Is video gaming your passion? Well, a great way to play your favorite video games and do it for a great cause at the same time is to do a video gaming marathon for charity. Many great events such as Mario Marathon and Zeldathon are built around this premise, and you'll learn how you can do your own video gaming marathon for charity in this article.
Steps
- Recruit friends and family members. Having people with you will make your event more fun and easier on you. Be sure that they're willing to play video games with your for an extended period of time.
- Plan your event. Plan what video games you're going to play, the timeframe of the event, and what charity you'll be playing for. A great charity to play for is Child's Play, which donates toys, books, video games, and other forms of entertainment to children in hospitals. Also decide on the name of your event and make a logo for it.
- Buy the equipment you'll need. At the very least, along with the consoles and video games that you'll be playing, you'll also need a webcam, a capture device, and streaming software.
- Make a website for the event. Your website should have the stream for your event, information about the event, and an area where people can donate. You should also include a chat box for people watching the stream to discuss the event while it's happening.
- If you haven't already done so, set up a PayPal account. This will allow people to send donations directly to the charity through your website.
- Contact the charity you want to donate to about your event. Look for information about your charity online to see how you can contact them.
- Advertise your event. The more people that know about the event, the more potential donors that you'll get. You can advertise on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, or any other site that you frequent. You can also submit your event to Ustream to see if they're interested in hosting your stream. Don't take this too far, though, particularly on websites that discourage advertising.
- At least a few days prior to the event, buy food, snacks, drinks, and other supplies necessary for your event. You don't want to spend too much money, though, especially if you've already spent a lot of money on preparing for your event.
- On the day before the event starts, make sure that everything is set up properly and that everything works properly. You and everyone else involved in the event should also practice speaking in front of the webcam so that everyone is comfortable speaking in front of a camera, and so to make sure that it works.
- Hold the event. Be sure that while one (or more, depending on what kind of games you're playing) person plays, that other people are checking the e-mail you're using for the event, monitoring the chat, and buying food, among other things. Also be sure to post about the event while it's happening on other websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Tips
- Practice the games you're playing beforehand. It's not going to look great if you're lost in a game that you're not familiar with.
- Interact with the people in your chat room.
- Have a donation goal. Don't make it too high if you're running an event for the first time, though. You can also have sub-goals where reaching the goal in a certain amount of time unlocks new games or challenges to play. This gives viewers a reason to donate.
- Make commentary while you're playing. Good commentary will keep viewers interested in your event.
- Sleep! This is one of the most important things you can do in an event like this, and is why you should have other people with you. If you're awake for a long time, you won't perform as well, both in keeping viewers interested and playing the games. It's a good idea to schedule who's going to play what games beforehand.
- Invite other friends to your house, even if they're not going to play the games. It's always a good idea to have more interactivity, which is something that will keep viewers interested.
- In between games, do something to entertain your viewers. It should be something related to the games that you're playing. For example, you can act out a scene from a game.
- Make sure everyone is involved in the event in some way.
- Play in a well-lit room.
- Be sure that your capture card is of good quality. Otherwise, people watching the stream will have a hard time seeing what's going on.
- Decorate your room to be related to the event. For example, if you're playing Pokemon games, you can have Poke Balls, pictures of Pokemon, and other Pokemon-related things on your walls and around your room.
- Have batteries and back-up controllers on hand in case your batteries run out or your controllers die on you.
- Show your enthusiasm! You don't want to look like you're bored about your own event to your viewers.
- Keep to your promises, and if you do everything that you promised before the end of the event, give your viewers more than you promised. For example, you can do a 100% completion of a game.
- Be sure that you're comfortable while playing.
- Be yourself. You don't want to be someone you're not on camera.
- Post some fan art relating to the games you're playing. Good fan art will give your viewers more interest in your event. You may want to recruit someone who specializes in art specifically for this purpose.
- Make your website look professional. A good website will draw interest to the event.
- Start preparing for the event months ahead of time so that you're not rushing to get everything prepared.
Warnings
- This will be expensive, so be sure that you have the money to pay for everything. You can also solicit from friends/family or online.
- Don't get angry if something goes wrong. If something does go wrong, just joke about it and move along.
- Don't use caffeine to stay up. It may help you for a bit, but eventually, you'll crash. This is why you should sleep periodically during the event.
Related wikiHows
- How to Do a 24 Hour Gaming Marathon
- How to Have a Video Game Marathon
- How to Have a Game Marathon
- How to Beat Boredom over the Summer
- How to Set up a Fundraising Event
from How to of the Day http://ift.tt/1wy7lbZ
via Peter
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