WoWathon For Child’s Play

Scene from Wowathon 2 in 2010

The third annual WoWathon starts this week. What is that you say? A group of World of Warcraft players will be playing a marathon, leveling two new toons non-stop all the way to 85, to raise money for Child’s Play.

Inspired three years ago by a charity Mario Marathon, this group of students and friends from Southern California will once again be playing in shifts and broadcasting their journey as they have fun and share their experiences with others in the hopes of inspiring people to donate to bring a little cheer to hospitalized children. Together, the two previous WoWathons raised almost $14,000, and they hope to make this the best year yet.

This year’s toons will be Chyld and Playy, a druid/hunter combination, and they will be playing on the Lightbringer server. Worgen alliance toons, they will be grouping with friends and others around their same level, in order to maximize their experience gains, and will not be “power-leveled” by upper level toons. However, they do welcome people to interact with them, send messages of encouragement, and the like. You can also watch the marathon and chat with the participants through the Ustream features on their website. They do warn potential viewers and other players that there may be strong language and mature content.

Their charity, Child’s Play, was started in 2003 by the folks at Penny-Arcade. Child’s Play is run by gamers, and their goal is to provide video games, toys, and movies to children in hospitals during the Christmas holidays. Child’s Play has over 70 partner hospitals, in not just the United States but also Canada, the UK, and other locations in the world.

While the WoWathon folks were busy this past weekend getting setup for their event, Mario Marathon 4 raised over $110,000. People seem to forget things like this when they are arguing about whether or not video games are teaching kids to be violent. Maybe some of those who are wanting to regulate the sales of video games to children need to take a good look at these charity efforts and the kids affected by them.