Gaming For Funds: SPICE & inGame Participate in Extra Life Fundraiser for Riley Hospital

Many people used the weekend of November 3rd and 4th to roll back the clock to get an extra hour of sleep as Daylight Savings Time ended, but a group of students made up of representatives from IU’s Security & Privacy in Informatics, Computing, and Engineering center (SPICE) and the Informatics Game Research Group (inGame) spent that extra hour playing video games as part of a 25 hour charity fundraising event to raise money for the Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health.

The group participated as one of over 4900 teams taking part in Extra Life, a fundraising event that started in 2008, where many groups get together and play games of different types and genres for a 24 hour marathon to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. This was the first year for all of the students to participate in this specific charity event with people playing games starting from noon Saturday till just after noon on Sunday afternoon. Throughout the day players were livestreaming on Twitch and sending messages out on social media to garner support as they played a number of video games and board games while engaging those who tuned in to watch and thanking everyone who donated. For many this was their first time

Despite it being the first year our team participated, the team managed through the long hours, technical difficulties, and the highs of victory and lows of defeat across multiple games until finally on Sunday morning we managed to meet our team goal of raising $500. At the end of the event we finished having beaten our goal by an extra ten percent to raise a total of $550.99 for the Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health.

After having some much needed sleep, the team has already agreed to participate again next year. Our team was comprised of PhD students, Masters students, and undergrads who have a wide range of tastes in games, but we all came together for a good cause and in the process we made new friends, had some fun, and started a new tradition.

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