Welcome to a special edition of this “This week in Gaming.” For this week, we’re going to take a break from our usual Magic: The Gathering discussions and talk about something special to me. This week we’re going to talk about Extra Life 2015. If you remember last year, I wrote a little article about my intentions to join the Extra Life 2014 campaign. If you weren’t around for any of that, then you’ll be happy to know that we ended up raising over $2500. However, that was all done last year. This is a new year. A new year means new goal and a new goal means a new story.

I was off to the races the moment I registered for Extra Life 2014. I took to Facebook and posted about my campaign, my goal, and all that jazz. I was so ready, I even had contests ready to go to start raising money. I was like a kid in a candy store. There were all of these opportunities and feelings of excitement that I was getting ahead of myself. Almost every month leading up to the Extra Life 2014 Game Day, I was trying to give something away. This year, things are going to be different.

For starters, last year, I tried to run almost a year long campaign. This year, I decided to wait a little longer before I got things started. I only recently sent out Facebook invites to the Game Day. In case you didn’t get one, don’t worry. It’s not a private event that only my friends are allowed to go to. Everyone can come! In fact, I encourage everyone to come. Oh what’s that? You have no idea what Game Day is?

First, let me start off by explaining what Extra Life is all about. Extra Life is a charity that was started several years ago by a bunch of gamers. Their purpose was to help make life a little bit easier for kids who are in hospitals for extended stays due to illness, treatment, etc. It started out as gamers donating games to keep the kids entertained. In the following years, with the help of Twitch, gamers took to the internet to stream themselves play video games for 24 hours. Now, thanks to the tabletop boom, Game Day has evolved into a 24 hour gaming marathon of people broadcasting and gathering in real life to play games.

Last year, both Battleground Games & Hobbies locations took part in the Extra Life 2014 Game Day. I honestly have to say I was surprised. I was grateful that the Abington store was gracious enough to open it’s doors, but to have both stores was somewhat overwhelming. This year, we plan on doing the same thing – both locations will be hosting a 24 hour gaming marathon. One thing that will be different though will be the starting time.

Having been the first year, I thought it would be a good idea to have Game Day fall directly after Friday Night Magic. On paper, the idea made sense. Why go home only to come back and open the store for 24 hours? Just get it all done right then and there! Somewhere in the world, someone is hitting a big red buzzer. I was wrong and many people reminded me throughout the day as kindly as they could. I totally forgot that some people live normal lives and have jobs. Some of those people came straight from work and stayed as long as they could. This year, we’re shooting for a 10 AM start time and a 10 AM end time. This should give people enough time to go home, get some sleep, and gather enough energy to stay awake for the next 24 hours.

The change in time is probably the biggest change we’ll be making for the the 2015 Game Day. Something minimal I’d like to see is a corner we can call home base. This is a set up where we can stream live on Twitch. I’d like to either broadcast a board game being played or someone playing a video game. This would allow us to extend our reach and allow those who couldn’t make it in person to be there digitally. Did you know that that Twitch has an app? So if all goes according to plan, if you can’t make it to the event, you’ll be able to at least watch us via the internet.

One more piece of important information you’ll need before we part ways. The Extra Life 2015 Game Day will be celebrated on November 7, 2015 and will carry over into November 8, 2015. For more information, you can click on the banner at the top of this page.

Well that’s it for this week. I hope you’ve been motivated to help out with an awesome cause. If you’d like to help out in some way, don’t be afraid to get in contact with me. You can always e-mail me at Sims@battlegroundgames.com. Until next week…

About the author

Simeon is now the Community Manager for Battleground Games & Hobbies. If you have any questions or inquiries, then you can reach him at Sims@battlegroundgames.com. He is also an avid gamer who loves to play board games and video games. He graduated college with a degree in Political Science, and now serves the public by writing about games. You can check that out here. Don’t forget to “like” him on Facebook as well. It’ll update you on all of his newest content. Best of all, you can follow Simeon on Twitter (@SimeonCortezano) for some real time hilarity. Thanks for reading!

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