The lights are on
This past weekend we played video game for 25 hours straight for Extra Life 2013. We raised over $15,000 for Gillette Children's Specialty Heathcare, a Children's Miracle Network hospital in Minnesota. Extra Life raised a whopping $3.7 million overall. We livestreamed the whole ordeal from start to finish, including the four hours in which Extra Life suffered a confounding DDoS attack. We gave away over a hundred game codes, took game requests in exchange for donations, and gave away physical prizes ranging from Link's shield to a BioShock Infinite: Burial At Sea poster signed by Irrational Games. We aimed to give viewers more incentive than last year to watch, play alongside us, and donate for a good cause. Now that Extra Life 2013 is finished, we want your feedback about how the livestream went so we can make next year even better.
Watch our Extra Life 2013 livestream in Game Informer's Twitch TV archive.
This year's Extra Life marathon was more organized than last year's. Game Informer staff like Joe Juba and Kim Wallace played their favorite games during scheduled blocks of time and chatted with the community. Longtime GI community member Zachary Pligge moderated the chat and gave out prizes. Video editor Jason Oestreicher managed the livestream tech and played fighting games with the community. We had a lot of fun and hope you did, too. But how can we make it better?
We can't promise everyone will get their wish, but we're all ears. Want us to beg a specific editor to join in next year? We can try to recruit them. Interested in prizes from a certain publisher? We'll reach out to see if they can spare anything. Interested in more online play sessions with the community? We can brainstorm! Spill your thoughts in the comments below so we can make Extra Life 2014 even better. Let us what you liked and what you think we could improve.
A tremendous thanks from everyone here at Game Informer to those who donated, joined Team Game Informer on Extra Life, and helped spread the word.
I really liked it. My only complaint was the way the give aways were handled. It was very chaotic and actually anytime there was a give away it took away from the stream because of the way it came off. Other than that though, it was a lot of fun.
I enjoyed it thoroughly and I stayed on the whole time great job guys.
I thought t was awesome, it was really difficult for me to go to sleep because I wanted to keep watching ! ;) it cool to see Reiner & little Evale but maybe next year we can actually see Reiner play some games :) also I'm not sure if it happened this year or not but I think it would be cool if you did little tournaments & let us, the community join in, games like Mario party, Mario kart, GTA online etc.:)!
I watched pretty much the whoel thing whilst gaming myself. It was really great and Zach did a really good job!
I liked it overall. The thing that annoyed me was that you were doing the giveaways simultaneously with the normal gameplay (and talking) going on. That was very annoying on the ears in my opinion. I think you should've done the giveaway inbetween the games or just have the people who are playing shut up for a minute.
I really enjoyed the stream. Someone mentioned donation incentives for particular prize pools and challenges for the player during the play session. Awesome games done quick uses that method to streamline prize give aways and rally donations. I love being able to ask the editors questions while they played, that should be expanded some how. For games like RPGs it would be nice to know how it will progress at the start. Like if joe knew he was starting the seed field exam instead of entering estar while he played ff8 it might of been more exciting. (Though I still enjoyed that)
Overall I think you all had a tremendous effort. Good job to all :)
It was awesome and good job!
Awesome ideas guys, thanks for the feedback!
It was really fun to watch! Also being awake through the time change meant I didn't have to deal with adjusting in the morning like I usually do, haha.
One thing I can think of is that I would have liked to be able to see what people were playing when they weren't on the main camera! No microphone needed, just a stream of what's on their screen would be entertaining.
I'm with vifig. The stream was phenomenal though I wish that maybe here and there we could see what others in the room were up to/playing. I saw someone play Dead Space 3, Ben Reeves in the background at one point playing something with a look on his face as if he was in his own little world. Just a thought :)
www.gameinformer.com/.../extra-life-2013.aspx
My thoughts are surmised in this blog post. Excellent job guys, no real complaints here. I loved all of it.
Glad I was able to be a small part of this event. WIll surely do it again next year. Also, I just went to their site and it is at nearly 4 million now!!!
It was great, and was awesome to be a part of the stream that watched through. everything including the twitch chat was as good as i hoped it would be, and im definitely watching and donating again next year.
Honestly next year i would like to see you guys skype call some fans? or get them in on certain multiplayer games? Do more giveaways but most of all keep having fun! that was awesome to watch guys good job!