The AbleGamers Charity has announced its list of the Year’s Best Accessibility Achievements. This year's awards include nods for Media Champion, Innovator, Device, Publisher, Indie Game and Mainstream Game of the Year.

Every year, the AbleGamers Charity scours the industry for the best accessibility advancements in gaming and technology. This year, seven honors will be given out to those the groups says have "made a real difference to the realm of accessibility and gaming."

Military-focused gaming charity Operation Supply Drop is kicking off 2014 with a nifty new initiative called Indies for Courage, which hopes to get independently developed video games into the hands of Armed Forces. The initiative created by respected Indie gamer and critic "Indie Gamer Chick" has rallied a team of indie developers to donate $15,000 in Steam and Desura codes.

Readers of Tech and gaming site Ars Technica helped raise over $23,000 through its annual holiday charity drive. The event for 2013 benefited children's charity Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. While the numbers are down from 2012 (the charity drive raised $28,700 that year), readers still stepped up to the plate and bid on various bits of game-related swag and prize packs to generate some much needed funds for both charities.

GOG.com says that its customers helped raise $1.9 million for various charities in 2013. The DRM-free digital marketplace for classic and new PC games said that customers raised this money mostly through its first ever online charity event carried out in November 2013. The money is being split up between several charities including WWF, Worldbuilders, and Gaming for Good.

The Awesome Games Done Quick 2014 event, which took place last week, managed to generate $1,013,831 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The event, which was broadcast all week via Twitch saw some of the world's best speedrunners complete Portal, Mario 64, Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Skyrim (among others) as quickly as is humanly possible.

The AbleGamers Charity said today that it was able to raise over $100,000 for the first time in its history, in 2013. The charity said that these donations were made possible with the help of a lot of companies and community based fundraising effort. Community-based fundraisers such as Minethon and PAX-E, corporate donations from Paradox and IndieGala, dozens of individual streamers, and an increasing awareness in the gaming and disability communities have helped propel the charity to a new level coming into 2014, according to AbleGamers.

With 17 days left to go before the YouCaring crowd-funding campaign to raise funds for Ron Nakada (the Senior Software Engineer at Blizzard Entertainment who is battling through Stage IV colon cancer) ends, it has managed to surpass it goal. As of this writing $25,664 has been raised from 678 backers.

Awesome Games Done Quick 2014, a week-long gaming marathon in which participants speed run through a number of popular games, hopes to raise money for Prevent Cancer Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds cancer research and educational efforts. In its fourth year, Awesome Games Done Quick 2014 takes place until January 11. Donations will directly benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

Popular YouTube personalities the Yogcast Network managed to raise $1,148,293.91 (or £700,000) in the month of December as part of its Yogscast Dwarven Dairy Drive. The proceeds generated from the charitable event will be divided between several UK charities including Oxfam, War Child, GamesAid, Special Effect and Little People UK.

"We were aiming to reach £300,000 so to get to £700,000 is an incredible achievement and shows how generous gamers in general and Yognau(gh)ts in particular are," said chief executive Mark Turpin.

Child's Play, the charity dedicated to giving sick children in hospitals around the world toys and games to play with while they undergo surgeries of treatments for serious illnesses, announced that it managed to raise a record amount of money in 2013.

The YouCaring crowd-funding campaign to raise funds for Ron Nakada, the Senior Software Engineer at Blizzard Entertainment who is battling through Stage IV colon cancer, is $1,242 from meeting its target funding goal. With 27 more days to go, the campaign has generated $23,758 of the $25,000 goal from 645 people.

The YouCaring crowd-funding campaign to raise funds for Ron Nakada, the Senior Software Engineer at Blizzard Entertainment who is battling through Stage IV colon cancer, has gone from just over $10,000 to over $20,000 since Christmas Eve. The campaign launched by inXile employee John Alvarado is just $4,475 shy of its $25,000 goal, with 30 days left to go.

Charity Gaming for Good has managed to raise over $10 million, according to this Kotaku report. The charity founded by celebrity gamer Bachir Boumaaza (known better for his internet moniker "Athene") this week managed to raise $10,035,284.

Recently the "Take This Project" was quietly relaunched as "Take This," along with a new website at www.takethis.org. Take This is a support group for gamers (though it doesn't specifically exclude those people who do not identify themselves as gamers), games journalists, game developers, and other industry professionals that suffer from depression, anxiety and other challenges associated with mental illness.

A 12-year-old who just happened to be up all night playing video games in Danville, Kentucky, is being credited with saving his entire family. On Thursday morning at around 3:30 am, Jaxxyn Wood was on the first floor of his family home playing video games when he smelled something funny in the air. Jaxxyn said that he "smelled something really bad, like Legos on fire."

Upon further investigation he noticed that the ice machine in the kitchen was on fire.

Registration is now open for the Gamers for Giving 2014 event, with team passes and tickets for the PC/console LAN party on sale now. Tickets for all activities can be pre-purchased through the Intel LANFest website, while all tournament and event information can be found at www.GamersforGiving.org.

Organizers remind those who want to attend the 2014 event that they should get their tickets as soon as possible because space is limited.

Ticket prices for each activity are as follows:

Ron Nakada, a Senior Software Engineer at Blizzard Entertainment who is battling through Stage IV colon cancer is probably feeling a little better today. Yesterday we urged our readers to donate to Ron's cause and they responded with generosity and kindness. That story and a subsequent story about Ron's plight on Kotaku have helped drive the fundraising campaign from a little over $2000 to nearly $10,000 in one day.

A Buffalo, New York man has found himself in the Guinness World Records 2014 Gamer's Edition for accomplishing something he loves: collecting video games and video game systems. Thirty-one-year-old Buffalo, New York resident Michael Thomasson began collecting games and game systems after receiving his first game, Cosmic Avenger, as a Christmas present from his grandparents when he was 12. Ironically enough, he didn't get to play that game until a year later when his parents could afford to buy the system.

Military-focused gaming charity Operation Supply Drop sent along an inspiring note about a recent happening at the Fort Eustis Wounded Warrior Transition Unit. The group stopped by the military medical facility to throw the injured soldiers staying there a pizza party and video game raffle just in time for the holidays. The operation, code named BATTLE WAGON, included the donation of brand new Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles on mobile 19" GAEMS Vanguard cases so they can be wheeled into soldier's rooms who are unable to leave their beds.

Ron Nakada, a Senior Software Engineer at Blizzard Entertainment was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer six months ago. Doctors told him at the time that the cancer had metastasized to his liver, lungs and lymph nodes. While Ron is fighting for his life with all the determination and strength he can muster, his medical bills and expenses are ramping up and he needs our help.

Microsoft is encouraging Zoo Tycoon Xbox One and Xbox 360 players to help raise money for endangered species with a series of special initiatives. Each month Microsoft will launch a Zoo Tycoon community challenge to raise money to help endangered animals.

Pay-what-you-want indie-focused game store IndieGameStand is hosting a 12-day event to celebrate the holiday season and benefit the children's charity Child's Play. From Dec. 18 - 28 the site will host a 12 Days of Christmas unwrapping event.

Here's how it works: each day IndieGameStand will reveal and spotlight a new indie game that is freely available on the internet. By donating, customers will unlock these games in their IndieGameStand account and all proceeds will be donated to Child's Play.

Yesterday Polygon wrote an excellent article detailing the back story on Operation Supply Drop, the military focused gaming charity that sends video game-related care packages to soldiers deployed in combat zones around the world and recovering in military hospitals.

CCP Games announced that EVE Online players have donated US$190,890 to the Icelandic Red Cross to help the citizens of the Philippines recover from Typhoon Haiyan. The money was raised through the game's PLEX for GOOD program, which allows players of the popular game to collectively donate in-game currency to worthy charities, as well as other associated donations.

The AbleGamers Charity has achieved a core goal "milestone in its nine-year history" today by launching a grant program to provide people with disabilities crucial assistive technology year-round. Today the charity announced that the AbleGamers Grant Program will now be open year-round. People who have difficulties accessing video games through normal controllers can apply for a grant and will be evaluated on an individual need basis.

World of Tanks maker Wargaming and event sponsor NVIDIA announced the winners of the NVIDIA GeForce eSports World of Tanks Veteran’s Day 1-Million Gold Charity Division held this past November. Over 280 teams and 800 players participated in the competition, vying for a massive in-game prize pool.

While EA generates a fair share of bad press on a variety of fronts from time to time, it's hard to deny that the company has a pretty good track record when it comes to workforce diversity and inclusiveness in its various studios. In this year's Corporate Equality Index from the Human Rights Campaign, the company scored a 100 percent rating. Corporate Equality Index is part of the group's 2014 Best Places To Work report.

Users of the popular game streaming platform Twitch helped raise $90,000 for the Red Cross' relief efforts to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, according to an announcement made by the company - as reported by GII.

Game related charity Operation Supply Drop announced that it has received $12,000 in gaming gear from two gaming accessory developers: MOGA and Power A. Power A has donated a variety of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 wireless Batman themed controllers, while MOGA sent the charity 350 of their MOGA Gaming Controller, which can be snapped onto any Android mobile device and turn into a portable gaming system. The items will be put into care packages for soldiers deployed in combat zone around the world and recovering in military hospitals.

The Humble Bundle does not disclose just how much of its regular bundle sales actually goes to charity, but in a blog post this week the company offered a glimpse of how the money it helps raise through bundle sales helps charities. In the post they talk about charity: water, an organization devoted to bringing clean and safe drinking water to poorer countries.