Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with text Uff from dot com.
Speaker 1: Hey there everyone, and welcome to text Uff. I'm Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland and today I've got a special treat for you guys.
Speaker 1: There's a great charity called Extra Lights that has a
Speaker 1: near and dear placed to my heart and I've been
Speaker 1: really lucky. Uh. Michael Kinney, the manager over an Extra Life,
Speaker 1: and Jeremy Adams, the founder of Extra Life, have kindly
Speaker 1: agreed to appear on the show. Hi guys, Hey, how's
Speaker 1: it going. It's great, it's great. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our listeners are going to absolutely love this.
Speaker 1: I know they might not even be aware of this
Speaker 1: charity and it's an awesome, awesome thing. So the first
Speaker 1: question we have to jump into is what exactly is
Speaker 1: Extra Life. Extra Life is um basically just like a run, walk,
Speaker 1: or bike ride type fundraising event, except we sort of
Speaker 1: don't put so much emphasis on moving around. It's it's
Speaker 1: about video games. So whereas one person might sign up
Speaker 1: and to run a long distance or to bike along distance,
Speaker 1: we ask gamers to send up and do what they
Speaker 1: love to do, and that is to game for a
Speaker 1: pretty significant period of time. It's a twenty four hour
Speaker 1: marathon at its core UM and you get friends and
Speaker 1: family to sponsor you, just like you would any other
Speaker 1: type of fundraising event. Now, UH, this has been something
Speaker 1: that I had heard about for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I actually participated last year and I'll I'll talk more
Speaker 1: about my experience towards the end of the show. And UH,
Speaker 1: I know that there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are getting involved in this and the the money that's
Speaker 1: raised benefits the Children's Miracle Network. Can you speak a
Speaker 1: little bit about what exactly that is uh. Semen Hospitals
Speaker 1: is basically one D and seventy children's hospitals in North America,
Speaker 1: in the US and Canada. UM. We serve every child
Speaker 1: that comes through the door of our hospitals, regardless of
Speaker 1: their family's ability to pay an Extra Life is a
Speaker 1: program of Salmon Hospitals UM. And so in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight I found it Extra Life in my living room,
Speaker 1: along with help from some friends of mine and my
Speaker 1: wife UM and it quickly grew to where benefiting just
Speaker 1: one hospital was really no longer an option, and so
Speaker 1: two thousand ten I donated the intellectual property of Extra
Speaker 1: Life to Children's Veerticle Network Hospitals, and we had an
Speaker 1: agreement that they would help us to grow this and
Speaker 1: to reach more kids, and now we're able to benefit
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventy children's hospitals. Um. There, it's basically,
Speaker 1: if you live in North America, there's one near you,
Speaker 1: and everything you raise as an Extra Life participant goes
Speaker 1: directly to that hospital to help kids. Now that's phenomenal,
Speaker 1: and so it's it's really for anyone in North America
Speaker 1: who can participate. It's not something that's uh, that's regionalized
Speaker 1: at all in that case right now. That's but we
Speaker 1: do have some localized stuff that I can tell you
Speaker 1: about in our Guild program, which is a new initiative
Speaker 1: this year. Oh wow, yeah, I haven't heard anything about
Speaker 1: the Guild program. Yeah. Absolutely. Um. So just to touch
Speaker 1: based real quick on that, we actually have people from
Speaker 1: around the world participating in Extra Life. It's not just
Speaker 1: people in North America. UM. I mean, there's there's ways
Speaker 1: for them to play for some of our hospitals who
Speaker 1: really do have a strong presence abroad as well. Um.
Speaker 1: But going back to the localness of the program here,
Speaker 1: we started something called the Extra Life Guild program, which
Speaker 1: is basically just a physical movement of the Extra Life
Speaker 1: program um taking place in local cities that already kind
Speaker 1: of had that strong presence with Extra Life there. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's really just better and Extra lifers who who
Speaker 1: love what it's all about, who love gaming, whether it's
Speaker 1: video games, board games, yard games, whatever, um, they're on
Speaker 1: board with Extra Life and they and they want to
Speaker 1: help us spread the word. So they get together monthly
Speaker 1: and and just talk about local conventions or festivals or
Speaker 1: concert or movie releases that are coming up that they
Speaker 1: could go and and have a presence at and represent
Speaker 1: their local Children's Miracle Network Hospital desolite cool. Yeah, We're
Speaker 1: We're in twenty five cities here in the United States
Speaker 1: and three up in Canada. And as Extra Life continues
Speaker 1: to grow, so will that program and will be launching
Speaker 1: more guilds and in a city near almost everybody. Now
Speaker 1: the a lot of a lot of Extra Life is
Speaker 1: centered around uh, the uh the idea of National Game Day.
Speaker 1: Although of course the people who are participating in this,
Speaker 1: you don't you don't have to tie yourself down to
Speaker 1: any given date, but when is National Game Day? In
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, perfect questions. So our official game day
Speaker 1: for this year is gonna be October Saturday. Um, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be starting at eight am Central Time and going
Speaker 1: tell eight am on Sunday morning. You don't have to
Speaker 1: if you're I mean a lot of people, especially that's
Speaker 1: football season two. We understand m A lot of folks
Speaker 1: have issues that have worked day something comes up. Extra
Speaker 1: Life is really sort of an open source movement, meaning
Speaker 1: you can do it the way you want to. Once
Speaker 1: you sign up, you can customize your fundraising and page
Speaker 1: and say, look, actually I'm doing it on on you know,
Speaker 1: the next Saturday, or I'm I'm gonna have I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do a different kind of spin on extra Life. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that are doing extra Life
Speaker 1: in ways that we never even imagined. Um, everything from
Speaker 1: bake sales to all kinds of other things. Uh So
Speaker 1: it's it's really about making it your own. The core
Speaker 1: mechanic is, yeah, you signed up and on October you're
Speaker 1: part of like this this quietness in the streets that
Speaker 1: occurs as everyone stays in and plays their games. Um,
Speaker 1: but but really you can do it when you want to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's it's fun because I remember last year,
Speaker 1: I think it fell on the end of daylight saving time,
Speaker 1: so it ended up being twenty five hours. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you this year, but they we got a lot
Speaker 1: of pushback because that this year it's the day after
Speaker 1: Halloween and everyone was afraid they would not be able
Speaker 1: to participate after Halloween. I don't know. I love the
Speaker 1: idea of a bunch of gamers on Twitch wearing wearing
Speaker 1: costumes and subsisting mainly on candy as they're trying to
Speaker 1: play through. So, Jeremy, you you alluded to this a
Speaker 1: little bit about the beginning of Extra Life. Can you
Speaker 1: go into more detail about about how this all got started.
Speaker 1: It's a really emotional story. Uh yeah, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the story of Extra Life. Really kind of starts
Speaker 1: before a couple of years before Extra Life was even
Speaker 1: a concept, and that that was when I met a
Speaker 1: little girl in my radio career named Victoria Edmund and
Speaker 1: we were doing a radio fon for Texas Children's Hospital
Speaker 1: at the time, and each year around Christmas time, we
Speaker 1: would do this radio thon where we'd go in the
Speaker 1: air and and we'd share these stories. And my job
Speaker 1: at the radio station was an audio production, and so
Speaker 1: I was responsible for recording these stories with these families
Speaker 1: and getting into the kids and helping us get all
Speaker 1: the materials we needed for the radio thon. And my
Speaker 1: first interview was with Victoria and Men and her family.
Speaker 1: Her name everybody calls her Tori, and Tori came bouncing
Speaker 1: into our studio at eleven years old or are actually
Speaker 1: at the time, I think maybe ten ten years old
Speaker 1: and just comes be bopping in. She's considered a survivor
Speaker 1: of leukemia and life was good, and we had a
Speaker 1: great interview with them about all the things that the
Speaker 1: hospital did for them, and they went on their way
Speaker 1: and had our radio thund that Christmas time. And then
Speaker 1: the next year, my I was getting ready to to
Speaker 1: do the radio THUUGHNT interviews and I saw her name
Speaker 1: come back up on my list and I noticed that
Speaker 1: I recognized her name, and I turned to the person
Speaker 1: from the hospital and said, this little girl, we actually
Speaker 1: talked to her last year. We already have an interview
Speaker 1: with her, and my friend at the hospital said, well,
Speaker 1: this is a follow up story. And instead of bebopping
Speaker 1: into the studio, we were actually doing the interviews at
Speaker 1: the hospital this time. She came in in the hospital,
Speaker 1: gown in a wheelchair with no hair and very thin,
Speaker 1: hooked to a million machines, and uh, and I was
Speaker 1: floored the difference in the little girl that I saw
Speaker 1: just a year before, and and the little girl that
Speaker 1: came rolling in was incredible and heartbreaking, frankly. And she
Speaker 1: hopped up out of her chair though, and and kind
Speaker 1: of shuffled over to me and gave me this big
Speaker 1: hog and said hi, and remember my name. I went
Speaker 1: by Doc on the radio, and that name still follows
Speaker 1: me a little bit to this day. And I just
Speaker 1: kind of decided that point that that that little girl
Speaker 1: was had just a special place in my heart. It
Speaker 1: was supposed to be in my life. And so UM
Speaker 1: got to know her and her family over the course
Speaker 1: of their fight with leukemia, where she beat it again
Speaker 1: through a bone marrow transplant, and then it's very sadly
Speaker 1: got a call the following summer from her mom, who
Speaker 1: they had just gotten the news from a scan that
Speaker 1: the cancer in her blood had returned. And at this
Speaker 1: point the only thing they could do was one more
Speaker 1: bone marrow transplant, which had about a five percent chance
Speaker 1: of working. In Tori decided she wanted to fight, and
Speaker 1: they all decided they'd fight with her, so she went
Speaker 1: into the hospital. Ended up being in the hospital UM
Speaker 1: for almost I think seven months. I think she got
Speaker 1: to go home a couple of times here and there,
Speaker 1: but always something flared up or something went wrong when
Speaker 1: she had to go home again. And during that period
Speaker 1: of time, I spent a lot of time hanging out
Speaker 1: with Tori in the hospital. We would play games together,
Speaker 1: we would watch TV together. I'd give her mom a
Speaker 1: break since her mom was living practically at the hospital
Speaker 1: with her UM, so I would, you know, let mom
Speaker 1: go out and run errands and just get some coffee
Speaker 1: and decompressed a little bit and really got to know
Speaker 1: Tori and UM. I was running a video game website
Speaker 1: called Sarcastic Gamer at the time, and I put the
Speaker 1: word out to those gamers that I have this friend
Speaker 1: of mine. She's super cool. She's played every game that
Speaker 1: they have in their PS two's here in the hospital. UM,
Speaker 1: does anybody have anything they're not using? And order games
Speaker 1: are done with and they wouldn't mind sending them over
Speaker 1: What was supposed to be, you know, a trickle of
Speaker 1: a couple of things to keep her occupied and up
Speaker 1: being an avalanche for this like outpouring of love from
Speaker 1: the gaming community. We received things from all over the
Speaker 1: world and uh so much so Tori was actually having
Speaker 1: to offload the games to other kids because it was
Speaker 1: just too much bos just ridiculous how much stuff came in.
Speaker 1: And that was the sort of the first glints into
Speaker 1: the generous nature of gamers who I was one of.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I still kind of had
Speaker 1: that stereotypical you know, like you judge gamers by some
Speaker 1: of the comments you read under articles, and you don't
Speaker 1: get the best picture and so um. Later that year,
Speaker 1: tor Uh developed a fungal infection in her lungs as
Speaker 1: a result of her suppressed immune system. That was you know,
Speaker 1: the effort to get her ready for a bone marew transplant,
Speaker 1: and um, she was still in the hospital. At the
Speaker 1: radio thon in December, I got got her on the
Speaker 1: on the radio and and did an interview with her
Speaker 1: and talked to her a little bit afterwards and asked
Speaker 1: her what she wanted for Christmas, and she said she
Speaker 1: just really wanted to go outside and see um Christmas lights,
Speaker 1: and I didn't and think about being able to accomplish
Speaker 1: that for her, because you know, she was so sick
Speaker 1: and frail. But a nurse overheard us talking and actually
Speaker 1: just showed up with a huge pile of blankets, a
Speaker 1: really special wheelchair that had all the pump hook ups
Speaker 1: for her. Um got her parents permission, doctor signed off,
Speaker 1: and we rolled out into the Houston Medical Center at
Speaker 1: about ten o'clock nine and nine at night. And uh,
Speaker 1: we got a chance to look at Christmas lights together
Speaker 1: and just me and her walking around looking at lights,
Speaker 1: and rolled it back upstairs, took it to a room.
Speaker 1: We stopped on the way up. We stopped back by
Speaker 1: the radio Thon area where there was this big Christmas tree,
Speaker 1: got our picture made there. And I'm actually sitting here
Speaker 1: with that picture right now. I know your listeners can't
Speaker 1: see it, but I have turned my camera on the
Speaker 1: skype here so you can see it. Um, but um,
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is Tory, you know, if you
Speaker 1: can see it very well. We had that picture made
Speaker 1: right there, and that picture is uh, it's always here
Speaker 1: with me. Michael old Tests, I've actually brought it with
Speaker 1: me who are broadcast last year for Extra Life And
Speaker 1: and he sat in the front seat of my car
Speaker 1: with a seatbelt on it. Um and uh, and it's
Speaker 1: it's special to be for a lot of reasons. Not
Speaker 1: only is it has Tory had an immense impact in
Speaker 1: my life, but that specific picture is important because that
Speaker 1: was the last time that I ever got to see her.
Speaker 1: So Tori died right after the New Year. And UM,
Speaker 1: grief does some things, and sometimes it renders you, you know,
Speaker 1: unable to move or finger talk, and then sometimes it
Speaker 1: just pisces you off and you just want to do
Speaker 1: something about what's happening you children who are sick, and
Speaker 1: kids like Tory and and and parents like Joel and
Speaker 1: her mom who have to be harry a thirteen year
Speaker 1: old kid, the fifteen year old child in the Tori's case,
Speaker 1: but I mean children and their parents who are going
Speaker 1: through just horrible things. It's uh. It made me angry,
Speaker 1: and UM, I wanted to do something in Tori's memory.
Speaker 1: I wanted to keep her alive in some way, And
Speaker 1: so UM got together with my buddies and Sarcastic Gamer again.
Speaker 1: We put the word out and in two thousand eight
Speaker 1: we launched Extra Life. In October and October fifteenth, two
Speaker 1: thousand eight, we raised a hundred twenty thousand dollars for
Speaker 1: the hospital that Tory was being treated at, a Texas
Speaker 1: Children's The next year we raised a hundred seventy thousand,
Speaker 1: and that sort of brings us up to where I
Speaker 1: was sharing with you about how um it's now see
Speaker 1: him in Hospitals program. We made the donation to see
Speaker 1: him in hospitals and they have been UM incredible. We
Speaker 1: we this has just been a fantastic program that's doubled
Speaker 1: every year since then. So we went from uh four
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand and ten to a million dollars and
Speaker 1: eleven to two million and twelve to four million last year.
Speaker 1: UM all all because gamers are who they are. They're
Speaker 1: the most social people on the planet. They're just like
Speaker 1: everyone else. Mom's, dad's, aunts, uncle's, brothers and sisters, um,
Speaker 1: and almost everyone has been touched by a children's hospital
Speaker 1: at some point. And and so we just find that
Speaker 1: it's a perfect fit between the people who are the
Speaker 1: big biggest kids at heart and the kids that we're
Speaker 1: here to. Sir, that's just such an incredible story and
Speaker 1: I think an amazing tribute to someone who sounds like
Speaker 1: she was an amazing person. UM and I'm very pleased
Speaker 1: to have played a very tiny role in that, so
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing that with us. And if someone
Speaker 1: wants to get involved, there are lots of different options.
Speaker 1: So can we talk a little bit about some of
Speaker 1: the ways people can support Extra Life, whether they are
Speaker 1: supporting it as pledging for someone else or actually participating
Speaker 1: as a gamer. What are the different options? All right,
Speaker 1: I'll take that one. UM. So when you get involved
Speaker 1: with extra Life, you you can sign up and participate yourself,
Speaker 1: um as an individual, or you can even start your
Speaker 1: own team and get your buddies or co workers or
Speaker 1: family and friends involved. UM. And you can all kind
Speaker 1: of participate an Extra Life under your team umbrella. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, if if maybe gaming isn't your thing, or
Speaker 1: or you want to do something else and and still
Speaker 1: contribute to somebody's Extra Life campaign. It's super easy to
Speaker 1: donate as well. You can just go to the website
Speaker 1: and search for a random player or somebody that you know,
Speaker 1: UM and just make a donation. There's also a way
Speaker 1: to just donate straight to that hospital as well. UM.
Speaker 1: So I mean, it's participating, it's spreading the word, it's
Speaker 1: making that donation, it's making me ask. Um. There's just
Speaker 1: tons of different ways that you can you can help
Speaker 1: kids in your neighborhood, right. I. When I was creating it,
Speaker 1: I remember that you could make a you make an
Speaker 1: essentially a web page for your h for your participation,
Speaker 1: and that keeps you informed as well as other people
Speaker 1: if they want to visit your web page to see
Speaker 1: how well you are doing. Uh. And that was really
Speaker 1: helpful for me because I participated in a team, so
Speaker 1: I could see how I was doing compared to the
Speaker 1: rest of my team. And the team I joined was
Speaker 1: the largest of all the teams. It was the one
Speaker 1: that ended up raising the most money last year. It
Speaker 1: was the Rooster Teeth team. Uh. I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of the Rooster Teeth guys. I've had Bernie Burns on
Speaker 1: the show before, Fantastic guy. Uh. And so I participated
Speaker 1: with them, and uh I came in number fifteen, so
Speaker 1: not bad. Yeah, I was pretty pleased with myself. That's awesome. Well, no,
Speaker 1: that was fifteen out of the Rooster Teeth, not out
Speaker 1: of everybody, I should say that, because the Rooster Teeth
Speaker 1: raised about three thousand something like that. Yeah, total, So
Speaker 1: I was Um, I don't remember exactly how much. I
Speaker 1: just remember my rank was fifteen. I was so proud.
Speaker 1: Uh for a while I was beating Jack Potillo, who
Speaker 1: was the captain of the team, and that then I
Speaker 1: was Then Jack surpassed me and I had he just
Speaker 1: passed you because he did the truffle shuffle. That's true,
Speaker 1: Uh so he The neat thing is, of course, like
Speaker 1: you were saying, gamers are very social, and so if
Speaker 1: you are a gamer out there and you have a
Speaker 1: gaming group that you like to play with, like people,
Speaker 1: maybe you have, you know, your old buddies from your
Speaker 1: old Halo to guild, then this is a great way
Speaker 1: to represent and join together and do something as a
Speaker 1: group and give back to a community in a really
Speaker 1: meaningful way. It's one of those things that I thought
Speaker 1: it was a great way of leveraging that sense of community,
Speaker 1: and it gives gamers a feeling that the skill that
Speaker 1: they have, uh is meaningful. It's beyond being entertaining yourself
Speaker 1: for you know, schooling a nube. It's all about it's
Speaker 1: also about doing something that actually has a visible positive
Speaker 1: impact on the community at large. So I've immediately uh
Speaker 1: latched onto this idea. I thought it was fantastic. So
Speaker 1: let's say we've got some folks out there in tech
Speaker 1: stuff land who want to end up joining in, they
Speaker 1: want to participate. Do you have any tips for people
Speaker 1: who want to try to go out and raise pledges,
Speaker 1: any best practices. We've seen a lot of really cool
Speaker 1: stuff happened. I think I mentioned a lady who did
Speaker 1: the bake sales. So she ran up on a hard
Speaker 1: time doing the online ask and she just didn't feel
Speaker 1: comfortable asking for money. And while we do have some
Speaker 1: tips for that on on our website. UM, the what
Speaker 1: she did is she put out basically brownies that she
Speaker 1: made with a jar next where she worked, and you
Speaker 1: just kept it stocked with brownies all the time and
Speaker 1: just said, hey, put a donation in here for my
Speaker 1: extra life page, and uh, it's going to sit kids
Speaker 1: here in our area and take a brownie. And she
Speaker 1: raised a significant amount of money that way. UM, And
Speaker 1: there are folks out there that, um, we'll do some
Speaker 1: fun things that have nothing to do with the actual
Speaker 1: gaming in order to get the donations. I personally, UH
Speaker 1: do a thing on my page where if you make
Speaker 1: a donation of a certain amount, then it I will
Speaker 1: sing a portion of a song for you on Facebook,
Speaker 1: I you know, streaming video and posted on your Facebook page. So,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of different creative ways that
Speaker 1: people do this, but it's uh, it's really um, it's
Speaker 1: really kind of up to the creativity of the game.
Speaker 1: I know Mike's seen a few things too. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially with this guilt program, I gotta work with some
Speaker 1: of the most passionate extra lifers out there. Um And heck,
Speaker 1: I just saw somebody from Alabama reach out to their
Speaker 1: local daytime news and score an interview on there. And
Speaker 1: so he was able to tell the news lady about
Speaker 1: everything that Extra Life is. You know, how he how
Speaker 1: he heard about it, how he got involved, you know,
Speaker 1: the bigger story of how it affects Children's Miracle Network
Speaker 1: hospitals across North America, and then at the very end
Speaker 1: plugged his own fundraising page. I mean, it was gold.
Speaker 1: It was It's a great way to rise up in
Speaker 1: the rankings. What's also cool is that Extra Life takes
Speaker 1: not just you know, it doesn't just help tap into
Speaker 1: that game or culture. It feeds back into it. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of things about Extra Life, uh, that
Speaker 1: that are very closely tied to what it is to
Speaker 1: be a gamer today. For example, the website has achievements,
Speaker 1: so that really does tapp into that gamer psyche, those
Speaker 1: of us who desperately want to get every single achievement possible.
Speaker 1: And uh, I love that that is a part of
Speaker 1: something that can pop up on profiles. There's also if
Speaker 1: you participate, there's that you have the swag section as well,
Speaker 1: so there's kind of almost like a crowdfunding approach. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's taking some of the great ideas I've seen
Speaker 1: used in other areas and really honing it for this experience,
Speaker 1: to make it enjoyable and fun for the people who
Speaker 1: are participating while still being meaningful. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the best. That's one of my favorite things about the
Speaker 1: approach you guys have taken. Thank you. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: those those achievement badges you're talking about, those are those
Speaker 1: are brand new this year. We had heard that feedback
Speaker 1: from the community and those ideas coming. We're like, you
Speaker 1: know what, that's awesome, let's do it. Um, So we
Speaker 1: were able to add those achievements this year and and
Speaker 1: that swagon incentives page you're you're talking about, Um, that's
Speaker 1: something that's constantly changing. We're constantly bringing on new community
Speaker 1: partners who are offering kind of those community wide incentives
Speaker 1: for those fundraising power ups right there. Um, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we're very excited to see that grow and
Speaker 1: the impact that our partners are able to do just
Speaker 1: by saying, hey, we're gonna give you a three month
Speaker 1: trial if you raise fifty bucks for your local children's
Speaker 1: maric Labor Hospital. Um, it's just some really exciting stuff
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, this was something that as soon as
Speaker 1: I saw it, I thought, well, you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: you've got taking advantage of that huge achievement culture that
Speaker 1: you see on both the Xbox platform and the Steam platform.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a proven working model, and it's another
Speaker 1: cool way for the gamers to interact with one another
Speaker 1: and and have fun with this and uh and I
Speaker 1: really also enjoy how the groups kind of have this
Speaker 1: friendly competition. Sometimes sometimes there's a little more smack talking
Speaker 1: between each other, but that that just ends up fueling
Speaker 1: even more support for the end goal. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those times where the smack talk actually is something
Speaker 1: I really recommend people participate in in a constructive way
Speaker 1: because because I see the results and they're great. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: do you guys have any other like cool stories from
Speaker 1: past extra life events, things that stood out in your
Speaker 1: mind as really need examples of what people have done
Speaker 1: to really make this event their own. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of different sort of I guess deployments of extra life
Speaker 1: out there. Um. Like you said, I mean the folks
Speaker 1: at Rooster Teeth last year who did their their marathon
Speaker 1: broadcasts were just incredible. And you've got you know, other
Speaker 1: partners like like game Spot who are planning I think
Speaker 1: a one hundred hour livestream this year, um, which is
Speaker 1: just unbelievable. Then you also and I we celebrate those
Speaker 1: things because obviously you know, those are loud voices that
Speaker 1: have a big impact. But I celebrate personally just as
Speaker 1: much the one guy who's got two guys watching him
Speaker 1: on Twitch, who's streaming his heart out and raising a
Speaker 1: ton of money, you know, by relative to how many
Speaker 1: folks he's got watching. Um, I I like to see
Speaker 1: the difference in in there might be a difference in execution,
Speaker 1: and there might be a difference in sort of the
Speaker 1: impact based on you know, size and how many people
Speaker 1: listen to you or your friends with but it's so common,
Speaker 1: the passion is common. Their hearts are all just as
Speaker 1: convicted about doing something that's going to help kids in
Speaker 1: their neighborhood. Um So, I mean there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways out there, but like we said, like I
Speaker 1: said before, the the end of the day, here, it's
Speaker 1: people doing really wonderful things while having a last uh.
Speaker 1: And there's so many different definitions of having a blast
Speaker 1: that are out there that we can be here all
Speaker 1: day long. Don't forget. Also, x let is not just
Speaker 1: about video games. I mean, board games and tabletop gamers
Speaker 1: have have embraced us like crazy over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years and they've come in like like a boss
Speaker 1: um and and raise a ton of money. And some
Speaker 1: of our our new partners, Wizards of the Coast and
Speaker 1: uh Looney Labs have have stepped up on that front
Speaker 1: in a very big way to be extra life partners
Speaker 1: as well. You know, that's fantastic. I love that. Uh
Speaker 1: that that shows like Tabletop on the Geek and Sundry
Speaker 1: Network have really brought that element of gaming. And again
Speaker 1: they they stress how gaming is a communal event and
Speaker 1: brings people together, whether you're competing against one another, or
Speaker 1: cooperating with each other to attain a specific goal. And uh,
Speaker 1: and and you're absolutely right. That's you know. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to be to narrowly defined it as video games,
Speaker 1: because any games really do work. As as for my
Speaker 1: own personal sperience, I thought I would I would entertain
Speaker 1: our listeners by explaining what I did. Now. When I
Speaker 1: did mine, I didn't do it as Jonathan Strickland, host
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. I did my own little thing because
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure how to frame it in the context
Speaker 1: of the podcast I do. I was just kind of
Speaker 1: joining in with the rooster Teeth folks. So my idea was,
Speaker 1: since it was a twenty five hour marathon, I was
Speaker 1: going to throw myself in the deep end and I
Speaker 1: was going to play Minecraft on PC for twenty five hours.
Speaker 1: And for those those people who pledged to me, if
Speaker 1: you pledged at twenty five dollars, I would build you
Speaker 1: a tribute within the game. And if you pledge more
Speaker 1: than that, I would build you a tribute that was
Speaker 1: fitting compared to the pledge level that you made. And
Speaker 1: when I started, when I started getting pledges of two
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, I knew I was in trouble because it
Speaker 1: had to be eight times more exciting than the level.
Speaker 1: So for the first twenty two hours of Minecraft, which
Speaker 1: I did stream on Twitch and I had, I had
Speaker 1: people watching, like maybe two or three people the entire time,
Speaker 1: So I'm one of those guys that Jeremy was talking about. There.
Speaker 1: For the first twenty two hours or so, people watched
Speaker 1: me just gathering all the different resources I needed, and
Speaker 1: then for the next two hours it was me building
Speaker 1: all the different tributes using the materials that would be
Speaker 1: appropriate for each one. There was one guy who he
Speaker 1: ran a group of gamers who are known for griefing
Speaker 1: people on Minecraft, but he donated to me, and he
Speaker 1: said what his tribute needed to be was a house
Speaker 1: that I would then burn down and then put his
Speaker 1: gamer group name in Obsidian over the remains of the house,
Speaker 1: which I did, and uh yeah, so I mean I
Speaker 1: went all out. I built. I built. It was nicer
Speaker 1: than the house I had made for myself. My house
Speaker 1: was a hole in the ground with a door. But
Speaker 1: I made a wooden house for these guys, built the
Speaker 1: name over it, and then set it on fire. And
Speaker 1: by that time I was pretty loopy. I think I
Speaker 1: was actually humming yakety Sacks from the old Benny Hill
Speaker 1: Show at that point, and then for the final hour,
Speaker 1: I just ran around the world that I had created
Speaker 1: because I had finished all the tributes and I had
Speaker 1: gone crazy, but it was I just want to point
Speaker 1: out to you the Minecraft has this thing called creative Mode.
Speaker 1: You don't have to go mine material. That's true, that's true.
Speaker 1: But I was doing this in the spirit of really
Speaker 1: and I had never played the PC version of Minecraft.
Speaker 1: I was doing it specifically because I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be an effort. I want to go, You're having to
Speaker 1: like figure out the recipe. Yes, yes, god, I had
Speaker 1: no idea. Yeah, I was asking twitch. I was saying,
Speaker 1: all right, seriously, just tell me what a shovel is,
Speaker 1: because because the the only time I had ever played
Speaker 1: was on the Xbox, which is Minecraft with training wheels.
Speaker 1: You know, that's they You don't need to know how
Speaker 1: to how to put the things in the right dimensions
Speaker 1: in order to make a a anything in Minecraft. On
Speaker 1: the Xbox, you just have to have the raw materials
Speaker 1: and it does it itself. But on the PC you
Speaker 1: have to put them in the right configuration in order
Speaker 1: to make whatever it is you're making. And also I
Speaker 1: was making, I was anguished by decisions, thinking things like, well,
Speaker 1: I really need this diamond for the tribute, but I
Speaker 1: also have to mind obsidian, so I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: make a diamond pick axe. But but that was what
Speaker 1: was entertaining to the people who are watching me, and uh,
Speaker 1: and it also I thought really demonstrated that I was
Speaker 1: I was really dedicated to seeing this out and I did.
Speaker 1: I played the full twenty five hours, and um, it
Speaker 1: was an incredible experience. And I felt really like a
Speaker 1: great sense of reward from that, not just from raising
Speaker 1: the money, but from my participation and dedication to it.
Speaker 1: And I think that's another thing that you know, you
Speaker 1: really can't you can't dismiss that. That's something that is
Speaker 1: a great feeling when you are participating in something larger
Speaker 1: than yourself and contributing to it. I really see that
Speaker 1: as a fulfilling activity, and so I highly recommend any
Speaker 1: of my tech stuff listeners out there to look into
Speaker 1: Extra Life see if you can participate, either by pledging
Speaker 1: for someone else or participating as a game of yourself
Speaker 1: and raising pledges. It is an amazing experience and you
Speaker 1: can be part of the larger group. You can do
Speaker 1: things on your own, you can stream it live, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do however you want to define it.
Speaker 1: But it's an amazing way to contribute and have a
Speaker 1: good time while doing it. That's awesome. Hats off to
Speaker 1: you for that. I'm you know, we were loopy and
Speaker 1: we had a very varietal extra life experience get doing
Speaker 1: our stream. We don't actually get to play a lot
Speaker 1: of games ourselves during that period of time. We're constantly
Speaker 1: updating the community. Plus we had those DIDOS attacks last
Speaker 1: year occupied a lot of our mental and emotional energy. Um.
Speaker 1: But to play one game for twenty especially like Minecraft,
Speaker 1: that that is epic. That you did, that is amazing,
Speaker 1: So hats off to you. And you've given me some
Speaker 1: ideas for some pre extra life fundraising that I may do.
Speaker 1: If it's all right for me to borrow your tactic.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely all right, I I think you know
Speaker 1: it was again, I was kind of taking that idea
Speaker 1: from the crowdfunding world of if I hit this level,
Speaker 1: this is the reward you get for supporting me, and
Speaker 1: so all of my rewards were within the realm of
Speaker 1: the game I was playing, and Minecraft just made it
Speaker 1: easy because it's it's something where you can build stuff
Speaker 1: within that game. There are other games that you could
Speaker 1: do that. And obviously I asked my listeners what game
Speaker 1: I should play this year if I decided to do
Speaker 1: just a single game. And it looks like it looks
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna be leveling a character from level one
Speaker 1: too as high as I can get in Destiny. That's
Speaker 1: what it looks like. Yeah, I think that's that's that's
Speaker 1: a that's a strong thing, strong thing to go after
Speaker 1: for for that, and I think Destiny is gonna be
Speaker 1: a little more maybe energy infusing than Minecraft wasn't it
Speaker 1: might be. Yeah, but now that now that you can
Speaker 1: no longer go to the Treasure Cave and just fire
Speaker 1: into a hole for two hours. Now they fixed that
Speaker 1: so we don't have to worry about that anymore. We
Speaker 1: just got a p S four this weekend this past
Speaker 1: weekend and Uh, I've played about eight minutes of Destiny
Speaker 1: and my son, uh and my other kids have been
Speaker 1: on the PS four the entire time. So I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to getting a chance at it myself soon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really incredible experience if you can
Speaker 1: get a couple of other people joined up with you
Speaker 1: and really kind of tackle it the way it was
Speaker 1: meant to be played. It's one of those games where
Speaker 1: you really do need to kind of play it the
Speaker 1: way they intended it to. When you try and step
Speaker 1: outside of it, I think it's a little less rewarding.
Speaker 1: But you know that's that's ends to be how I
Speaker 1: play most games anyway. Once in a while I'll step
Speaker 1: outside and just say what what happens? But uh, that
Speaker 1: doesn't always end well for me. Well, guys, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. This has been a great conversation, and again
Speaker 1: I highly recommend to my listeners check this out, look
Speaker 1: into it, learn more about it. There's tons of information
Speaker 1: on the website and uh, including all of the swag
Speaker 1: and incentives that we've talked about, their suggestions on how
Speaker 1: to get things like corporate matching. It may be possible
Speaker 1: for you to participate that in this and your company
Speaker 1: or the people you work for might be able to
Speaker 1: match whatever you raise, which is another great idea, uh,
Speaker 1: something I highly recommend looking into. A lot of companies
Speaker 1: are happy to do that and are looking for opportunities
Speaker 1: to do that, so I recommend that as well. Is
Speaker 1: there anything else you guys would like to say before
Speaker 1: we sign on? Yeah, I mean I would just I
Speaker 1: would encourage your listeners to make Extra Life their own. Um. Just,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that question you asked us a
Speaker 1: little bit while back about you know, creative ways. We've
Speaker 1: seen people kind of take Extra Life and run with it,
Speaker 1: and um, one that I wanted to share is people
Speaker 1: are turning Extra Life into kind of like a neighborhood
Speaker 1: block party where they are, you know, inviting their friends
Speaker 1: their neighbors over to their house and they're saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, come on over, here's my here's my laptop,
Speaker 1: make a donation to my page, and they just grill
Speaker 1: out and they play games all the all day long. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's not necessarily they're all playing for
Speaker 1: the twenty four hours, but they'll do it and shifts
Speaker 1: so there's always somebody in the house playing a game. Um.
Speaker 1: Just you know, it's a it's a community activity like
Speaker 1: you were talking about, So so make it your own
Speaker 1: and run with it. That's fantastic, guys, Thank you again.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for jumping in and uh,
Speaker 1: I really look forward to seeing how much is raised
Speaker 1: this year, and keep in mind, listeners, again, this is
Speaker 1: one of those things where if you can't participate on
Speaker 1: the national Game Day, that's fine. You can totally do
Speaker 1: it on a different day. And keep in mind you
Speaker 1: don't have to push yourself to the breaking point either.
Speaker 1: Everyone understands that this is an event that's held for charity,
Speaker 1: and sure you you might need to put in some time,
Speaker 1: but you can put that in. You can break that up.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do it all in twenty four
Speaker 1: hours if that's just not possible. The important thing here
Speaker 1: is that we are gamers who are grouped together supporting
Speaker 1: something larger than ourselves. And as long as we remember that,
Speaker 1: I think you know we take home the important lesson here.
Speaker 1: So thank you again, guys. If you ever have any
Speaker 1: suggestions out there for any episodes of tech Stuff, you
Speaker 1: know how to get in touch with me, Email me
Speaker 1: tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com, drop me
Speaker 1: a line on Twitter, Facebook or Tumbler. My handle at
Speaker 1: all three is tech Stuff hs W and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you guys again really soon for more on this
Speaker 1: and bathands of other topics. Because it Works dot Com