UK-based games industry charity GamesAid announced that its GamesAid Elite initiative raised £7253.16 for Christmas via auctions of what it called the games industry’s "unwanted merchandise." One man's throw-aways are another man's treasure, right? All that old games related swag stored in cupboards by PR, marketing and sales teams working in games publishers and developers was donated to GamesAid, who in turn sold it via auctions during the holiday season.

Chuck Bittner is a quadriplegic, a comedian and an avid video game player. More importantly he is a strong advocate for disabled gamers who need the ability to use custom buttons in games because he plays a lot of them using his face. He has championed a remapping petition urging game developers and publishers to include custom button mapping in all of their biggest titles. He also wants to go to PAX East this year to further spread the important message of button remapping, but he needs your help.

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) juries have announced the Main Competition finalists for the 15th annual awards - nominating nearly 30 independent game titles from around the world. This year's finalists were picked by expert juries, following "playthroughs and recommendations" of 580+ IGF entries from over 200 top independent game experts, according to organizers.

Melbourne Australia-based indie game developer Endgame Studios is tired of the high prices that gamers in the region have to pay for video games (compared to Europe and other regions) and has decided to voice their opinion about how much they think it sucks. In a post entitled "A stand against exorbitant Aussie game prices!," the studio says that Australian gamers are asked to pay 50 - 100 percent more than American consumers due to - according to publishers and distributors - currency exchange rates.

A Republican House staffer who penned a memo on a different kind of approach to copyright law in November of last year found himself out of work as the new Congress was seated last Thursday and the new head of the Republican Study Committee - Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) - decided not to keep him on. He finally broke his silence on the whole ordeal to Ars Technica.

Runic Games has hit a milestone with its PC isometric action RPG, Torchlight II: one million sales. A tweet from the official Runic Games Twitter account revealed the milestone.

"We had an amazing 2012, and proud to say that Torchlight2 has sold over one million units! Thank you! Happy New Year's Eve everyone :)," Runic Games confirmed.

A group of gamers and Zelda series fans have come together under the team name of Fun For Freedom to create what they call a "Zeldathon." The group will play through Nintendo's popular RPG adventure games for charity over the next five days while streaming their antics on this Twitch.tv channel.

Mine-Thon 2 has concluded, with the official web site showing that event raised $10,148.00 for the Child's Play children's charity. Mine-Thon is a seventy-two hour, non-stop Minecraft gameplay marathon broadcast live via Twitch TV.

Participants play the game, entertain viewers and ask for donations, with all the proceeds going to charity. This is the second year of the 72-hour marathon and this year organizers raised a heck of a lot more money for Child's Play (last year they raised right around $4,400).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has received $500,000 in funding from Minecraft creator and Mojang co-founder Markus "Notch" Persson and serial entrepreneur (and Dallas Mavericks owner) Mark Cuban. Both donated $250,00 each to help the advocacy group fight for patent reform in Washington, according to GII. Cuban is also a star on the popular ABC television show "Shark Tank."

Xbox Live Gold members will get a wonderfully free treat this weekend: the world premiere of 2 Player Productions' documentary about Minecraft developer Mojang. In February of last year, 2 Player Productions launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $150,000 for shooting an all-encompassing documentary about the indie studio and its founder Markus "Notch" Persson. By the end of the campaign they managed to raise $210,000 for Minecraft: The Story of Mojang. Not too shabby.

With just nine days to go, the latest indie game music bundle, "THE NUBUWO WINTER BUNDLE" has managed to raise $2,900 of its $8,000 goal from 124 backers. The Kickstarter campaign urges supporters to "discover game-inspired music and fund Tokyo's FAMI-MODE 2012 DVD, featuring live chip music performances and interviews."

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media have revealed the participating sponsors and partners for the 2013 National STEM Video Game Challenge. For the third year, the AMD Foundation, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) will once again serve as key sponsors for the Challenge. New partners include the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Hive NYC Learning Network.

While many in the community are celebrating the fact that Johann Sebastian's Sportsfriends managed to hit its Kickstarter funding goal in the eleventh hour, many might not know that one person was instrumental in that happening: Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson. Notch had originally pledged $5,000 to the project but later decided to increase the amount he was giving by $3,000 to a total of $8,000.

The United States Congress may be a mess and the most unruly and uncompromising bunch in the land but they all apparently think that the UN should not be setting policy on the Internet. To that end, members of the House of Representatives - Democrats and Republicans - voted unanimously (397-0) against the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the United Nations' efforts to push "increased government control over the Internet."

In an inspirational post on IGN, Greg Miller announces that "Greg Miller Beats Cancer (For Now)." We are excited to share the news that IGN's popular commentator, podcaster, and all around good guy Greg Miller has undergone treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and has successfully (so far) put the disease into remission. Miller announced that he had cancer back in early August.

U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA.) has released a draft of a new bill called the "Internet Moratorium Act 2012" on his web site Keep the Web Open. Issa was one of several members of congress strongly opposed SOPA. The bill will be appreciated by those who have opposed laws that add new regulations to the internet in the name of fighting piracy and cyber crimes because it aims to put a moratorium on such laws.

The Museum of Modern Art has selected 40 video games that will be displayed in New York soon. The games being put on display date as far back as 1962's Spacewar! and stretch forth all the way to 2011's Minecraft. The museum says that it chose the games it did based on visual quality, aesthetic experience, the elegance of the code, and the games' impact on the culture and industry. Fourteen titles have already been acquired and will be on display March 2013.

Minecraft creator and Mojang co-founder Markus 'Notch' Persson said in a recent article on Develop that he worries about Mojang growing too big. If that were to happen he thinks that the company could lose the independent spirit it is known for. Persson also said that he did not want Mojang to work on what he called "super polished games," as those tend to require larger teams and bigger budgets.

Team Meat co-founder and Super Meat Boy co-creator Aubrey Hesselgren announced that he is holding the 3D prototype of Super Meat Boy Galaxy "hostage" in an attempt to raise 10,000 British pounds for depression-focused charity The Samiritans. He made his announcement (demands?) on the web site Just Giving. If the goal is met Hesselgren will release the the 3D Super Meat Boy Galaxy prototype to the public and if it fails he'll offer it only to those who were kind enough to donate.

Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight is going to be a little different this year... This year's event will let fans decide which ideas get made into games, with a live stream of the entire process to boot. But the best part is that, when it's all said and done, all of the games made during the vent will be released as a special Humble Bundle.

The organizers of Ümloud! announced that Unknown Worlds and Perfect World Entertainment have taken on Premiere Co-Sponsorship roles in support of this year’s 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.

A Kickstarter for a space in Los Angeles where independent developers can get together is being pitched today as the "LA Game Space." The idea of the project - should it get the $250,000 in funding organizers are asking for - is to transform an old warehouse in the Arts District of Los Angeles and turn it into a hot spot for game design and independent titles. They plan on hosting workshops, exhibitions, research labs, public events with guest speakers, and space where indie game makers can set up shop. Think of it as a sort of indie game commune, if you will.

Members of the video game industry in the United Kingdom are teaming up with UK charity GamesAid to put together a Christmas concert that will raise money for charity. A choir comprised of 24 men and women from across the industry including OBEs, CEOs, Managing Directors, PR, sales people and marketers has been formed and is practicing for its very first event on December 19 at St. Stephen's, Rosslyn Hill in London. Tickets cost £20 for adults and £10 for children under the age of 16.

Brenda Romero of Loot Drop confirmed that Ubisoft has cancelled her strategy-based Facebook game Ghost Recon Commander. The social game spin-off launched on Facebook in May, but didn't quite get the kind of response Ubisoft wanted. Along with the cancelation of the game, Brenda Romero also revealed that the development team working on the game had been laid off.

"Sad news. Today, Ghost Recon Commander was cancelled. As a result, we laid off a team of kick-ass developers. If you have openings, ping me," she tweeted.

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.

Jonatan Soderstrom, one of the co-creators of the popular indie PC game Hotline Miami, apparently noticed a thread over on The Pirate Bay complaining about bugs in his game. So what does he do? He joins in and promises a patch!. Yes, Soderstrom offers support even to people who pirated his game. From the thread (uncovered by PC Gamer):

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.

Speaking at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam on Wednesday, Eidos Life President Ian Livingstone said that broadband bottlenecks around the world are slowing down the game industry's transition from the physical to the digital world, and urged telecommunications companies to build more broadband infrastructure.

"What we need is super-speed broadband,″ said Livingstone. "You're kind of holding us back in many respects."

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.