So…a couple of really brilliant guys who do a little online comic called Penny Arcade decided before Christmas that they were going to show the world that gamers weren’t a bunch of backwards introspective adolescents hiding in their parents basements, but instead were giving, fully-grown members of society who wanted to spread the joy of games.
To this end, they started Child’s Play, a site through which donations could be made for children in the Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Here’s where the Media royally screwed up. After they showed up with more toys than you could believe (actual figures in a minute) and local Seattle media picked up the story, somehow it was reported that the donations were from a “local catholic school” and that the toys were valued at “nearly a thousand dollars.”
Here’s the scoop…this couple of cartoonists and gamers raised over $200,000 worth of toys. Two. Hundred. Thousand. Dollars. They had $16,000 worth of Game Boy Advance SP’s by themselves, not counting the rest of the toys.
Really impressive, and they aren’t making nearly as big a deal out of it as they should.