iGames and NVIDIA Announce Winners of Charity Fundraiser for Get-Well Gamers Foundation
One-Month Campaign Raises over $25K in Cash and Product Donations
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Top 3 Centers to Receive Flat Panel Monitors,
Speakers and Other Great Gear
Mountain View and Santa Cruz, CA, May 31
2006 - iGames, the world's premiere game center
organization, and NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the
worldwide leader in programmable graphics processing
technologies, today announced the winners of their first-ever
month-long charity ladder, which was held from March 10th
through April 30th at 300 iGames and NVIDIA Game Center
Alliance member centers across North America, to benefit the
Get-Well Gamers Foundation, a California-based public charity
dedicated to bringing electronic entertainment to children in
healthcare facilities.
In total, the campaign raised over $25,000 in cash and
product donations, and enabled thousands of gamers to serve
others in their community with the same enthusiasm and sense
of competition they bring to their favorite videogames.
Working on a ladder model, the campaign assigned points to a
broad range of social activities, including donating used
videogames and videogame systems, making cash donations,
posting the Get-Well Gamers banner on their center's Website,
volunteering at local hospitals, and signing up new hospitals
to the Get-Well Gamers Foundation's rapidly growing
network.
THE WINNERS:
1st Place:
CyberHub (www.thecyberhub.com)
Levittown, PA
45,182 points
Prizes: 15 NEC Flat Panel Monitors, 15 Pro Media GMX 2.1
Speakers, 15 Ben
Q Keyboards
Owner: Troy Harris
2nd Place:
X-Force Gamez (www.xforcegamez.com)
Tampa, FL
34,171 points
Prizes: 2 NEC Flat Panel Monitors, 7 Pro Media GMX 2.1
Speakers, 10 Ben Q
Keyboards
Owner: Terry Atkins
3rd Place:
LANtasticEXTREME (www.lantasticextreme.com)
Millersville, MD
13,807 points
Prizes: Steering Wheels (Momo Style racing), 1 Joy
Stick
Owner: James McConnell
HONORABLE MENTION:
Strike Zone Gaming (www.strikezonegaming.com)
Fenton, MI
w00tz! Games (www.w00tzgames.com)
Louisville, KY
"As with the more than 200 events we host every year,
competition was intense," said Mark Nielsen, Executive
Director of iGames. "We knew that our gamers have a strong
sense of community and center loyalty, but we had no idea
just how strong it was until we started seeing the
preliminary numbers for the campaign."
"We have done fundraising campaigns before, but nothing of
scope and magnitude, with such an overwhelmingly positive
response," said Ryan Sharpe, President of the Get-Well Gamers
Foundation. "We cannot thank iGames and NVIDIA enough for
organizing this initiative and the game centers and their
patrons for their incredible commitment."
"We are proud to have been able to work with iGames and
Get-Well Gamers on this campaign," said Phil Scholz, NVIDIA
Consumer Marketing Programs Manager. "And it is with the
utmost respect and gratitude that we award the prizes to the
top 3 centers. Their efforts, and the efforts of all the
iGames centers who participated, were above and beyond even
our most optimistic expectations."
The prizes come courtesy of NVIDIA's Tradeshow and Events
Team. This high-quality equipment was used at NVIDIA-attended
tradeshows in the past couple of years and NVIDIA is happy to
pass the torch to its game center partners.
To find out how you can get involved in the Get-Well Gamers
Foundation, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please
contact Get-Well Gamers directly at getwellgamers@gmail.com or (714) 293-8480. You can
also visit them online and make a PayPal contribution at
www.get-well-gamers.org. For more
information on this and other iGames events, including
sign-up details or to locate an iGames center near you, visit
www.igames.org or contact the iGames events team
at events@igames.org.
About iGames
iGames, Inc. offers a wide range of services to help
independent and franchised game centers. iGames' mission is
to promote and develop the growth of the game center
industry. Its services unite game centers with the goal of
establishing them as the driving force enabling the
interactive entertainment industry to become the number one
form of entertainment around the world. iGames has
established strong relationships with industry leaders to
provide a wide variety of products, services and programs to
member game centers and gamers including software licensing,
hardware discounts, exclusive game premiers, tournaments, and
leagues. Today the company counts well over 500 centers and
1.2 million gamers, initiating and co-organizing more than
200 events a year. To learn more about iGames, go to www.igames.org.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA Corporation is the worldwide leader in programmable
graphics processor technologies. The Company creates
innovative, industry-changing products for computing,
consumer electronics, and mobile devices. NVIDIA is
headquartered in Santa Clara, CA and has offices throughout
Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit
www.nvidia.com.
About Get Well Gamers:
The Get-Well Gamers Foundation is a California-based 501®
(3)-certified public charity dedicated to bringing electronic
entertainment to children's hospitals for the benefit of
entertainment and pain management since 2001. To date, the
Get-Well Gamers Foundation counts 32 medical facilities in 19
states as members. For more information, and to find out how
you can get involved, please visit www.get-well-gamers.org.
# # #
Press Contact:
Bill Lessard
iGames
(914) 476-6089
wlessard@igames.org