By Derrick Jean-Baptiste
On Saturday, Nov. 4th, while many will be out enjoying the weekend, hundreds of gamers are going to pick up gaming con- soles and play all day.
This isn’t a new scenario, but on that day they will be doing it for a good cause.
Extra Life is a charity event that allows gamers to do what they do best in support of its parent company, the Children’s Mir- acle Network. Children’s Miracle Network is a charity group representing hospitals in the United States, Canada, and the UK. The charity group raises money for chil- dren’s care in those hospitals and for medi- cal research on diseases affecting children.
Gamers participating in Extra Life raise money by asking friends and family to do- nate for each hour of the 24 they plan to spend gaming, similar to how charity runs structure their donations.
With a first year goal of $500 dollars Florida Southern College has decided to take part in this global charity event. On Saturday, Nov. 4th, gamers from Florida Southern College will take place in the rst ever Extra Life event in the campus’s his- tory. The Florida Southern community will be showcasing Extra Life from two loca- tions, each one holding either video games or board games. The event will be hosted by FSC’s very own Philosophy Club.
Extra Life began in 2008 as a way of honoring a young woman named Victoria Enmon who passed away due to leukemia at the age of 15.
Victoria’s battle against acute lym- phoblastic leukemia inspired a radio disc jockey from Sarcastic Gamer Community, an independent video gaming blog and podcast, to collect a number of games and gifts to keep Victoria’s spirits up despite her numerous visits to the hospital and three different bouts of the disease.
After Victoria’s death, the team at Sar- castic Gamer Community decided to host a 24-hour video game marathon to raise money for the hospital that cared for Vic- toria. From there, the “Extra Life” move- ment has grown to what it is today. A glob- al event that has over a million different groups playing games to help heal kids.
The gaming marathon is in its ninth year. Last year, Extra Life raised more than $30 million for the Children’s Miracle Network. Its Twitter account announced gamers had already pledged $1 million before the gaming had even begun.
The Extra Life’s website says any game, from hardcore PC games which require a high-end motherboard to casual Face- book games, are acceptable. They also said there is no penalty for splitting up the 24 hours since not everyone can function without any sleep.
For anyone who doesn’t want to par- ticipate and instead wants to watch hours of gaming, Twitch, the biggest streaming network for gamers, will host many of the charity streams in one place all day Saturday, including Florida Southern’s own stream.
There are also several gaming media outlets participating, such as G4tv, Joystiq, Destructoid and GameInformer, along with Ubisoft’s professional all-girl gam- ing group the Frag Dolls. Also anyone can also support the cause by visiting the Extra Life donation page and nd new streams on Twitter to watch through the #ExtraLifeStream hashtag.
More information about Florida South- ern’s part in this event will be available to readers soon.
