Extra Life 2026 HAS BEGUN!!!!

Hi everyone! If you've been here for a while, you probably were waiting for this announcement. After all, I've been part of this event since it began as a small event on the now defunct Sarcastic Gamer website, and I have absolutely zero intent of ever stopping any time soon. For those of you who are new, welcome aboard.

As for what it is, Extra Life is a charity event that has been going on since 2008. Back then, I was a regular listener to the podcasts of Sarcastic Gamer and enjoying the antics of our hosts. (If you can guess my name in the forums there, I will be impressed.) On this particular day, it would not be so fun. In fact it would be one of the hardest things I have ever listened to... a grown man crying over the death of a child.

To explain, the man who owned the site, affectionately known to the community as Doc, is a family friend with a now older couple who's child that day lost her battle with cancer. But he couldn't just let things end on that note, so to try to help other kids in similar fights and to thank the hospital who helped her during hers, he came up with an idea: within a few weeks, the site would get together and play video games to raise money to help the hospital do just that. Her story is told here better then I ever could and I sincerely recommend going to see the video.

It was an absolute success... so much so in fact the community demanded to do it again. And so we did the next year to even more enthusiasm. The next year after that would push it even further as Doc would gain connections in the Children's Miracle Network, allowing us to not only help this single hospital, but to raise money for our own local ones and help kids closer to home.

And here we are, 10 years after Sarcastic Gamer shut down and Extra Life is stronger then ever... and I am once again humbled and honored to take part again. I have already updated the link on the side of the website to point to our team page, so feel free to come in and help us help the sick kids!

For now though, I am honored to continue the coarse started last year to both help the kids and  celebrate the games that made my tastes. to that end, I invite you to join me on my twitch page (or the above link. You can come see me in both places)! You can find it here or in the list of links to the side of this site and I am there at the following times every week:

• Wednesday at 7 Eastern time: Phantasy Star Wednesday as we march through the entire franchise! We have already done the classic 8 and 16 bit games in the series and are currently working our way through Phantasy Star Online via the Ephinea private server. Come join us on stream or even in game! I run an open room with this site's name.
• Friday at 7 Eastern time: First Person Friday where anything wherw the camera is from the eyes of your character is up for grabs to be played. Lately I've been on an MS-DOS kick, having gone from Descent straight into Realms of the Haunting, a hybrid point and click and FPS title I loved in my earlier days. Once again, I invite you to join me as we rub elbows with a biblical apocalypse.

But on that note, I think it's time for me to go. I've said one hell of a lot for a post that was supposed to be just officially throwing our hat in the ring and welcome others to join us... no complaints, just an observation that I should probably get going.

See you all later and out there in the gamespace....

- Megabyte

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 is Coming….

Extra Life is ON! And the Red Sector is going to be there! Having setup our team page, we have declared our intention to help with this worth cause and to go game with everyone in it’s name.