City of Heroes HeroCon spawns Real World Heroes

City of Heroes players are decent people, as evidenced by a charity they helped create called Real World Heroes. This six week charity drive will help raise funds for three organizations dedicated to real world heroes and heroic and lofty causes. The charity will also get the support of NCsoft, who will help promote its efforts with the City of Heroes MMO. The idea for a charity drive was conceived by Joel and Karen Garcia, long-time City of Heroes players, after attending the HeroCon 2009 fan event hosted by NCsoft and Paragon Studios, the development studios behind the game.

The charities getting the proceeds from this drive include Child’s Play (an organization created by Penny Arcade creators Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins donates toys, games, books, and cash for sick children in hospitals across the U.S. and the world), Donate Games (a charity dedicated to funding research and support for children with “orphan” diseases) and Operation Gratitude (a charity dedicated to sending 100,000 care packages annually filled with snacks, entertainment items and letters of appreciation to U.S. Service Members deployed in hostile regions).

This time of the year is particularly important to charities around the world because it is when people tend to be the most generous and giving. As gamers, we should show the world that are hearts are as big as our dedication is to playing games. I encourage you to check out www.RealWorldHero.com, see the great work they are doing, and get involved.

UMLOUD! A Rock Band Night for Child’s Play

Harmonix has teamed up with Penny Arcade’s Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik for ÜMLOUD!, a special Rock Band Night for the Child’s Play charity. Child’s Play is a charity that supports the National Children’s Hospital Organization by giving money, toys, games and gaming hardware to hospitals where children are going through often life threatening and difficult medical problems. Ümloud! is an annual fundraiser event for Child’s Play Charity, a “gamers’ charity” started by Penny Arcade’s Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik that provides toys and games to Children’s Hospitals around the country, including Oakland Children’s Hospital.

The spiritual-successor to last year’s successful Fünde Razor, and hosted by Chris Kohler (Wired), Joe Markert (Gamehelper), and John “Seg” Seggerson (Telltale Games), Ümloud! will hit the DNA Lounge in San Francisco, California on December 9th, and feature a full-blown Rock Band 2 main stage set up courtesy of Harmonix Music Systems, where Rock Band bands can rock out in the name of charity.

Doors open at the DNA Lounge at 7:00pm and the party will rage until 2:00am. There is a suggested donation of $10.00 (but you should give more if you can)upon entry to the event, and all attendees will be entered into a raffle that will go on throughout the night offering amazing prizes and limited edition gaming swag, courtesy of participating sponsors. You can sign your band up for either the Ultimate Band Package for $120.00 or the Standard Band Package for $40.00. If you are going to be in the San Francisco area, go and join the fun, be entered to win some totally awesome prizes and help raise money for a good cause.

Camarilla donates $10K to Get-Well Gamers Foundation

I need a good story to purge all this No Russian talk from my soul, and this story about the Get Well Gamers Foundation is just the right thing! The Get-Well Gamers Foundation, a California-based public charity dedicated to bringing electronic entertainment to children in healthcare facilities, has received a $10,000 donation from the Camarilla, the official fan club of White Wolf Publishing, a division of CCP, best known for the popular Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Requiem and the World of Darkness role-playing franchises.

This wonderful donation was raised by the group’s Halloween weekend during the International Camarilla Convention (ICC). ICC is White Wolf’s annual fan event, held this year in White Wolf’s hometown of Atlanta, GA. (Oct. 29-31). In addition to panels, gallery exhibitions, contests and other surprises, the event also offered the thousands of horror fans in attendance the opportunity to participate in charitable auctions, poker tournaments, raffles and other activities - the proceeds of which went to charity.

“This is unprecedented,” said Ryan Sharpe, President of the Get-Well Gamers Foundation. “Last year, the Camarilla donated $4,000. And here, a year later, with the national unemployment rate skyrocketing, they raised even more. That’s a wonderful tribute to the public spiritedness of the community, which has also supported women’s shelters, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and other worthy causes. We cannot thank the Cam and the good folks at White Wolf and CCP enough for their generosity.”

The Get-Well Gamers Foundation accepts console games and equipment as well as hand-held systems and the games supported by these platforms. To make a tax-deductible donation or to recommend a treatment facility that needs the charity’s special help, visit www.get-well-gamers.org. With the holiday season fast approaching, now is a great time to give to those in need.

One The Beatles Rock Band Xbox 360 nets $17K for charity

The worldwide Xbox Live community and gamers in general have big hearts, so it comes as no suprise that a recent charity auction involving one special edition The Beatles Rock Band Xbox 360 console brought in an incredible final bid of over $17,000.

The rare Xbox 360 console featuring illustrations from the cinematic intro to The Beatles: Rock Band attracted more than 110 bids on eBay from around the globe, finally raising $17,300 for the Doctors Without Borders charity in its 10 day online auction. With $17,300 raised from the auction of the first limited edition Xbox 360 console, Doctors Without Borders will be able to purchase the equipment needed to carry out 86,500 immunizations using auto-disposable syringes, or purchase enough emergency kits (drugs and medical supplies) to meet the basic needs of more than 2,800 people for 15 days in the aftermath of a disaster.

Only a small number of these numbered, Beatles-themed Xbox 360 consoles will ever be available to the public with all proceeds to benefit Doctors Without Borders. Information on the release of the remaining limited edition consoles in regions worldwide is coming soon to www.xbox.com/thebeatlesrockband.

Xbox 360 sales of the exclusive All You Need Is Love track broke records as the fastest selling downloadable song in Rock Band history within two days of its availability, according to Microsoft. Proceeds from All You Need Is Love sales will continue to benefit the charity, which was personally selected by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison.

As a bonus, continuing through Dec. 9, 2009, players who purchase and download the All You Need Is Love track for 160 Microsoft Points for charity will also be registered for the The Beatles: Rock Band Download & Win for a chance to win one of the limited edition The Beatles: Rock Band Xbox 360 consoles and a Rickenbacker 325 replica guitar controller. Head on over to xbox.com/tbrbsweep to find out how you can be eligible to be one of five potential grand prize winners.

Like I said, we’re good people.

Ubisoft founder to be named 2009 ESA Champion

He will not get a title belt though, but maybe a nice plaque. The ESA Foundation will honor Yves Guillemot, chairman and chief executive officer of Ubisoft, as the 2009 ESA Champion at this year’s Nite to Unite for Kids event. The annual black-tie gala will take place on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 and recognize Guillemot while raising money for the foundation’s work on behalf of children.

In 1986, Guillemot saw the potential of entertainment software and collaborated with his four brothers to create Ubisoft. More than two decades later, Yves’ business acumen has put Ubisoft into athe position of an entertainment software industry leader. Today, the company is the fourth largest independent publisher in the U.S. and the creator of such hits as Assassin’s Creed , Prince of Persia, Rayman, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon.

Guillemot joins a distinguished list of entertainment software luminaries including George Lucas, Dan DeMatteo; Electronic Arts’ Bing Gordon; Toys ‘R Us’ Michael Goldstein; Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and Howard Lincoln; Sega’s Isao Ogawa; Sony Computer Entertainment’s Ken Kutaragi and Electronic Boutique’s Jeffery Griffiths.

The 2009 Nite to Unite for Kids is open to everyone with tickets costing $500 each. Table sponsorships are also available. For ticket information call 800-949-3660.

Fergie Jenkins, GameCampus team up for charity

GamesCampus has inked a partnership with Baseball Hall of Fame and Cy Young Award winning pitcher, Fergie Jenkins and the Fergie Jenkins Foundation to raise awareness and funds for hundreds of Children’s Charities across North America. GamesCampus will promote the Fergie Jenkins Foundation’s slate of charities through its lineup of online sports games.

Fergie Jenkins, Cy Young Award winning Pitcher and Founder of the Fergie Jenkins Foundation, was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991. Following thirteen seasons as a successful MLB pitcher, Fergie now focuses his energy on running The Fergie Jenkins Foundation that works to raise funds to help support hundreds of local charities for children throughout the United States and Canada, including the American Cancer Society, Cooperstown Youth Baseball, Harlem Little League, Juvenile Diabetes Research, South Suburban College Foundation, Special Olympics, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Canada, Muscular Dystrophy, Habitat for Humanity and hundreds more.

GamesCampus and the Fergie Jenkins Foundation will work together to promote and raise money for the hundreds of charities served by the foundation. The companies will partner on in-game advertisements and events, as well as offline events. In addition, Fergie Jenkins will be the first fully-modeled and motion captured MLB player to appear in the Gamescampus’s online baseball game.

For more information about The Fergie Jenkins Foundation including a complete list of the charities it supports, visit www.fergiejenkinsfoundation.org.

Sony Online Promotion Raises $20k for Charity

If you read the news here regularly, you might remember that back in January, we reported on Sony Online’s fundraising efforts for the Child’s Play charity. By buying certain specific Child’s Play in-game items in EverQuest and EverQuest II with Station Cash, Sony would donate $10 to the Child’s Play charity per item. Well, the month long promotion has officially come to a close and the totals have been tallied. So how much did gamers raise coming together for the sake of a good cause? In a statement released this week, Sony Online Entertainment announced that its Child’s Play 2009 Winter Charity Drive ended up raising more than $20,000 to the Child’s Play charity.

“The ability of our players to make a donation of this magnitude in these tough economic times is beyond anything we could have hoped for,” said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. “As we continue to diversify with programs like Station Cash we will be able to offer unique items that benefit not only our players, but other partnerships and organizations such as Child’s Play in this case.”

Founded in 2003, Child’s Play is a game industry charity that is dedicated to providing children with toys and age-appropriate games at more than 40 hospitals worldwide.