Chime sales make $96,000 for charity

How much money did charity publisher OneBigGame actually donate from the proceeds of XBLA game Chime? Around $96,000, OBG has announced.

In total, the non-profit organisation OneBigGame made $100,000 last year by releasing one game, Chime, in February.

That's a whopping 96 per cent given to charity.

The money was evenly divided between charities Save the Children and Starlight.

Save the Children is "hugely grateful", and hopes gamers will become more aware of the No Child Born to Die campaign as a result of OneBigGame's work. That initiative aims to stop a heart-breaking 8 million children dying before their fifth birthday every year.

Starlight is "extremely appreciative" of this "wonderful initiative" and thinks it's "great" that seriously ill children and their families can benefit from videogame entertainment like the rest of us do.

Chime was given 7/10 by Eurogamer. OneBigGame founder Martin de Ronde told us that, "Had we been able to launch with 10 tracks instead of five and the potential to download additional DLC, I think the review scores would have been even higher."

Chime, developed by UK developer Zoe Mode, has also been released on PC and now awaits its debut as Chime Super Deluxe on PS3.

"We're really really happy with [Zoe Mode] did for us," de Ronde added, "and I was also hoping that as a result, Chime would become a franchise for them.

"We can show to other publishers that OneBigGame can be seen as a launch pad for new and innovative IP, whereby you get to launch your franchise on the back of this great charity initiative - that's something that works really well."

Eurogamer plunged into the world OneBigGame and videogame's Bob Geldof, Martin de Ronde, last year. Apparently the original idea was to get a room full of legendary game developers and make one big game for charity - hence OneBigGame.

"The original idea, and this is where the name comes from, was that we wanted to create the 'Do They Know It's Christmas Time?' for the gaming industry: one big next-gen game with contributions from 10 or 12 or 15 individual game designers," said de Ronde.

That didn't pan out, so de Ronde broke the initiative into a handful of smaller projects.

Next out of the OneBigGame stable will be WINtA by Masaya Matsuura, David Perry's tablet racing game and Charles Cecil's innovative take on Minesweeper.