I think we can both agree on one thing – games are awesome! Whether they’re videogames, casino games, board games or card games, they’re some of the most fun activities that you can possibly have in your life. I assure you, there’s nothing quite like relaxing with a controller at the end of a long day at work, and I probably don’t need to tell you that getting a few spins on your favorite online slot every now and then is pretty great. But these activities are for relaxation purposes only – they’re meant to entertain you, provide you with a bit of fun every once in a while, they can’t possibly help anyone… Or can they? Make sure you’re sitting tight, because I’m about to blow your mind!
Enter Extra Life – a charity organization that allows you to play games and help out a children’s hospital in the process! Basically, it works like this – one day of the month (November 5th for 2016) is officially labeled Extra Life Day. On it, you’re encouraged to stream yourself playing games for 24 hours straight (though you don’t have to do the full 24 hours, or you can swap with a partner from time to time). For those of you unfamiliar with the term, streaming is when you do a live broadcast of yourself (featuring your screen and sometimes your face) while playing games so that others can watch you play. Your spectators can leave comments on your game and you can interact with them, sometimes even letting them influence your game (this was taken to the extreme in “Twitch Plays Pokemonâ€, where a streamer gave the people watching the game full control over his game of Pokemon). It’s most commonly done with videogames, but really, you can stream any kind of game! Streaming yourself gambling online is just as easy as streaming yourself playing a game, and using an app such as Periscope you can stream directly from your phone’s camera to show yourself playing a board game or something like that.
Now, where does the charity aspect fall into this? Well, before you start streaming, you can pick a hospital from a huge list of them, located all over the US and Canada (sadly, international hospitals aren’t supported, but there’s nothing stopping you from setting something up on your own outside of Extra Life). Next, when you start streaming you’ll be given a link that you can place on your screen, or send out to the people watching you. When they go to that link, your viewers can donate to the hospital of your choice in your name to support you during your gaming marathon. It’s not exactly simple to set up, and you might need to jump a few hoops in order to get everything going, but overall, “Extra Life†is an absolutely phenomenal way to do what you love while supporting children who need your help. And ultimately, there are few things better than that in the world.