Game That Draws Real Blood Suspended by Kickstarter

"Blood Sport," a system where taking in-game damage draws real-world blood, gets shut down by Kickstarter.

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When you lose blood in the game, you also lose it in real life. That's the concept for Blood Sport, a new gaming project that was seeking funds on Kickstarter before the crowdfunding site suspended it.

The concept is relatively simple. Every time your character took damage in a game, any game, the system would draw blood into a sterilized donation bag similar to the standard blood bank experience.

Here's how it works. When you take damage in a game like Call of Duty, the controller rumbles. All Blood Sport's creators did was re-route this signal, using an Arduino Board, to determine how much blood is drawn. The process would stop when you reach the set blood donation quantity.

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The system factors in your age, weight, and preexisting medical conditions, too.

Blood Sport's creators were hoping to take the system across Canada, with gaming gatherings that effectively double as blood donation events.

"We are simply creating the gaming hardware that will allow us to get gamers thinking about more important issues while still doing what they love," the team said. "From there, we'll partner with the appropriate organizations in both the gaming and medical communities to bring it all to life."

Blood Sport was aiming to begin a tour of Canada on March 17, timed with the release of Battlefield Hardline in an effort to drum up hype. The project's creators were also hoping to get celebrities such as PewDiePie, Seth Rogen, Snoop Dog, and Conan O'Brien to play Blood Sport.

The project was created by just two people, Taran Chadha and Jamie Umpherson, who are working on Blood Sport in their spare time.

In terms of safety, the Blood Sport team says all tests were conducted alongside medical professionals. And while Blood Sport's system should know when to stop drawing blood, in the event that there is a problem, a medical technician standing by would step in, the creators say.

It is unclear why Blood Sport, which launched on Kickstarter November 18 and gathered close to CA$4,000 ($3,500) of its CA$250,000 goal, was suspended just this week. The game's creators could not be reached, and a Kickstarter represented declined to comment when approached by CNET.

We'll continue to monitor this story as it unfolds.

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