Used Games Help Sick Children

Logan Westbrook

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Feb 21, 2008
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Used Games Help Sick Children


A new charity provides gamers with both a place to get cheap used games and to help children suffering from rare diseases.

The charity, called Donate Games [http://www.donategames.org/index.html], asks gamers to do exactly that, donate their old games to the charity. In return, gamers get a tax deductable receipt equal to, or greater than the trade-in value at a retail outlet. The charity will then sell those games to other gamers and the money raised will go to helping sick children.

Donate Games is the brainchild of Jim Carol, whose son Taylor was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and benefitted from Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity while receiving treatment in Seattle. As he watched videogames help Taylor get better, Carol was convinced of the power of games to do good. The idea for Donate Games came to Carol quite suddenly, as he explains in the press release officially announcing the launch of Donate Games:


"Suddenly, many things became clear. Taking our own experiences with our son Taylor and our new knowledge of game donations, we saw an opportunity for video games to do good once again, now in a completely different way.

'Why isn't there a charity that recycles used video games, reselling those games online to help the millions of sufferers of orphan diseases, fighting alone in these hospitals around the world?'

We couldn't find a single reason why not, so we created that charity ourselves."
Donate Games is focusing its efforts on children suffering from so-called 'orphan diseases' [http://www.donategames.org/stories.html], rare conditions, often genetic in nature, that affect only a tiny fraction of the population. It's still early days for the charity, and they don't yet have any games available for sale, but if the heavyweight partners [http://www.donategames.org/partners.html] are anything to go by, they'll have the staying power to get their shelves stocked.

If you're anything like me, you have a large stack of games that are doing nothing but gathering dust, and this seems like a pretty good use for something you're only keeping for nostalgia's sake.

Source: Game Politics [http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/03/01/used-games-will-help-new-charity-fight-rare-diseases]



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ElArabDeMagnifico

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Dec 20, 2007
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Is there a rating limit to games that we can donate? Platform limit? I've "retired" a lot of games, I see no reason to not donate them either.
 

Logan Westbrook

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ElArabDeMagnifico said:
Is there a rating limit to games that we can donate? Platform limit? I've "retired" a lot of games, I see no reason to not donate them either.
I've been poking around the site and I haven't seen any sort of limit on the games you can send them.
 

ElephantGuts

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Tax-deductible? Sick children? Rare diseases? Too bad I never trade in any of my old games. I have a huge collection, which actually has more to do with me being too lasy to turn them in than actually wanting to collect them.
 

Logan Westbrook

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zombiepandaman said:
ElArabDeMagnifico said:
Is there a rating limit to games that we can donate? Platform limit? I've "retired" a lot of games, I see no reason to not donate them either.
It would be funny to donate M rated games to the sick children. "Here sonny how about Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. It still has the coffee mod if you know what I mean".
The sick kids don't actually get the games. They are sold and the money goes to research.


ElephantGuts said:
Tax-deductible? Sick children? Rare diseases? Too bad I never trade in any of my old games. I have a huge collection, which actually has more to do with me being too lasy to turn them in than actually wanting to collect them.
You can send them by mail. They'll even help with the postage costs if they are especially large.
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

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Alright, thanks for the info. Nil, I look forward to cleaning up my collection without having to go through the slow process of e-bay. I don't care if I get money, I've sold enough things on there.
 

Logan Westbrook

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ElArabDeMagnifico said:
Alright, thanks for the info. Nil, I look forward to cleaning up my collection without having to go through the slow process of e-bay. I don't care if I get money, I've sold enough things on there.
Glad to help! :)
 

ChocoFace

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Nov 19, 2008
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Videogames indeed do wonders for kids.( PS: i do realize they won't be playing them but still. )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVmfIUR1DA

But on a more serious note, this is a great idea.
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

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Alright, I've compiled a list of games to sell, I will do this on Saturday. Which is after the watchmen movie comes out. That is when I will have time to do this.
 

reaper_2k9

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The only things that I own the work is my dreamcast and n64 and I don't know that they would want that.
 

Radelaide

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+1 Karma per game?

It's nice to see that there are still nice things like this in the world :)
 

Shadow Law

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I find it very hard to send expensive things through the US mail but I'll give this one a try, I can't wait to see what games they will get to have on sale.