Trueplayerz Donations & Partnership with 4 Kings

Trueplayerz are preparing for another Sunday session at London's Marquee Club on Sunday 20th November as once again the gaming community comes together to champion good causes by playing some of the latest games at the UK Online sponsored Trueplayerz Tournaments.

Already three Trueplayerz winners have donated nearly £1000 of door proceeds to Cancer Research, The British Heart Foundation and the US based Child's Play charity. Erik Park won the first event in September and was able to donate £400 to Cancer Research whilst Martin Mathers claimed the October title and chose Child's Play to receive the £500 donation. This weekend Mark Thurston donated $100 to the British Heart Foundation in the first Trueplayerz Xbox Live event.

The organisers Joystick Junkies, a British fashion label that came out of the games industry realised the UK needed a regular lifestyle tournament that appealed to non-gamers as well as gamers and that the charity concept would be a great way of bringing the community together. "We're seeing more and more people turning up each month to support a charity they feel strongly about, and with the growth of the event there's an opportunity to raise a lot of money for some great causes over the coming months." Commented organiser Chris Birch.

Chris hopes that one-day people will travel the world to champion good causes at tournaments like this. "The industry really needs a positive message at the moment and we're hoping that Trueplayerz will help show people that games can have a positive effect on the community and there's no reason that one day people couldn't be competing for massive sums of money on behalf of charities.

They're obviously doing something right, in October Last Man Standing, one of the UK's leading tournament organisers teamed up with Trueplayerz to help host the events and now the organisers are partnering with pro-gaming team 4Kings to help raise the profile of gaming within the lifestyle market and encourage more gamers to champion a charity at Trueplayerz.

4Kings, a full time team of pro-gamers who travel the world competing at the biggest international PC gaming tournaments have now added a console team - 2 of which made it through heated qualifiers to go to the Global Finals of the World Cyber Games in Singapore. Phil Wride, the team's manager has seen the growth of the console tournament scene and realised that 4Kings needed to tap in to this market to help promote gaming to the masses

"Gaming at the professional level has long been frowned upon by the majority due to lack of understanding as to what is actually involved. 4Kings overall aim is to bring this aspect of gaming into the mainstream and in order to achieve this we need to engage those that play consoles as much as those that play games on the PC. For this reason we have moved into the console market and are looking forward to showing people you can have as much fun and success on a console as you can on a PC."

Going a step further, Trueplayerz organisers Joystick Junkies have sponsored the 4Kings console team with some special British flavoured Joystick Junkies team fashion to make sure they represent the UK in style. Joystick Junkies and 4Kings plan a closer partnership, which will see them working together on clothing and events to help raise the profile of Joystick Junkies and 4Kings in the international gaming community whilst introducing more people to video games and 4Kings via the Trueplayerz events in 2006.

Last Man Standing, who are hosting the Halo 2 tournaments at the Trueplayerz events are also adding their promotional muscle to the growing Trueplayerz team and are using their expertise to host the new Trueplayerz Xbox Live (online only) Tournaments taking place as part of the official Xbox Live Calendar. The first event this Sunday 13th November saw 90 competitors from the UK and US battle it out on Halo 2 for a $100 cash prize and $100 for the charity of the winner's choice. Mark Thurston from Aldershot stormed in to the no. 1 place and donated $100 to the British Heart Foundation.

The next Xbox Live Trueplayerz event is Sunday 4th December on Battlefield 2 (Modern Combat). Opening up the online events to an international audience the team hopes will help spread the word of the real world events taking place at London's Marquee club on the 20th November and over the coming months in 2006.

EVENT DETAILS: Trueplayerz - 20th November

The Marquee Club, Leicester Square, London.

Doors open 10.30am, £5 to play (£3 for each extra tournament entry), £3 to spectate.

Tournaments run hourly, sign up before at www.joystickjunkies.com/trueplayerz or on the day. Prizes include 8 Mb broadband accounts and Xbox 360's from UK Online, Nokia 6681 phones, iPod Shuffles plus games and accessories.

For more information on Trueplayerz please contact Chris@joystickjunkies.com or call +44 (0) 20 7486 6641

About Trueplayerz - www.joystickjunkies.com/trueplayerz

Trueplayerz is the monthly charity video games tournament sponsored by UK Online (www.ukonline.net) and supported by EA Games, Gamestation, TMF, GamesRadar.com, and Games Master magazine where players compete to win prizes for themselves and cash for the charity of their choice.

About Joystick Junkies - www.joystickjunkies.com

British clothing label Joystick Junkies has taken world famous icons, such as Space Invaders, from the dawn of video games and turned them in to fashionable designs for the modern day adventurer. Ultra soft vintage washes and bright retro tones, distressed prints and subtle video games references help create a truly lifestyle approach to the world's fastest growing youth market. Joystick Junkies is not just about fashion, their popular club nights and parties have already spread from London to LA, the team are organising the Trueplayerz charity gaming tournaments where the winner decides which charity benefits and JoystickJunkies.com is a focal point for the fast growing video games pop culture phenomenon.

About 4Kings - www.four-kings.com

4Kings is the UK's only professional gaming team with Intel and ATi sponsoring its PC division. The team was founded in 1997 and is one of the most recognised and successful PC computer gaming teams in the world. Based in the UK 4Kings has players spread as far as South Korea with the majority located in Europe and includes several World Champions. 4Kings has also recently moved into the Console market following recruitment of the UK's best Halo2 players.

4Kings offer product endorsement opportunities along with consultancy options to what is a rapidly expanding sector in the entertainment industry. With years of experience working with major international corporations 4Kings provides direct contact to the core audience of this market.

4Kings is a registered company in England and Wales.

Contact: Philip Wride. phil@four-kings.com or call +44 (0) 7967 589418

About UK Online - www.ukonline.net

UK Online, established in 1994 and part of the Easynet Group, is a leading Consumer ISP providing high speed, reliable broadband and dial-up Internet access across the UK. UK Online was recently awarded a Commendation for Innovation at the 2005 ISPA Awards for its commitment to Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), a process that enables the ISP to offer both the UK's fastest home broadband - at a blistering 8Mb - and most affordable home broadband, with 512K available for the same price as many dial-up connections (£9.99), via Easynet's LLUStream^TM service. UK Online is also the Official ISP to Team GB, the UK's Olympic team.