Extra Life 2025 October update

Hi everybody! The time is flying! Soon we will all see each other, getting together at friends' houses or at a local hobby shop or even just online. But the time is near for Extra-Life game.... week? Yeah, that's right. This year there isn't a single day but a whole week where gamers will choose to play, and we are no different.

But if you don't know what Extra-Life is, well perhaps we should start there. Extra-Life is an international charity event held every year where gamers pledge to play for 24 hours (straight if they can... in pieces if not) to help raise money for the hospitals of the Children's Miracle Network. We have been working all year to bring in what we can (or even donate ourselves). To help these kids, and each one of us have done so in the name and for one specific hospital in this network. I myself play for Boston Children's Hospital as I have for MOST years of the event. And I don't say "my history" for a reason that I am honored as Hell to be able to say: I've been here since the beginning. Since before this was a CMN event, but instead one held with only a few weeks notice by a single (sadly now defunct) gaming site who wanted to something special in the name of a young cancer victim to help their hospital help more kids in her situation. But the site does a much better job telling Victoria's story then I ever will so if you want to hear how all this started, you can check it out here.

So where does that lead us today? Today the event has gone international with gamers from all over signing up, selecting a local hospital where everything they raise will go, and playing like hell to help the kids who need it most. Seriously, how awesome is it to help out like this using our hobby? Truly one of the best things ever, which brings me to our own little related announcements for the big event around here. 

First and most important, our own marathon will happen on:

SATURDAY: NOVEMBER 15

As we said earlier in this post, we are just a few short weeks before things begin and gamers will be playing 24 hours for the kids during the week of November 8th through the 16th, and we have picked our day, too. For us, that Saturday, starting at 8 AM, we will be gaming nonstop until 8 AM the next morning. It's brutal every year, but rewarding and I can't wait to join you all there. And join is the word since I plan to have several online games ready to go, starting with a continuation of our current adventure in Phantasy Star Online! All are welcome to join, and I can't wait to see you all. I may also sneak a few extra streams Friday while we get ready before resting up for the big event.

And we will be doing so from Twitch for ONE LAST YEAR. You see, I've never really had strong faith in the platform, but it's been shaken all the more watching how much they clearly do not care for their own community over the MANY garbage stories content creators came back from at Twitchcon this year. To that end, I made a decision: I myself am leaving. I've already had to make a rumble channel for this page so the videos of our sessions to help kids AND celebrate the various franchises I personally cherish will live on instead of Twitch killing them in a week.

But when to leave was the real question. If you are on our Discord (and you can reach it either in the site socials above or right here, you might have noticed a poll where we asked our community if we should leave Twitch before or after the marathon this year, and the community wanted to stay. So for one last year we will do this on Twich and we hope to see you there. I will have a much shorter post the night before, so if you forget all this, don't worry.

But now we get to the big question for YOU. How can you get involved. Well, it's never too late to join in, so why not sign up now? Just go the extra life site and follow the directions to register for an account, then it's time to ask people to help you help the sick kids... easy as that.

Of course not everyone feels they want to play themselves, and none of us can do this without those who donate to help us help the kids, so doing that is always welcome too. If you look in the about section of my twitch page, there is a panel that will take you to my team page where you can pick anyone on the Red Sector team to donate under the name of. Any help you can give is more then welcome and we are more then thankful for it.

SO once again, thank you for joining me and I hope to see you on the big day! From all of us here at the Red Sector, thank you.

- Megabyte

Extra Life 2024 May Update

Hello and once again welcome to our regular updates for Extra Life! If you do not know what Extra Life is, welcome to the site. (Seriously I make a point to keep a post about it on the main page so you've gotta be new.... nothing wrong with that, in fact the welcome is VERY heart-felt... welcome indeed.) 

But to answer the obvious question about it, Extra Life is a charity event that takes place every year. Run by the Children's Miracle Network, they handle all the details so we can focus on what we do best! If you want to join, the process is VERY simple:

1. Go to www.extra-life.org and sign up! The process is very easy. Just click the big sign up button and follow the directions. You will even get to pick what hospital the donations you bring in helps directly. If you want to join or follow team, you can set this up on the site too.
2. Adjust anything on your page to look how you want and tweak the message as desire.
3. Get out there and get donations for the kids! You can do this in several ways, be it streaming with a link on your page, getting a gaming night at the local hobby shop, or even just doing a doner drive. The site itself will offer advice on things you can do. (Maybe even put a little in yourself if you believe in putting your money where your mouth is.)
4. Finally in November there will be something known as "game day." This is when we get together as a community and celebrate what we were able to do with a 24/25 hour gaming marathon. This is the biggest night and highlight for many gamers in the entire event, self included. For most of us, this will be on Nov. 8th but schedules can be adapted to with rain dates (something I usually have to do myself... family related).

And that is about all there is too it. If this sounds good to you, then I assure you, it is worth your time to play. I myself have been here doing this since year zero when it was a single gaming website trying to help a single hospital in Texan in honor of a single young lady who lost her fight with cancer despite all everyone's best efforts. It was an honor then and it remains one now.

Which brings us to what we are doing here. Right now I am staying a pretty standard coarse with 2 weekly streams, although times I stream may be changing.

• Wednesday: now at 7 PM eastern, we are taking a weekly run at the venerable Phantasy Star franchise, playing each in the order of release. Currently we are heading ever closer to the end of Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom as we make our way through generation 3. It's been a great time so far so feel free to join us every week!
• Saturday: Still at 3 PM we stream a random game with the idea of never showing the same game twice. If you are interested in seeing anything and everything over time, please feel free to come on over!

And of course in both cases all my gaming is done to support Boston Children's hospital. If you would like to help me help the children there, me and all the kids we help would all be eternally grateful, and you can do so right here on my own Extra Life page or in the about section of my twitch page which you can reach here or via the link in this site's menu!

Thank you for any help you can give and even just showing up and hanging out! We can't do this without you.

- Megabyte

Extra Life in 2 days!

While for many Gameday has come and gone, this weekend is generally seen as the Rainday. For those of us who couldn't play on the official day of any reason this is traditionally when we get to it, and get to it we shall. Expect Rhel and I to begin bright and early on Saturday and go right on through to Sunday morning, and we are asking you to come on in for the fun!

If you want to watch our individual streams you can find Rhel here and you can find me right here, but where would the fun be if we kept the team apart? We can both be on your screen at once with a nice little site called Multitwitch... just join us here to get a view of it all!

And what is it a view of? Well Extra Life, of course! Throughout the year as gamers, we have sponsored and asked for sponsoring support so that we can play games to help sick kids who need it most, and tomorrow we will play the 24 hour marathon that was decided for! It's also still not too late to donate and help us help the kids.. it never is. They need help no matter the day after all, so please feel free to join us and help out. If you wish to reach our team page you can do so with the graphical link below.

Thank you again and see you this weekend!

- Megabyte

Extra-Life 2023 June Update

Hi everyone and welcome back! I hope you are all getting as excited for Game-Day as I am... but I guess that may require you to know what I'm talking about. For those of you who don't, welcome to Extra-Life! In essence we who are taking part in it are playing games to help sick kids. If this sounds like it's impossible, I assure you it is not. I've personally had the honor of being a part of this since it started as a charity for a single hospital in Texas in honor of a young lady who died way too young fighting cancer. It has obviously grown since then, as the Children's Miracle Network has taken over and now runs it. Now, it is a global event with gamers from around the world playing to help their local hospitals.

So what does this have to do with Game-Day? To be blunt, everything. Game-Day is a 24-hour marathon every gamer taking part finishes their run with... in essence the endurance run our sponsors are paying for... kinda like people who sponsor marathon runners, but our road is made up of dice, cards, controllers, keyboards, and mice. It is a beautiful way for us to take up our hobby and help these kids who need it most.

So how can you help? Well if you yourself game and want to take up the 24-hour challenge, sign up and join us! It can be video games, board games, tabletop games, or any other gaming you desire in any combination. It can be streamed or held locally. The only rule is you go until the next morning or you drop. (And if you drop, make it up.) Most gamers will be doing this on November 4th, but we here at the Red Sector will probably doing this the following weekend as many other will. This is often referred to as the rain-date weekend for those who want to partake but can't make it for the official day... something I personally have to agree to due to family events around the same time, but whichever day you choose, it is a blast and really is for something amazing. If you can join us, as a fellow gamer, it is simply awesome.

However, if you do not wish to take on a marathon, you can still help by supporting gamers who do! We, for example have a team page for this event and would be honored for any support you can give. Each player on the team is playing for the hospital of their choice, but every dollar donated to help these kids helps, regardless of where it helps... so any help you can give, I can only thank you humbly for helping us help them. As I noted before, this is all handled by the Children's Miracle Network, and goes to a good cause. There is a FAQ here which can explain any details I simply can not as a participant not steeped in them, so please feel free to check it out. But if you would like to help us, thank you VERY much.... you can find our page in the link menu to the side of this page or right here. Once again I have to thank you very much for everything you are helping happen.

But on that note, I believe it is time for me to go... thank you for listening and again for any help you give, either by joining up yourself or helping us help these sick kids. It's all needed and it's all more then appreciated.

Thank you - Megabyte

Extra Life 2021 Update

 

 

Hello everyone and welcome to the last major update before I do my own 24-hour marathon for Extra Life, and I will admit I am cutting it close here. For most people game day was last Saturday, making it 25 hours, but family plans put it on hold for me, so I will be getting to it this weekend instead! As it stands we have managed to bring in $400 so far, but of course we will be looking to increase this as game-day continues. I am hoping to see you there!

You can find our page at https://www.extra-life.org/team/RedSectorShutdown and can even watch the stream from there!

I am planning to start at 8 AM saturday (11/13) and will be going till 8 AM the next morning if all goes according to plan. Thank you again for all your support and see you there!

Extra Life Update

Hi everyone. Time to check up on how we are doing for Extra Life! Now if you do not know what Extra Life is, I can explain it easily enough. In fact it started in 2008 to honor the life of a young lady who lost her fight to cancer. Back then it was a single gaming website (and perhaps the only site I ever saw as my online home) who's efforts all went to the hospital that had taken care of her and her story in full can be seen in a video on the site for the event. Doc, who ran the site, is a personal friend of the family and was absolutely devastated. I still remember listening to the podcast on my way into work that week, and it wasn't easy to hear him break down.

In her honor,  a day was chosen where the site would get together and run a 24-hour gaming marathon, the goal of which was to raise money to help these sick kids. How could I say no? I am still honored to have been there from the beginning, to support the cause, to be a part of this community coming together, and just to be part of that moment.

But that would just be the beginning, for everyone wanted to continue this work, and so we did. Long after the site was gone, we continue as a gaming community to come together every year to help these kids, and help we do. Since my last update we finally have the final numbers for the 2020 marathon, and despite everyone staying home and even the number of jobs lost because of of the pandemic, we still managed to break records and raise $17,400,000 to help! We still have yet to have a year that didn't break a record for the previous one. You can see a complete breakdown that's been shown off on Facebook here.

And so here we are again, moving froward to the next big marathon in November, my team included. For my own, we have managed $220 already, and while that isn't impressive compared to some of the big numbers out there, we are humbled to bring anything to the table, and we ask you to help as well. If you are inclined there are two major ways you can.

First and perhaps most important at this point is to get involved. Get over to the Extra-Life website and sign up! Once a part of the event, you can directly help your local hospitals and the kids within by the donations you can bring in. The site even has ways to suggest to get the word out. If you think you will be busy on the big weekend, it's always an option to pick another as many gamers do. And any help you bring will be appreciated by all of us. If your gaming is less video and more physical, that works too. True it may be a bit more difficult to get going in these times because people can't really get together yet, but that doesn't mean it's impossible... and gaming isn't just of the video nature.

But if you don't really game or would like to help out in another way, then just like I'm suggesting those who sign up do, we are looking to bring in donations to help the children in our local hospitals as well. Any help you send our way is more then humbling. We are all here to help these kids. The following link will take you to our team page where you can donate to anyone on the team. https://www.extra-life.org/team/RedSectorShutdown. Thank you again and lets see if we can help even more kids with another record breaker this year!

Extra Life 2020 Recap

 Well, we did it. Another year for books, though perhaps the most tragically unique year we have had to date. With 2020 being hard on just about everyone, that was to be expected. If anything I was looking forward to this event this year even more then normal as it followed a Halloween no one was going out to celebrate and a night that still dominates our news cycle as I write this. Knowing these were coming, my focus over the past week was right: the one moment assured to be a positive one.

But how was the event itself? Well it spanned the expectation gambit. With everyone working at home, our star player was not able to make this year a record breaker like the last two. So we didn't break four digits this time, bringing in a total of $450. And while this is disappointing, I can't say the same about the total event. Once again in total we are just absolutely SMASHING records, hitting almost $12,500,000 before the big weekend ended. To put this into perspective, last year at this time we were just shy of $10,000,000 and we are right now easily in striking distance of the $15,000,000 total of last year. Everyone involved should  be proud of themselves. But if you read this far, you probably want to know the details. So, read on, my friend... read on.