The Speed Gamers Raise Over $26,000 For Charity

Levonn Lawrence writes "Moving into day four of seven, The Speed Gamers (TSG) continue to play a Final Fantasy marathon for an unusual reason: charity. The guys at TSG are playing through every main Final Fantasy game, from one to twelve, over a period of seven days in hopes or raising $50,000 for ACT Today (Autism Care and Treatment). The marathon is streamed live for people to watch. ACT is a charity helping to financially support families effected by Autism. The marathon started 6pm CST, Friday, July 17th, 2009 and is going until Friday, July 24th 2009. So far they've raised over $26,000 (not a typo) and they're only 89 hours in."

Comments

Slashdotting

[sopssa]

Its a video stream site and states even before this slashdot story "Please help us save our server from overloading and click the TSG Button instead of refreshing the entire page when the video starts to lag."

And now slashdotting it? Let the fun begin!

Re:Slashdotting

[illeism]

some gil, a blue all materia, one esper of your choice and a new overdrive ability!!

Fundraising

[kevinNCSU]

I've never understood our culture's need to have people do something entirely trivial and unhelpful before we're willing to donate to a worthy and important cause.

Imagine if we had volunteering for habitat humanity marathons to get people to donate for autism research instead or something like that. But I bet people wouldn't be willing to. you mean your going to build houses for homeless people and then you want me to pay you money for autism research? No, I think I'd feel more comfortable if you walked 3 miles in a circle for my donation.

Re:Fundraising

[Darkness404]

Because our society is based on the founding principles of equivalency. Therefore rather than giving people money for no real reason, we prefer them to "earn" it by doing something else. Generally your going to have a lot more people wanting to run a marathon than you would people building houses. The reason being is that there are a lot more people who A) feel like they accomplished something by running a marathon B) have running a marathon as one of their "life goals" and C) there are a lot more people who can run marathons than are competent in carpentry. While I myself, (like many geeks) am not good at running a marathon nor am I really that skilled with wood, a Final Fantasy marathon would be something enjoyable that I would do.

Re:Fundraising

[daeley]

It's just a good way to garner publicity, and in this case a gamer group is trying to get the attention of fellow gamers and geeks to donate for a cause. With the end result being more money for the charity, this is not a bad thing.

As long as it's not "Beat babies with a stick for the indigent!" it's okay.

Re:Fundraising

[codemaster2b]

C) there are a lot more people who can run marathons than are competent in carpentry.

I am not competent at carpentry, in the sense that I am completely inexperienced and untrained, yet I was able to do work for habitat for humanity.

Re:Fundraising

[brkello]

If we all donated to worthy causes we would all be out of money. So after awhile, charity is just background noise...another person trying to take our money and mismanage it. These causes bring attention to the charities in a fun way. Then you think "oh, that's cool, I should support that cause". It is basically an attention grabber. People asking you for money all the time just turns them off.

Re:Fundraising

[Toonol]

Because, to an extent, the volunteers are succeeding by turning it from a donation to an optional payment for entertainment. "Watch us, be entertained, and please (if possible) donate money" is often a more palatable and attractive offer than simply "We need money to do good things". It turns it from a donation into an exchange. Perhaps it's shallow, perhaps it's crass, but it also works... much like capitalism in general.

Re:Fundraising

[PossumDTD]

I've never understood Slashdotters' need to complain and criticize every single thing people do for a good cause.

These guys are taking something popular that they are good at and enjoy doing, and turning it into a profitable fundraiser for a good cause. It doesn't matter if they're building a house, playing Final Fantasy, or growing a ridiculous mustache and getting donations per millimeter of growth - the point is that they've already raised approximately $35,000 for Autism Awareness, touched hundreds - potentially thousands - of lives, and didn't ask for a thing in return. What did you do this week?

Imagine this: you woke up today, signed on to /., and read this post. Instead of instantly thinking how much better you could do a fundraiser, you clicked on their link, donated $1, and told two friends. Then, instead of looking like a self-righteous ass, you'd have actually done something selfless instead of something 'entirely trivial and unhelpful,' like tossing up a worthless comment that sparked some more slashdot-typical pseudo-intellectual conversation.

Re:Neat Idea...

[Dr. Impossible]

Someone has beat you to it. They just raised $29,000 for Child's Play.

Desert Bus

[Jim Hall]

Don't forget Desert Bus for Hope where they raised $70,423.79 in a little over 5 days. As long as you keep paying them (during the pledge drive) they play.

I'm actually much more impressed with this, since it requires constant attention or you veer off the road, and get towed back to your starting point in real time.

Let Pen Jillette explain it!

Every main series game from 1 to 12?

[RogueyWon]

Oh dear, I do hope they aren't including Final Fantasy XI in that. Much as I used to love the game (and still get the odd pang of nostalgia for it), it would be a hilariously awful idea to include it on this. I guess you could interpret "beating it" as being "finishing the plot missions for all of the current expansions", but still...

"Here we are, going into day 217 of the challenge, and player 4 has just dinged 63. This, of course, marks the half-way point in his experience grind. Now over to Bob, who's going to tell us about that exciting episode earlier, where half of the players spent 7 hours trying to find a tank, who then left them after 20 minutes."

Re:Every main series game from 1 to 12?

[Jedi Alec]

More like I hope they aren't including Final Fantasy VIII [printfection.com] in that. God, what a terrible game. I Think people will start taking money back if they have to read the Emo-fied dialogue that comes out of Squall for that entire game. ...whatever.

Re:So, how much did you donate last year?

[kevinNCSU]

I note you haven't either, however I haven't questioned any individual's donation to charity whether it be by financial, expertise, or time based and yet you have both done so to me and gone so far as to assume negatively about me.

I didn't realize pondering on oddities of society as a whole required full financial and charitable service disclosure. I guess I could tell you how I donate or spend weeks of my summers in the Appalachian Mountains rebuilding or repairing homes for people who need it but I don't see what that would prove here or how it would affect my original point. My guess is your attempting to set up a straw man of because I don't donate enough then my point must not be valid?

Interesting choice

[dexmachina]

So they're raising money for a disorder most associated with social impairment by sequestering themselves from outside human contact for a week and playing video games. How...appropriate?

Re:Grammar nazi says...

[daybot]

"families affected by Autism", not "effected". In this context, "affected" means the families were impacted by Autism; "effected" means Autism implemented the families.

Did autism effect your grammar nazism?