Canadian company, Brand and Grotesque’s unique bloodsucking controller has been suspended by Kickstarter. Bummer, because it was gonna be for a good cause. That's mild sarcasm. This is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. Named Blood Sport: The Ultimate in Immersive Gaming, this unique device has a simple function: to take consequences of the gaming world and have them effect you in real life; in this case, by taking your blood when you take damage.

Blood Sport takes a normal video game controller and modifies it with a blood collection system, much like you would see when donating blood. The controller is connected to the blood collection system through an Arduino Board. The board works by communicating with the blood collection system, ensuring that Blood Sport will power down before drawing too much blood based on health information (age, weight, and preexisting conditions) given beforehand. By taking an electrical signal from the controller each time it rumbles, Blood Sport activates the blood collection system, and filters it into sterilized collection bags. The blood is then ready to be taken to donation banks.

While this technology may seem dangerous in irresponsible hands, Brand and Grotesque hope to use Blood Sport to develop a refined multi-player unit that can be taken across the country for blood donation gaming events. The company, according to its Kickstarter page says, “We are not a charity, and we are not a game manufacturer. 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. From there, we’ll partner with the appropriate organizations in both the gaming and medical communities to bring it all to life.”

There's definitely madness to this method, and perhaps that's the reason the bizarre Blood Sport was only able to earn around $3,300 of its $250,000 goal before being suspended by Kickstarter. As crowdfunding sites do not typically state why a project was suspended, it is currently unclear why the funding is frozen, or if Brand and Grotesque plan to move the device to another crowd funding site.