[Kody]

Yesterday Blizzard held a special event with the Make-A-Wish foundation at Blizzard Headquarters in Irvine, CA. This one wasn't quite like previous Make-A-Wish visits, though. In December Blizzard revealed the first for-pay in-game pets to be offered through the Blizzard Store, and with it a lot of discussion -- some questioning motives, others excited to be able to purchase a pet instead of having to hope for a drop or grind through yet more Argent Tournament dailies.

At the same time, Blizzard announced that the Pandaren Monk pet would be taking part in a special cause: half of the revenue from its release on November 4th, 2009 until the end of the year would be given to the Make-A-Wish foundation. Tuesday was the day that the money changed hands, to the tune of $1.1 million USD. This is a fairly staggering sum given the short duration of the charity drive, and far exceeds what Blizzard expected. But then again, Blizzard stopped trying to predict anything related to WoW, according to Mike Morhaime.

The event was very special for one particular Blizzard fan. Jordan Cofinco, 17, who suffered from a brain tumor the size of his fist, saw a number of his wishes come true. One of them was happily granted by Blizzard: they boosted his paladin up to level 80 so he could enjoy tanking instances. In addition to that, he was also able to have one of his characters sketched right in front of him by legendary Blizzard artist Samwise Didier.

I've included a video embed below, courtesy of The Orange County Register, which includes some commentary from Cofinco's mother, who plays World of Warcraft right alongside him.

[lora]

I helped grant 20 dollars

[Chrono]

They donate 50% of the revenue from the pet to Make-A-Wish, no? In that case, they made a lot of money themselves on that pet

[jarmale]

Got to say goodjob bizzard always nice to see a big company helping the little ones about the get 50% them self wel they have al rights to it and btw dont wanna know how much they made with the lich seen that one much more around

[ikarimaru]

jarmale, on 18 February 2010 - 06:49 AM, said:

Got to say goodjob bizzard always nice to see a big company helping the little ones about the get 50% them self wel they have al rights to it and btw dont wanna know how much they made with the lich seen that one much more around

This is the thing that drives me crazy; Lurking around the bowels of the WoW forums, you would think that Blizzard is this giant, heartless organization for ONLY donating 50%. It drives me crazy to no end that people will actually seek out something to complain about just to satisfy their e-peens. The fact that they raised $1.1 million and handed it directly over to charity is amazing. I just don't know where people get off trying to complain that "Blizzard should have donated 100%" or crap like that. They didn't have to donate anything in the first place. Get over yourselves, people.