
special for a lot of very sick kids. With the help of the Children’s
Hospital we have created an Amazon Wish List for the kids. It’s full of
video games, movies and toys. Some of these kids are in pretty bad
shape and just having a Game Boy would really raise their spirits.
Please take some time to browse the Wish List. Maybe all you can afford
is a package of batteries or maybe you want to go in with your entire
office and get the kids a GameCube. Every single contribution will help
out the Children’s Hospital and the 190,000 kids they treat each year.
All the toys and games will be delivered to us and we will in turn
deliver them to the Children’s Hospital. As soon as the toys start
arriving I’ll set up a web site and post as many pictures as I can. We
will be making a trip over to one of the hospitals next week and we’ll
bring you back stories from some of the kids along with more pictures.
Penny Arcade has a readership of something like 150,000 gamers across
the world. We are arguably the largest community of gamers on the
internet. The important word there being community. This isn’t IGN,
this isn’t Gamespy, we are not a faceless corporation, you are not just
a number tracked by a database and then relayed to hungry advertisers.
You guys have proven yourselves to be a powerful force when stirred
into action. Here is your opportunity to use that power to do some real
good.
Let’s give these kids the Christmas that they deserve and let’s give
the news papers a different kind of story to write about gamers.
-Gabe out