168 Hour Final Fantasy Marathon ends raising over $50,000 for Autism

Posted by Mary Ann Holmes in News | 0 comments

An avid gamer and mother of an autistic child, I found myself swept up in the excitement of a very unique fundraiser being broadcast live on the internet this past week. Known as The Speed Gamers or TSG for short, a group of nine guys playing video games non-stop in shifts, using a bedroom as their headquarters, have been gaming for charity. The idea came about when they got together for a weekend of gaming. Their first marathon was a Zelda themed marathon that lasted 72 hours and raised $1,090.00 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. They have have since done 11 marathons their latest marathon broadcasting live over the internet for 168 hours raising over $50,000 for ACT, Autism Care and Treatment.

Their original goal was to raise $20,000, a goal they passed midway through the week. So they made a new goal of $50,000 and and by the end of the week they reached and passed that goal as well. For the entire week they played the Final Fantasy game series in shifts along with live commentary encouraging people to donate to ACT. People talked to TSG and asked questions via live chat while they played. When asked why play the Final Fantasy game series, they responded saying they needed a game series long enough to last the week and with so many games in the series it seemed to be the perfect fit. They try to stick with one game series for each of their fundraiser marathons.
With their latest fundraiser over I imagine these guy are catching up some much needed sleep.

The front page of their website reads;

“Thanks so much for everyone’s contribution, we couldn’t have done it without you. We smashed our original goal of $20,000 and have raised over $50,000 for ACT Today! The chipin will stay up until Monday. Right now we are all a little awe struck and exhausted. We are having one last dinner as group and then we go back to our normal lives. Afterward I’ll update this post with much more info.”

I look forward to their next fundraiser.
To Learn more or to donate visit http://www.thespeedgamers.com/

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