In the past four years, Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity has raked in the kind of money that can only be visualized as a gargantuan, green pile of bills. This year, however, marks a special milestone -- $1,000,000. That's when people look up, alarms sound and bloggers put down their lassos of lethargy. It's a really big pile, one worthy of a spirited round of applause.

To be exact, $1,024,400.31 went towards children who find themselves trapped in deliberately uninteresting hospital hallways. Books, toys, video games and consoles are just some of the items purchased through Amazon wishlists this year. The annual Penny Arcade auction dinner contributed a tidy $210,000, with an appearance in an upcoming comic strip fetching $10,000 at the event.

Other items of interest at the dinner auction:

• A Halo 3 voice-over opportunity called for $9,000.
• A DS and Wii package signed by Reggie? $3,700.
• A tour of Penny Arcade HQ sold for $2,700.
• An Xbox 360 signed by J. Allard went for $1,200.
  

Well done, Penny Arcade, and kudos to the classy human beings who contributed to their efforts.

(So, two million next year, right?)

[Update: This raffle is closed. Congrats to winner #45!]

One final charity raffle to finish off '06 in style. We're going to be raffling a bundle including a copy of the IGF-nominated Bone: The Great Cow Race signed by the game's developers, copies of Jeff Smith's first two Bone books, Out From Boneville and The Great Cow Race signed by Mr. Smith himself, and downloadable codes for the Director's Cuts of both of Telltale's Bone episodes!

The rules: each dollar in donations purchased using this link earns you one comment. Think of each comment as a raffle ticket. In three days (11:59pm EST this Monday), we'll choose our winner using random.org and verify their donation. More on the rules here.

We'd like to thank both Telltale for the great prizes (and for being an official Child's Play sponsor in the first place!) and Jeff Smith for the autographed books!

[Update: This raffle is closed! Congratulations to winners #52, #92, #154, #15, and #146!]

Even though the exceedingly generous people at Telltale Games are already official sponsors of the Child's Play charity, that didn't stop them from offering us some incredible prizes for our raffle, beginning with these Sam & Max items:

• A large Sam & Max Crossbones t-shirt
• A Sam & Max sketchbook signed by Steve Purcell

But that's not all. It wouldn't be much of a Sam & Max themed prize if you couldn't actually play Sam & Max! So GameTap has graciously offered us five 3-month subscriptions which, if you wait just a little bit and time it just right, will get you through the end of the premier season of episodic gaming's favorite freelance police. Or, if you're impatient, fire it up just in time for the GameTap premiere of Sam & Max Episode 2: Situation: Comedy on December 21. One lucky gamer gets the Telltale prizes and a 3-month GameTap code, leaving four codes left for the runners-up!

The rules: each dollar in donations purchased using this link earns you one comment. Think of each comment as a raffle ticket. In three days (11:59pm EST this Thursday), we'll choose our winners using random.org and verify their donation. More on the rules here.

We'd like to thank both Telltale for the great prizes (and for being an official Child's Play sponsor in the first place!) and Game Tap for the free subscriptions. We'd also like to encourage anyone interested in donating fun charity raffle prizes to contact us!

[Update: This raffle is closed! Congratulations to winner #4!]

When Capcom shuttered Clover Studio this past October, the gaming world lost one of the industry's most consistently creative studios. This fall, their final two titles were released for the PlayStation 2: the beautiful Okami and the slapstick brawler God Hand. If you somehow missed 'em (both of them? Really?) now's your chance to rectify that oversight by entering our Child's Play raffle!

The rules: each dollar in donations purchased using this link earns you one comment. Think of each comment as a raffle ticket. In three days (11:59 EST this Tuesday), we'll choose our winners using random.org and verify their donation. More on the rules here.

We'd like to thank Capcom for the games, and encourage anyone interested in donating raffle prizes to contact us!

We've chosen three random winners for our Neuros Recorder 2 and PSP bundle raffle using random.org. Donation #279 wins the grand prize, while #356 and #685 each win a Neuros Recorder2 unit! We'd like to thank everyone for donating nearly $800 to this raffle and especially thank Neuros for the generous gifts. If you're upset you didn't score one for yourself, Amazon is selling the Neuros Recorder2 for $99.99, 23% off its list price ... and it ships for free!

If you've been hesitant to enter one of our raffles, or confused by the process, check out the comments on this one for an example of how it's done. A reminder for everyone -- especially those donating more than $1 (which was almost everyone!) -- make sure you leave one comment for every dollar donated and make sure you activate your comments. When you leave a comment, you'll get an email confirmation. Your comment will not appear on the site until you activate it through that confirmation.

Buy an Xbox Live Arcade GameStick bundle raffle ticket
[Update: This raffle is closed! Congratulations to winners #89 and #173!]

The Child's Play raffle continues! Remember, you've only got one more day to purchase a ticket for the Neuros Recorder 2/PSP bundle. Tonight, we've got two identical bundles for two charitable folks that include a Mad Catz Xbox 360 Arcade GameStick and a total of fourteen Xbox Live Arcade games. Think of it as the perfect Xbox Live Arcade starter pack that you're twice as likely to win!

Included with the Mad Catz Xbox 360 Arcade GameStick [$50]:

• Frogger
• Time Pilot
• Astropop

Included in the Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged collection[$40]:

• Bejeweled 2
• Geometry Wars
• Wik: Fable of Souls
• Hardwood Backgammon
• Outpost Kaloki X
• Texas Hold'em Poker

Additional downloadable codes [4500 points]:

• Small Arms [800 points]
  
• Assault Heroes [800 points]
  
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 [800 points]
  
• Lumines Live! [1200 points]
  
• Contra [400 points]
• 500 MS points -- we've only got one of these, so the first winner gets it!
  

The rules: each dollar in donations purchased using this link earns you one comment. Think of each comment as a raffle ticket. In three days (11:59pm EST this Sunday), we'll choose our winners using random.org and verify their donation. More on the rules here.

We'd like to thank both Mad Catz for the Xbox 360 Arcade GameSticks and Microsoft for the additional games, and encourage anyone interested in donating fun charity raffle prizes to contact us!

[Update: Winners have been chosen for both versions. Congrats #11 and #26!]

In case you're still not sure how this Child's Play raffle process works, check out the comments donations on our first raffle post for a Neuros Recorder 2 bundled with a PSP and some games. Thanks to everyone for donating to a great cause and helping to raise over $400 already! Tonight, we're going to start the raffle for 2K's Family Guy video game, available in both Xbox and PS2 varieties. (Unsure Xbox 360 owners can safely assume the title will be supported shortly after appearing for a brief second on an updated backwards compatibility list yesterday).

The rules: each dollar in donations purchased using this link earns you one comment. Think of each comment as a raffle ticket. Be sure to note in your donation comment which version of the game would be your first choice. In three days (midnight EST this Saturday), we'll choose our winners using random.org and verify their donation. More on the rules here.

We'd like to thank 2K for the games, and encourage anyone interested in donating raffle prizes to contact us!

Buy Family Guy game raffle ticket

[Update: We've chosen three random winners using random.org. Donation #279 wins the grand prize, while #356 and #685 each win a Neuros Recorder2 unit! We'd like to thank everyone for donating nearly $800 for this raffle and especially thank Neuros for the generous gifts. If you're upset you didn't score one for yourself, Amazon is selling the Neuros Recorder2 for $99.99, 23% off its list price ... and it ships for free!]

The nice folks at Neuros have donated not only three Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2 models to give away, but a PSP to go along for one lucky winner. What's a Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2? It's a "mini digital VCR" that will record PSP-compatible video from your television directly to a Memory Stick. To further sweeten that pot, we'll add a couple of PSP games to that grand prize.

Grand prize (valued at $400):

• One Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2 [$130]
  
• One PSP handheld [$200]
  
• Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony (courtesy of 2K games) [$40]
  
• Power Stone Collection (courtesy of Capcom) [$30]
  

Two runners-up

• One Neuros MPEG4 Recorder 2 [$130]
  

The rules: each dollar in donations purchased using this link earns you one comment. Think of each comment as a raffle ticket. In three days(midnight EST this Friday), we'll choose our winners using random.org and verify their donation. More on the rules here.

Buy Neuros/PSP bundle raffle tickets

Now in its fourth year, you've no doubt heard of Child's Play, the charity started by the guys behind Penny Arcade to get toys and games to sick kids in hospitals. Here at Joystiq, we get sent a lot of stuff that, as a rule, we don't keep. So we've decided to do what we can to help out this holiday season. Here's where Child's Play comes in. We're going to raffle off items from our considerable bounty of swag as well as special prizes that have been donated or purchased especially for this raffle. If you represent a company and you'd like to donate prizes for the raffle, please contact us!

Here's how it's going to work:

• We'll be running posts for the rest of December tagged raffle06 with an item or group of items to give away
• To enter the raffle for that item, follow the post's PayPal link and donate at least $1 to the Child's Play charity
• This donation is your raffle ticket. Each dollar donated earns you one comment so, if you donate $10 for that item, feel free to comment ten times. A reminder: we do not handle the money at all, it goes directly to Child's Play (note the PayPal email address linked in the raffle posts).
  
• You will need to donate for each raffle you want to enter
• When we select a winner for each giveaway randomly with random.org, we'll ask them to forward their PayPal confirmation email to us so we can verify with the Child's Play people before awarding a prize
• Shipping may take up to three weeks, so please be patient!

Why all the trouble? Look, we know some clever cheapskate is going to try to game the system, leave comments without making a donation or leave twenty and try to squeak by with a single dollar donation, so we're going to try to make it as reliable as possible. Any suggestions? Leave your comments here and not in the raffle posts!

[Update: Added some clarifications regarding our handling of the money and the duration of the raffle. Thanks for the feedback!]