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Child's Play Charity Dinner Results

Every year we donate something or some things to Penny Arcade's Child's Play Charity dinner in Seattle, and this week was no different. Child's Play is a charity that gets video games and toys into Children’s Hospitals across the world (but mostly North America).  This year we tried to trump ourselves a bit.  I'd like to list what we gave, how much it went for, and thank the people who made each part possible.

HMX Microwave
We know it, we loved it; it cooked our food for us some times.  Then it ended up on the table near the entrance at Harmonix and people just started signing it. Once it was all tagged up we were told to take it up to the community pit.  Since we have no use for a microwave that doesn't work we decided to fill it with all sorts of awesome stuff, toss a letter of authenticity on it and give it to the charity auction.  I'd like to thank everyone who signed it, all the bands who donated their CDs, whoever left it on the tabletop near some pens, and Kat for having to pack and ship it (pretty much an all day task when it came right down to it).  Also thanks to Kurt who didn't throw out the microwave so all this could happen. 

John and I didn't have high expectations for this item.  We kind of thought it wouldn't go very well (in fact in the auction book the microwave was listed as Lot Item #110 with a value of "about $6 or something, we don't know").  Luckily the waiters were plying people with wine and the microwave was one of the last items.  Bidding started at $200 - 50 hands shot up.  It didn't really slow down until around $1500 with multiple people in the bid.  The final price?  $1800.  Alcohol rules. 

John Dee Original Fender Acoustic Case
This was originally going to be a regular acoustic case filled with stuff until Maria, Kat and Emily concocted and idea to get John Dee to paint it up.  You may have seen him out in the Freq Pit painting it.  It was really beautiful.  Getting the case signed by the whole company didn't hurt either.  When we dropped this off at the dinner they were so impressed.  It immediately went from a silent auction item (which was planned) to a live auction item. I believe they started the bidding on this one for about $200 and again about 50 hands went up.

This bid moved a little slower (because people were a little drunker), but it came down to two people who really wanted it.  John and I sat there hoping it would go for a higher price than the microwave if only so John Dee wouldn't be sad.  Luckily, John Dee can wear a big smile on his face.  It went for $1900. 

A Really Big Check
As the auction wrapped up we were called to the stage with a final present to Child's Play.  Back in August we put out a PAX Pack for DLC of musicians who were playing at the Penny Arcade Expo.  The idea was that Harmonix's portion of the proceeds would go to Child's Play.  This took some hard work.  Heather and Eric worked really hard to get the tracks and work with the bands and licensing and our award winning audio team got the tracks done in time for PAX . 

Senior management at both Harmonix and MTV Games got it approved in record time.  On Friday we got the numbers for the pack and came up with a number we would be able to donate and quickly created the SICKEST OVERSIZED CHECK EVER. It's seriously the best and made us look totally awesome. After all the items were auctioned off they called us to the stage to present the check.  We jumped up, said how proud Harmonix was to be part of this, and then turned the check around so the surprise amount could be seen.

$30,000.00 

Thirty-thousand dollars.  That's going to buy a lot of toys and games for the hospitals and I couldn't feel more proud.  They were really happy and surprised.  I think we also may have pushed them over their record amount for the annual charity dinner!