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Who
are you guys?
We’re all a bunch of High School students looking to play
video games and fend off sleep to raise money for charity.
Coming
soon
maybe:
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 $37,037.21
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. Most recently, we've funded the construction of three
schoolhouses
through Free the Children in Ecuador, Kenya and most recently, Sierra
Leone.
Thanks for the continued support, everybody!
What
hardware and software do you use to broadcast?
We capture
video directly from the console
using an EasyCap USB video capture device. It's rather inexpensive (about
$15 or so on Amazon.com). Given
that we've had to use them for
dozens of hours at a time, they've performed very well and are highly
recommended. 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!
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.
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 try 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 using our own money.
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.
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 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.
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!) |
