We all know how popular and successful the various Humble Indie Bundles have been. For a ludicrously small amount of money, gamers purchased multiple games with no DRM or strings attached. The Corona Indie Bundle is doing something similar, but the five games it’s offering are for iOS and Android devices. Also, instead of making a donation of your choice, you get everything for $0.99.

Many people from the videogame industry, whether they’re on the development side or not, are doing what they can to assist Japan in these troubling times. All this week, proceeds from many games are being donated to aid in the recovery effort. Yesterday, we told you about auctions for two Nintendo DS consoles autographed by industry icons. The current bid for one of these units has exceeded $2,500. Every dime earned from these auctions are being donated. Today (March 19, 2011), we’d like to tell you about a site called Play For Japan that also puts rare gaming items up for bids.

Dear company heads,

Over the past few days, we’ve seen a lot of organizations doing things to help with the relief efforts in Japan. Most of these companies are donating the money they earn from their products to the proper venues. This is to be admired because their products would have been purchased anyway. They say they want to help, and they do so with no strings attached. That’s why I’m so disappointed when other companies hold their donations for ransom.

I think I’m starting to understand where a lot of Microsoft’s $500 million Kinect marketing budget is going. Microsoft is providing a boatload of free Kinect merchandise to the public. Oprah gave away Kinect bundles to her entire studio audience about a week and a half ago, Burger King is giving out Kinect bundles every 15 minutes and now Boys & Girls Clubs around the country will get Kinect on the house.

Memorial Day weekend is here. I’m sure a lot of us will be kissing work goodbye and filling the void with more barbecue than we’d like to admit. Before you start off the festivities, you should know that Activision is doing its part in giving back to veterans. The Call of Duty Endowment is a non profit organization that helps returning veterans get back on their feet and find careers.

The story about Christians Children’s Fund refusual to accept a charitable donation from Gen Con because of Gen Con’s relationship to Dungeons & Dragons has resulted in some bad publicity for CCF. Gen Con has decided to clear up this issue once and for all.

Jeannette LeGault, the Director of Event Planning for Gen Con wrote a lengthy statement on the Gen Con forums explaining that CCF did not refuse the donation. Gen Con simply chose another charity after some confusion arose. Here’s the breakdown of the incident…

In the memory of beloved Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax who passed away earlier this year, patrons of the 2008 GenCon, held on August 15, 2008, raised donations of $17,380 according to Live Game Auctions. That’s an astounding amount to say the least. In fact, the previous 2007 GenCon raised $9802, which is still nothing to sneeze at.

Each year the convention donates the money to a charity with last year’s being Christel House International. This year, the charity chosen to receive the donation was Gary Gygax’s own personal favorite, the Christian Children’s Foundation. Sadly, the foundation decided to refuse the donation from the convention which instead…

Cheap Ass Gamer wants all gamers to remember that, while they are spending hours upon hours fragging your friends on Xbox Live or the PS3 Network, the tens of thousands of America’s brave men and women are overseas defending our freedoms on a daily bases in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

In an effort to show its appreciation to these men and women, CAG has organized a collection of used and unwanted video games that they will be sending out to U.S. troops around the world. They do ask that…

Score Hero – is that ver. two? Or eleven? I say they change it to Score Hero 2000: The Reckoning after hearing that GuitarHero developer, Harmonix, donated $2,000 towards upgrading their servers. Said Harmonix prez, Alex Rigopulos on the Score Hero forums: “Hey everyone, I just kicked in a big donation on behalf of the more »