The Childs Play charity, set up by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins (the guys behind Penny Arcade) has launched again for this year.

The basic idea is that it is a charity set up to coordinate the donation of money and gifts to childrens hospitals.

Originally started in the US, it’s now expanded to other countries, and this year is including Australia  - so far the Mater Childresn Hospital, and Sydney Childrens Hospital (although it’s not set up completely yet).

From their site:

Child’s Play is a Seattle based, gamer-run organization that holds an annual toy drive for childrens’ hospitals. Many of the gifts donated by gamers are, as you might imagine, age appropriate videogames and gaming systems - but they are by no means the only things donated. We received eager donations of coloring books, art supplies, crafts, movies, cartoons, virtually anything a young person could ask for. We asked the world-wide community of gamers, and they gave so much we had to move to larger storage facilities three separate times.

Our 2005 event raised over six hundred thousand [US] dollars in toys and cash for twenty children’s hospitals around the US and the world, putting the community’s total contribution level well over the one million dollar mark. This year, we’ve expanded Child’s Play once more, including our first hospitals in Australia and Africa.

It’s a good cause, and shows that gamers arn’t all psychopaths.