The 15th annual Nite to Unite - For Kids gala raised $822,000 for the ESA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Entertainment Software Association, the event's organizers announced today. The black-tie event took place last week in San Francisco, where various game industry luminaries and the media got together for a good cause. Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell was also honored at Nite to Unite as the 2012 ESA Champion Honoree. Previous honorees include Blizzard president and CEO Mike Morhaime and Star Wars franchise creator George Lucas.

While we occasionally give Electronic Arts a hard time, we also like to point out when they do good things. Last weekend "Team EA" took part in the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk in San Francisco to raise funds for the fight against breast cancer.

Double Fine front man and amateur comedian Tim Schafer will serve as the 'Master of Ceremonies' for the fourth annual Ümloud! event. Proceeds from the annual Rock Band competition that features both game developers and games journalists benefit the Child’s Play charity. Ümloud! will take place at San Francisco’s DNA Lounge on Thursday, December 6. Schafer will lend his signature sense of humor to the festivities by introducing each of the dozens of participating bands that will perform, playing Rock Band 3 set lists and peripherals.

The The Entertainment Consumers Association announced that its local chapters are working together to collect and share food in their local communities in the United States and Canada.

The ECA is also asking the gaming community to pitch in in whatever way they can by volunteering or by giving food to your local ECA chapter. You can find an ECA chapter near you by checking out this list.

The official blog for Bethesda has a short Q&A with Bethesda QA testers Joe Mueller and Jen Tonon, who are participating with other Bethesda employees on a team called "Children of Akatosh" to raise money for the Extra Life Charity.

The Twitch community has managed to raise more than $1.5 million for the Extra Life 2012 charity, which is set to see thousands of gamers partake in day-long marathon gaming sessions to earn money put up by thousands of sponsors. The fund goes to hospitals that are part of the Children’s Miracle Network.

Last month pioneer video game artist Paul H. Steed passed away. Steed's credits included the Quake and Wing Commander series. He also served as an Advisory Board member for the Game Developers Conference for a number of years. Out of respect for Steed, the Game Developers Conference Advisory Board announced the launch of a memorial fund for Paul Steed's family.

The Entertainment Software Association Foundation (a charitable arm of the Entertainment Software Association) has partnered with the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals (CMH Hospitals) to support this year's Extra Life nationwide fundraising initiative. Extra Life is a funding drive that uses thousands of gamers to get sponsorships for playing games for 24-hours. Those sponsorships go to the CMH Hospital of their choice.

We have not done the best job of promoting Extra Life this month even though it's biggest gaming event of 2012 is going to kick off on Saturday, October 20. We apologize profusely for that because they rally gamers like you and me to raise funds for sick and injured kids in children's hospitals across North America.

The AbleGamers Foundation announced this week that a permanent arcade designed specifically for gamers who have disabilities opens today. The arcade opened today at the Washington D.C. public library's main MLK branch. While the foundation has shown off its arcade concept before, it was a limited-time installation in the past. This new arcade will be a permanent fixture to the library, giving disabled gamers a place to try out games without having to worry about struggling with controls that are unusable due to their specific disabilities.

The organizers of the Humble Bundle sent along a note reminding everyone that the latest bundle, Humble Indie Bundle 6, will be done in less than 7 hours. If you haven't gotten in on the latest pay-what-you-want DRM-free bundle, the window to do so is getting very narrow at this point.

An 11-year-old girl named Victoria Walker has won a $20,000 award from AT&T for creating an app that discourages users from texting while driving. The contest was part of a promotion to generate awareness for the "It Can Wait" campaign, which reminds mobile phone users that texting while driving (distracted driving) can have deadly consequences.

This Techland report details how a New York City school teacher named Joel Levin has created a version of Minecraft for schools called MinecraftEdu. Levin teaches second-grade computer classes at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City. He also runs a Minecraft club for high school students and has been incorporating Minecraft into his classes for the past two years.

Indie Game Developers have teamed up for the Rising Star Indie Bundle, which offers five indie games for whatever you are willing to pay for them. More importantly, half the sales from this bundle will go to the Get-Well Gamers Foundation.

Voting for who UK charity GamesAid will support in 2012 ends on Sunday, September 23. The UK-based video games industry charity has named 14 charities as finalists in the running to receive support, with only one receiving a substantial stipend of cash by the end. Those GamesAid members interested in voting can do so at www.gamesaid.org.

While developers are often credited with doing their best to punish bad player behavior and cheating within their online gaming communities, it's rare that anyone gets rewarded or even acknowledged for engaging in good and often helpful behavior. Riot Games hopes to change that with a new "Honor System" for its popular MOBA game League of Legends. Below are the details from the League of Legend forums:

Relic Entertainment is auctioning off some pretty rare game-related items on Ebay to help the Canadian Cancer Society.

The money it raises from the sales of this unique memorabilia will go towards the Road Hockey to Conquer Cancer event. The event charges teams to raise $10,000. If they raise it they will be able to participate in a dawn 'til dusk hockey tournament. All the money goes directly to the charity.

The AbleGamers Foundation announced this morning that Paul Barnett, creative director for BioWare Mythic, is joining the advocacy group's Advisory Board for the Foundation. Barnett, who is colorblind himself, brings first-hand knowledge of both the gaming industry and the disability community. The group hopes that this addition to its Advisory Board will push the game accessibility movement to the next level.

The AbleGamers Foundation has released "Includification," a 48 page, fully illustrated how-to guide for videogame developers and publishers who are interested in road-mapping the exact solutions needed to design a game that is accessible to individuals with various disabilities.

On October 20th, Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward will participate in Extra Life’s 24-hour gaming marathon to help raise money for the Children's Miracle Network Hospital where kids are treated regardless of their family’s ability to cover medical costs.

Dark Souls director Hidetaka Miyazaki has hinted that the company might consider adding an easy mode - much to the chagrin of those who like the game the way it is: hard as hell.

The Kickstarter for GaymerCon closed, raising $91,389 from 1,531 backers. When organizers launched the crowd funding appeal they were looking to raise right around $25,000. Thanks to the generous support of the gaming community, North America will see its first GLBT gaming event ever August 3 - 4, 2013 in San Francisco. Details on the venue will be revealed at a later date.

Sometimes if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. When From Software couldn't fix a graphical error after a year of trying one NeoGAF user took matters into his own hands and fixed the problem - in 23 minutes! NeoGAF user Durante was able to put together his own resolution fix within 23 minutes of release, and made it available online for everyone to boot. From an Escapist report on the story comes this quote from Durante describing his fix:

We forgot to mention this yesterday: The latest Humble Bundle - Humble Bundle for Android 3 - has added four new games into the mix: Anomaly: Warzone Earth, EDGE, Osmos, and World of Goo. All four of these games were in the very first Humble Android Bundle so if you didn't get in on the ground floor of that one, consider this an official do-over. As always games in the bundle are DRM-free and you can pay what you want for them. The bonus games require a bit more of a commitment.

The official Twitter feed for the country of Sweden, @Sweden is being handled this week by Naseer Alkhouri, a game developer who describes himself as a "homeopathic swede" that "develops games for a living." Sweden has a policy of letting its citizens "guest-star" every week to speak their minds.

Microsoft is hosting the Gaming and Giving for Good (or G3) Xbox LIVE charity event on August 18, 2012 to benefit Extra Life, the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals fundraiser. By playing your favorite Xbox 360 games, you can help raise some much needed money for your local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital by gathering pledges for donations from friends and family. In support of the G3 event, Xbox LIVE is also offering a Free Gold Weekend to everyone on the weekend of August 18.

Update: We asked GaymerCon co-founder Benjamin Williams what the next stretch goal would be for the event and what organizers planned to do with the money if they manage to raise it before the deadline:

When we last checked in, the GaymerCon Kickstarter had managed to raise $28,471. Nine days later the crowd funding drive has managed to raise $48,102 from 921 backers with just 16 more days to go. GaymerCon promises to be the first "all-inclusive" fan-focused gaming event to provide a friendly, fun, and safe atmosphere for gamers and geeks to get together for two days in San Francisco (August of 2013).

The AbleGamers Foundation announced that the 2012 Children's Grant Program has launched. The program gives one child with special needs assistive technology he or she needs to play video games despite their disability.

With a little under two days of activity the Kickstarter campaign for GaymerCon has managed to raise $14,192 of its $25,000 goal from 246 backers, with 28 more days to go. As we mentioned yesterday, GaymerCon is a two-day event set to take place in August of 2013 in San Francisco.