Child’s Play Auction

I’ve always wanted to go to the Child’s Play Charity Auction, and since I’ve now moved to Seattle, it became a possibility for the first time.  Armed with several hundreds of dollars, I planned to carve out a stake for myself in gaming memorabilia and meet a few new folks.  I definitely had the chance to do the latter, and as for winning some auctions, I learned a few things.  Like that these folks are not fucking around.

The silent auction consisted of probably around a hundred lots of various items, gaming packages, paintings, often signed by the developers.  I was easily outbid in all of these, in one case by a rather intimidating ten year old girl who had staked out a pair of cthulhu plushies from the Steve Jackson game Munchkin Cthulhu.  Any bid was promply replied with by a higher bid from this sniper.  I’m pretty sure she was actually Kristin Lindsay’s daughter.

Chasened, I headed into the Live Auction, hoping to maybe pull through in that arena.  You may have seen the comic for today.

That’s not exactly how it went… exactly.  The price ended up being more around the $4500 mark.  That’s a lot for an awesome statue.  One dude paid literally ten grand to be immortalized in a Penny Arcade comic.  Another paid $4000 to be invited to the Penny Arcade office warming party.  Jerry offered to write a song about how awesome you are, and sing it at PAX.  That cost a cool $4300 as well.

Now, my personal favorite was an object you’ve probably never heard of before.  These are made by a local designer, and truely are a phenomenon.  The Sultan Gaming Table is essentially the epitome of table top gaming surfaces.  It has four player stations, each with a compartment for your books, a holder for your drinks, and a bay for your dice.  The central surface has several different acrylic sheets with hex grids or whatever that you can sandwich your maps underneath to protect them.  The whole thing is recessed so you can put leaves over top of it and eat dinner without taking apart your game.

It also doesn’t fit in your house.  I think ownership of one of those puppies contractually obligates you to build an underground lift that it will emerge out of after pulling on a candelabra, like in Goldfinger.

Overall, around 50k was raised during the live auction alone, and the night overall raised about $200,000

If you’re a gamer, and you’ve got some cash to throw around, the Child’s Play Auction is a definite must, and I think I’ll be attending a little more prepared next year.