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Who
are you guys?
We’re all a bunch of High
School
(now college!) students looking to play
video games and fend off sleep to raise money for charity.
Coming
soon
maybe
before graduation:
A profile for each member of the ExtraLives.org team!
What
is a Marathon?
Essentially, Marathons are events in which we set aside 24 hours
(or more!) to play through a bunch of video games and broadcast the
ordeal live
over the internet. Typically, the Marathons focus on completing a
certain
number of games in a specific time period (though we’ve got
no
reservations for
playing longer than initially planned).
Also, note
that
“M” in Marathon
is
capitalized. That means our Marathons are special. Or
something.
Have
a game or series
in mind that you want us to play
through? Drop us a line at Contact@ExtraLives.org.
Keep in mind that if we don’t own the
game, it
may be a tad difficult
to actually play it. If there is a game that you’re just dying
to get
rid of, let us know and we may feature it in a future Marathon.
Why
are you doing this?
To make a long story short, I watched Cameron
Banga’s Legend
of Zelda Marathon way back in
January 2008 and thought his idea of
using video
games as a means to raise money for nonprofits was a great approach to
fundraising. Plus, it’d make all those years I spent gaming
not
seem like a
total waste…
Thus,
ExtraLives.org was born!
How
much has ExtraLives.org raised so far?
To date, we have raised a total of $64,163.88
through all of our various Marathons!
We've
provided games, toys and books to children's hospitals through Child's
Play, provided meals for hundreds, if not thousands, through the World
Food
Programme and worked to improve life for people in developing nations
through UNICEF. Our fundraisers for Free the Children funded the
construction of three
schoolhouses
in Ecuador, Kenya and Sierra
Leone and working with charity: water allowed us to build a well in
Ethiopia.
Thanks for the continued support, everybody!
What
hardware and software do you use to broadcast?
We used to capture
video directly from the console
using an EasyCap USB video capture device. Our set has since died on us
but not after a couple of hundred hours of service. Theyre rather
inexpensive (about
$15 or so on Amazon.com) and I'd recommend them if you want to give
broadcasting a go on the cheap. I'd suggest doing some research
to be sure the EasyCap
will work with your hardware. They're quite picky about what computers
they'll work on!
Following the death of the
EasyCaps (around the Zelda Marathon), we
switched to the Diamond
VC500 devices. Although these provide sharper video capture than
the EasyCaps, using two in tandem results in this obnoxious flickering
issue that is nearly impossible to make go away. We've used these from
the 64 Hours of the N64 Marathon through the Rise and Fall of Sonic the Hedgehog Marathon.
Audio
is provided by the Logitech
980186-0403 USB microphone.
There's no fancy audio mixing going on
here! We just place the microphone in a place where it can capture our
voices as well as the game audio from the television.
The feed is put together using a piece of freeware called VH
Multi
Camera Studio. We use it to mix
the video from the capture device
with text (usually just screen-captured from Microsoft Word).
As
broadcasts go, we use some of
the cheapest hardware and software out there! It works pretty well for
us, but our video feeds are rather basic. If you're looking to create
something fancier, you may wish to use better capture devices like the Diamond
VC600 or the Dazzle.
In terms of software, Webcammax
is very nice and versatile especially if you want to add some video
effects to your broadcast.
Will
you ever integrate a webcam into the broadcasts?
Possibly one day but the current two-screened format has grown on me.
I'm not sure if throwing another video feed of everyone just sitting on
a couch would be terribly interesting. The current format keeps the
focus on the games and the commentary-- the bread and butter of our
broadcasts.
But hey, who knows-- maybe one day we'll change things if there's a
huge demand for it.
How
can I connect to the
ExtraLives.org Marathon chatroom with an IRC client?
First, you'll need an IRC client (I'd recommend Xchat).
Next, make a new entry for
Ustream under the list of networks and input the server as c.ustream.tv.
Set the channel
(or favorite channel) to #extralives-marathons.
If you have a Ustream account, input your password in the appropriate
fields and type your username into the "Nick name" field.
How do I donate?
See
that little box to the left? It looks like this:
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That's
the ChipIn widget. The text at the top may vary depending on where the
donations are going (and hopefully the donation bar won't be so
empty...).
Clicking the big orange "ChipIn!" button at the bottom will bring you
to a secure PayPal site.
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Type in the
amount you'd like to donate in the circled "Unit Price" field. |
From there, you can choose to pay via PayPal or Credit Card. The site
accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover cards.
Thanks for donating! |
Where
exactly is
the money going?
This month, donations made via PayPal will be sent directly to Free the Children. We
plan to sponsor a new charity each month. Keep an eye
out for who we’re donating to next!
If
there’s a charity or
nonprofit you feel we should raise money for, send us an email.
Do
you guys keep any of the
money?
Nope! Every cent of each donation is sent directly
to the charity.
None of it ever touches any of our personal PayPal accounts. All costs
related to the Marathons (such as web hosting fees, costs for raffle
prizes and games, etc) are all paid for out of our own pockets.
Is
my donation tax-deductible?
Because ChipIn sends the donations directly to the charity,
you’ll receive a PayPal receipt that you can use for tax
purposes.
Free
The
Children has more information regarding their tax deductibility on
their website.
Is my donation anonymous?
Yup, nobody needs to know your name unless you want it publicly known.
Occasionally we may read out first names or online aliases when
thanking donors on the stream. If you would rather us not do that, feel
free to leave a comment after donating saying you don't want your name
aloud.
Also, all donors are contacted
once the fundraiser ends asking how they want to be represented on the
(very slowly updated) list of donors. Just let me know then if you
would rather your donation be left anonymous on the list.
If
I make/write/submit
something for the site, will you
post it?
Sure! We’d love to see anything you guys make for us!
Provided it’s not especially obscene, we’d be more
than
happy to put it on the
site.
Is
there anything
I can do to help out?
We realize not everybody can donate, so if you’re eager to
help us, feel free to help advertise and publicize the site. Just be
sure to do it respectfully-- nobody likes spam.
Thanks to William Ferguson (WillPie),
we have some banners you could use to help get
the word out! If you have any questions about using them, email me.
500 x 100px |
375 x 75px |
100 x 17 px |
Help!
Something on the site
is broken!
I don’t claim to be a good web designer (in fact, this is
the first site I’ve ever actually made myself). I’m
happy
that I was able to
make anything
even vaguely resembling a website…
Send
an email to Tim@ExtraLives.org
detailing the
problem
(screenshots are good too), the web browser you use, and the resolution
you’re
running and I’ll see what I can do.
I highly recommend using Firefox,
though. Or at least be sure your web browser is updated to the newest
version.
Will you ever change
that "Placeholder image!" picture to something else?
Maybe! I meant to swap it out for something else when the site was
still in its infancy. However, I never got around to it so I decided to
leave the placeholder image there until I can think of something better
to put there.
Update: You
may notice some of the "Placeholder image!" icons are gone. I've
decided to
replace them with pieces of the Microsoft Paint banners for the
corresponding Marathon.
The
Ustream Feed or ChipIn
buttons aren't showing up!
It might be because your Flash player is out of date. Pay the
folks at Adobe a
visit and
update it here.
The ads that appear in the
Ustream feed are annoying-- how do I remove them?
Install something like Adblock Plus to block those
advertisements. We're not getting any of the money generated by them so
feel free to block them completely if they bother you.
Why
is there something on the Ustream feed when a Marathon isn't going on?
In
an effort to keep some sort of content on the feed at all times, we set
old Marathon recordings to automatically play on the Ustream page.
I
will occasionally mess with
the feed to test out
broadcast formatting or new capture equipment. You can disregard it if
you'd like but feel free to watch if it interests you!
What
do I do if I
have a question that isn't mentioned here?
Email us at Contact@ExtraLives.org
and we'll do our best to answer it
(and maybe even add it to this page!) |
