OneBookShelf, which runs RPGNow and DriveThruRPG (among other sites), is doing something fantastic to help Haiti: donate $20 to Doctors Without Borders for Haiti relief, and you’ll receive a bundle of gaming PDFs worth over $1,400.
Honestly, if you have $20 you can afford to donate, this is an incredibly easy decision.
Here’s the link: Gamers Help Haiti $20 donation.
OBS has already raised over $3,200 $7,000 $13,000 $37,000 $42,000 $75,000 $99,000 $111,000 for Haiti earthquake relief, and with oodles of RPG publishers donating their products to this Gamers Help Haiti bundle, they’ll hopefully raise thousands more. OBS is also matching donations at the $5 and $10 level, which is fantastic.
Thanks to OneBookShelf for coming up with this idea and executing it so brilliantly, and for matching donations; thanks as well to the many publishers who are giving away their hard work as part of this bundle — and thanks to everyone who already has, or is about to, donate to the relief effort!
Update: Early on on 1/20, the sheer amount of gamer love broke DriveThru’s servers. Their server issues are now resolved, and donations are going through just fine. If you tried with a credit card and your order seemed screwy, it didn’t go through — try again!
That really was a no-brainer. As soon as I started skimming over the pdfs included, it seemed almost unreasonable not to donate. I had been thinking about donating, but this just made it ridiculous not to!
Never has been being a giving person been so rewarding.
I couldn’t get the credit card confirmation to work, either, but Paypal went through just fine. Such a great deal, such a great cause!
I’m pretty sure the credit card purchases are working but the account updates aren’t. My account says I made no purchases, but if I go to try and purchase the bundle again it says I’ve already purchased the bundle. And I can download the PDFs. The flood of interest is probably breaking some back-end connection.
As of 9:18 EST, the site is reporting that gamers have donated $9,640.00.
This is one of the first Haiti donation things that I’ve seen that I liked. Doctors without Borders is an organization that will be around and helping after the media blitz has ended.
I was willing to go and do this, despite my preference for hardcopy books, and never having used their site.
They’re up to $11,690.00 at 10:15.
Now I just have to figure out how to download some of those books…
@quatch – Also, credit card problem seems to be fixed. I had no delays or problems paying.
They must be getting a lot of traffic for this. I can’t even get to their website.
@Mark – Yes. Neither can I 🙂 As I recall they were unsure how long the bundle offer would last, but it sounded like until the end of the month.
@quatch – I hope so. It sounds like a great deal, even without knowing what books are offered. Did anyone happen to make a list? I’d like to see it.
So I’ve avoided RPGNow since I made purchase years ago and ever since I’ve received mountains of spam (104 in the last 30 days) on the email address that was created just for them and no one else had.
So was that a fluke or in the past or does RPGNow sell email addresses to spammers?
I’d like to be able buy stuff from them, but I can’t in conscience support a company that enables spammers. Is this experience unique to me?
I’ve not had that problem from them.
Right now, their servers appear to have collapsed. On RPG.net, they are promising to have it up again in a few days. I’ll have to wait until then to donate (this time).
@Mark – Someone posted a list here: http://www.deadlyfredly.com/2010/01/midnight-post-help-haiti-get-1400-free/
I’m thinking I might actually contribute; these look pretty cool.
@Nephlm – I use a spamcatcher address for online transactions as well. I’ve used the Onebookshelf sites for a few things over the years, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen a major increase in spam after ordering something.
I’ll also say this. I’ve met Sean Patrick Fannon once or twice. Not enough to know him well, but enough to believe that it is unlikely that would be a business practice of his. Here is their privacy policy: http://www.rpgnow.com/privacy.php.
Sweet. I got through. Donation made.
So far, gamers have donated $13,460.00 to help Haiti!
I buy from RPGNow.com/DriveThruRPG.com a lot, and I have always had a pleasant experience buying from them. This is a worthy cause, and it is a great deal. I forked over my $20 without delay when I was able to get access to the site.
They won’t let me download my selections yet. That is fine as I am sure their servers are swamped today. I don’t mind waiting because a lot of the items that the publishers donated are items that I wanted to buy anyhow. For $20 I have already put $200 worth of stuff into my queue. In other words, this isn’t crap that they are donating but great stuff! It is wonderful to see a company and publishers put forth their best to help others.
And it is working – $17,570 raised as of this post. 🙂
I asked them if we had limited time to use the coupon and:
You can, and are encouraged to wait a few days before using the coupon and downloading the products as our servers are still very swamped right now. The coupon code does not expire.
Thank you for your business and please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Jeff Montgomery
Customer Service
DriveThruRPG.com
Done as of last night, credit card problems and all…
Frankly, if I never download or use the PDFs, then I’m still happy. A chance to help those truly in need, while improving the image of gamers – what more do you need?
@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – That’s the same combo I’m thinking; do good, for both myself and “gamers” as a universe by linking my donations to theirs. If I get some PDFs with it, that’s cool, though not the point.
I posted this as soon as Obsidian Portal E-mailed me about it to my Facebook page, and I hit the credit card wall literally minutes after they started offering the donation site. Fortunately, we got it worked out, and yes, there’s a lot of material in there I’ll never use, but it’s an amazing deal and I’m helping other people by taking all this free stuff just for a donation? Total no-brainer. Good job Gnomes for also advertising!
It is nice to see the generosity of the gaming publishers as they help gather donations for a good cause. I certainly don’t need $1,400 in PDFs by any means, but the donation to the relief effort is what matters the most.