A Golden Opportunity (original) (raw)

*ATTENTION: Thank you to GlobalGiving for correcting our issue with early donations. On that note, our fundraiser page is now live to avoid similar confusion. Thank you!*

With only two days remaining until Fight for Relief, it’s about time that we fill you all in on the special raffle prizes that we’ll be giving away to our online donators. But first, from all the Fight for Relief staff, we’d like to thank each and every one of you who has helped us spread the word about this fantastic event. From all the media coverage to the outpouring of positivity, it’s meant a lot to all of us and we can’t wait to kick off our fundraiser for Japan.

For those who are physically attending one of our Fight for Relief events (and you can find more information in the navigation to your right) we’ll have raffle promotions throughout the day, with more information available at the venues. Everyone else tuning into the live broadcast via justin.tv, we’ll have some very special gifts for those who choose to donate.

In order to participate in the online raffles, you’ll have to complete a very simple two-step process detailed on our Donate page. First, simply donate to the Fight for Relief Fundraiser on GlobalGiving.org, which will go live on April 3. You will then receive an email receipt. You must then forward this receipt to fightforrelief@gmail.com to participate in the raffle. This is basically an extra verification step for us to confirm your details and prevent someone from gaming the system.

So what prize could possibly be so great that we have to take extra precautions? Read on to find out..

While we’ll have plenty of smaller prizes to surprise you with throughout the broadcast from both iPlayWinner and Level | Up Series, there are two in particular that stand out.

The first is a very special prize package that we put together with the help of one of our favorite members of the global fighting game community. We’re extremely proud to announce our collaboration with the EVO 2010 Super Street Fighter IV Women’s Champion, Marie-Laure Norindr, better known as the Chun-li phenom, Kayane.

Like all of us, the ever gracious Kayane wanted to do what she could to help us raise money for Japan relief efforts and even agreed to run with what was admittedly a very goofy idea. To the two lucky donors who are selected for the Kayane prize package, they will receive a signed photo (taken by Minh Phan. Thanks, Minh!) of the champ herself, along with a Mad Catz Super Street Fighter IV Chun-Li Tournament Edition “S” FightStick.

We’re very thankful for Kayane’s help and we hope this will encourage even more people to donate to our cause!

And now for the big one..

Everyone here on the Fight for Relief staff is very serious about this cause and want to do everything we can to make this fundraiser a success and no one is more committed to this effort than Mark “MarkMan” Julio of Mad Catz. This should come as no surprise at all as MarkMan has always been extremely devoted to the fighting game community and has worked very hard over the past few years doing everything he can to help nurture and promote the scene. But we had no idea exactly how devoted he was to our charity efforts until he offered up one of the most sought after pieces of fighting game memorabilia ever created.

That’s right. A Golden Mad Catz EVO 2010 Tournament Edition Stick. And it’s going to whomever makes the single largest contribution to our fundraising effort.

The Golden TE is the stuff of legends. There were only 24 ever produced and the owner of this stick will become part of an extremely exclusive group of fighting game luminaries such as the legendary Daigo Umehara, Ricky Ortiz, Mike Ross, Capcom’s own Seth Killian, Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono and yeah, even Kayane.

There is no telling when any of these sticks will ever be up for grabs again and whomever makes the single largest contribution to our GlobalGiving fundraiser will have it shipped to them straight from MarkMan himself. We’re all committed to doing everything we can to make this fundraiser a success and nothing speaks more to this commitment than what MarkMan has contributed.

There are a few reasons why we’ve decided to go with this method as opposed to simply auctioning it off, the primary reason being we want it to go to a true hero of the fighting game community. Anyone can bid on an auction and if they lose, it’s no big deal. But with Fight for Relief it’ll take a true hero to step up and go big for Japan. We want those who donate to believe in our cause just as much as we do and nothing says commitment quite like a golden TE. We’ll be updating everyone with the status of the current highest contribution throughout the day so stay tuned on April 3!

Again, thank you all very much for your continued support and we’re looking forward to seeing you all on Sunday!