The Speed Gamers Raise Over $26,000 For Charity 65
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."
Slashdotting (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Fundraising (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fundraising (Score:3, Insightful)
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:So, how much did you donate last year? (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
Re:Fundraising (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Interesting choice (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fundraising (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fundraising (Score:2, Insightful)
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