On Friday, April 24, 2020, five streamers along with Crowd Control and St. Jude PLAY LIVE ran a mini-marathon of games using the Crowd Control service to raise money for the research at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The event ran for approximately 13 hours and in that time $50k was raised. In terms of dollars per hour, that is approaching the amounts raised during last week’s Corona Relief Done Quick marathon put on by Game Done Quick.
The main hook of this event, unlike a GDQ event, is not the speed at which the streamers are able to complete their chosen game. Instead, it revolves around a Twitch extension created by Warp World called Crowd Control.
For those who are unaware, Crowd Control is an extension that allows viewers to exchange money for digital coins which they can then use to purchase effects for the game. For example, in A Link to the Past, the viewers are able to donate or take away things like rupees, arrows, or bombs, or add hazards or buffs to the player (like ice physics everywhere, or giving the player temporary invincibility). While normally this money would go to the streamer, in this particular case a special version of the extension was created which instead donates all the purchases for the St. Jude PLAY LIVE Summit.
There were five streamers in total: GrandPOOBear, Andy, Lobosjr, Skybilz, and Keizaron. GrandPOOBear started things off with some Super Mario World during which time he helped raise a whopping $27,000 in just two hours. Next up was Andy who was playing his old faithful A Link to the Past Randomizer. Following him was Lobosjr, who premiered a game with newly added Crowd Control functionality, Dark Souls 3. Skybilz followed up with an attempt at a 100% run of Super Mario Bros. 3 while being hounded by Twitch chat. Finally, Keizaron pushed the event over the $50k mark with his playthrough of Pokémon Red.
This particular summit occurred over three days and the Crowd Control event was just a portion of it. A number of other streamers took part as well on their own streams. St. Jude PLAY LIVE is an event that extends beyond the scope of this particular marathon, however. They have a fundraising goal of $2 million which they will continue to work towards in the coming days and weeks which constitutes their “prize season”.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is a nonprofit pediatric treatment hospital that also specializes in research into childhood illnesses including (but not limited to) many forms of childhood cancer. Any child who is treated at St. Jude is done so free of charge. St. Jude has also had a profound impact on the treatment of children across the globe both due to their on-site facilities and international outreach, but also because the research they have done over the years has been disseminated out the medical field. Such work may be free to the patients of St. Jude but that does not mean that it does not cost money, so St. Jude utilizes a number of grants but also utilizes a number of fundraising endeavors as well including a PGA Tour charity event and the annual Math-a-Thon, a fundraising event I personally took part in as a child.
If you would like to donate for this particular fundraiser or even sign up to participate, you can find out more information on their website.
