Around this time last year, I was getting ready for Extra Life, putting together a list of games to play, prizes to give away, conditions for raffle entries and of course, the all-important donation goal. I worked tirelessly on this, getting in touch with game developers for keys, Blue Microphones for a Blue Yeti as grand prize and coordinating with the rest of the Tomb Raider Community Team.
I knew it was going to be difficult for some random nobody like me to reach the $500 goal I had set up—the main reason I streamed 18 hours a day for 4 days straight—but I didn’t count on how many people would outright refuse to do so. At the time, I was living in Ireland and when I mentioned the event to colleagues and where the money would go, the reaction was unanimously: “It’s not for an Irish cause, so no.” This is an attitude that baffles me to this day.
A part of me gets it, but when you’re donating to children’s hospitals and research centres, surely it shouldn’t matter where those research centres are, as any breakthrough they make will benefit people around the world. Or am I too naïve?
Still, there were some who donated and I can’t thank them enough, as they allowed me to reach $171, which is still above one of my donation “breakpoints,” of $125.
When I first joined Extra Life, my plan was to participate every single year, to use my time, moderately decent gaming skills and my energy to give something to the world…and convince others to do the same, be it with their own participations or with a little money for my goal. Win-win.
But the truth is that this year has been so tumultuous for me, so many changes in the past few months, and yet another country change for the third year in a row, that I simply can’t make it to Extra Life 2016. I didn’t have the chance to register, or get in touch with developers and publishers or even build up a list of prizes on my own. I’m still catching up and paying debts from my move over to England, so that also limits my options.
And that’s without considering that my Asus ROG laptop is now starting to struggle with newer games, the technical requirements for streaming and even recording being sometimes too high. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m slowly building a new PC so I can back into the swing of recording, editing and publishing content on Twitch and YouTube. The upcoming RPG is perhaps the only thing I can record or broadcast without much issue, as the technical requirements are virtually nonexistent.
Next year I will join for sure, and I’ll even try to rope in some friends. I will surely have a new Live RPG to go with the marathon, possibly a bigger session of my upcoming Shadowrun game. A bigger mission, with some custom stuff made for the event.
Until then, I hope you’ll still support Team Tomb Raider Community. They’re all amazing people, some of the coolest you’ll find out there, especially Kelly M from the Archaeology of Tomb Raider and of course, the Team Mom, Stella Lune.
The Team’s Extra Life participation will take place November 4-6, and the money raised there will go towards a myriad of children’s hospitals and research centres in the US and Canada. They’re all part of the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
