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Child's Play Charity Auction, year 2
I actually launched my blog (separate from the news feeds) one year ago right after the first Child's Play Charity Auction.

Last night, we attended the second.

This one was even bigger than the last. More people. And definitely more high rollers. The word is out!

We arrived a little late and the silent auction was already hopping. GrrlGotGame snagged a framed print from GU Comics about the Penny Arcade duo's spat with Jack Thompson, and I made a bid for the framed and signed set of covers from the first four issues of The Escapist.

John Tynes, who writes The Contrarian for The Escapist, approached me afterward to ask why I had swiped his prize. Turns out he was the only bidder for it up until then, and I literally scribbled mine down in the final seconds before they closed the auction. I explained simply that I aspire to write for The Escapist (or at least at that caliber), and I thought that having their covers on my office wall would inspire me to focus on my goals and take my game writing to the next level. He seemed satisfied with my answer.

Inside the big live auction, things got crazy fast. The first item was a mystery box, which went for a few hundred dollars over its stated value of a cool grand. It contained a treasure trove of games, game books, collectibles and a PS2 console. This set the stage, and the majority of items that followed went for $1,000 or more. A few jumped into the $3-4K range. Then the unthinkable happened: someone bid $20,000 for an appearance in a Penny Arcade strip. As each bidder upped the ante above $5,000, the audience gasps underscored the impressiveness of the gestures. Jerry Holkins, Penny Arcade's writer, joked that the winner should have his undivided attention for a week at that price!

We actually bid up several items - including the giant Master Chief statue that used to be stationed at the entryway to the Bungie offices in Redmond - only to have each one snatched away at the last minute as it quickly priced beyond what we could afford or even stretch to cover. But, hey, we were glad to see them go since the money raised far outweighed our desire for these material objects. This evening was for the kids, and winning something nice to take home was a bonus.

That said, I would suggest that next year they expand the silent auction to offer many more small but unique items and fewer large bundles so that everyday folks like us have a better chance of walking away with something and contributing to the evening's fundraising total. I was a little surprised there were no Xbox 360 faceplates in either auction, just a 360 console and a few signed games. We should have been swimming in them!

Even though we won a couple very nice collectibles and contributed a few hundred bucks through our tickets and bids, we spent far less than we anticipated. So I'm about to head over to Child's Play to buy some more toys and gifts for the kids. I know that Children's Hospital in our hometown of Seattle is quite well taken care of: they raised nearly $90,000 for them last night, up from about $17,000 the first year. So I'm going make my donations to the Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C., which helped me out years and years ago when I was a kid.

--Gamewatcher