Penny Arcade's Child's Play Charity Drive Has Begun

Games aren't always directed straight at the young, and video games are no exception. If anything, the age ratings prove this. But that doesn't mean that titles and children aren't strongly rooted together, and, as part of the family, video games come to share their load of the weight. The holidays are coming up, and it's time for video games to give something back to the kids. The Penny Arcade charity drive was officially set in motion today and anyone can give a helping hand to children's hospitals all over the world.

To mend their public image as emotional icicles, gamers can take advance of the 2009 Child's Play charity and head over to the official Child's Play website and choose to leave a little something extra for the little ones in their Christmas stockings. Of course, anyone can take the opportunity to donate.

The site will lead them to a map from where one can choose a hospital from various locations around the world. There, they'll find the hospital's Amazon wish list, where all sorts of donation items are available for purchase. If one feels they don't need anything in return for their kind gesture except for the quest experience, they can choose to donate the sum directly via PayPal.

The charity seems to have already kick-started with a nice donation fund, as sponsorships from various organizations have already managed to rake up over $250,000. This sum is the money collected by the 2009 Child's Play even before the public began to chip in on the piggy-bank.

It seems like there are a lot of wealthy people out there that are glad to be out of the financial tight spot and feel like they should give some of that joy back. The charity was started back in 2003 by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, the founders of the Penny Arcade webcomic, and tries to improve the lives of sick children everywhere.