Games for Good
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Games for Good is a non-profit charitable organization which raises much-needed funds and products from within the entertainment industry and donates them to our child-centric partners. GfG was started in 1998 by a group of volunteers lead by industry veteran, Lynne Killey, who were all working in the games business and felt that our industry could and should do more, give more, and supply more. They raised money and requested that game publishers donate video and computer games to them for re-distribution to children's charities. Dinners, silent auctions and parties were thrown and an awful lot of good was done. It was the first truly altruistic effort undertaken by the industry as a whole and its success reverberated throughout the sector.
In just a few years, the small undertaking had grown too large for a volunteer staff to handle and the effort was left dormant. In the following years several other game industry charities took up the effort of supporting individual children's charities in meaningful and productive ways, but none utilizing the repository model of supporting other charities.
The IEMA (Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association), the U.S. trade association which represents the game industry's leading retailers, began receiving in three finished copies of each and every computer game manufactured due to a royalty-free licensing agreement that the association has with publishers. That agreement standardized the PC game box - reducing it from the oversized software standard, down to the now double-thick DVD size that we're all used to - and also standardized the PC CD and PC DVD icons (the small black and white logos that indicate the platform the game is created for). The IEMA has been donating the games to children's hospitals and local area charities and schools when long-time friends Lynne Killey (the founder of GfG) and Hal Halpin (the president of the IEMA) had a fateful conversation to re-start the charity.
Games for Good has been re-launched and is now being run by the IEMA's staff. In addition to asking game publishers and developers to provide the three finished copies of each PC game they make, because they must, under the terms and conditions of the trademark use, GfG is also asking for them to commit to providing three finished copies of all games they create on all platforms AND to help us with sponsorship funds. Any company that derives revenue from the games industry should be committed to giving back and there are many worthy charities to support. It is for that reason that the repository model simply works best and most efficiently.
