blog dot cameronbanga dot com

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the two-week layoff, life has been hectic since the beginning of June. Working on this site, preparing a huge concert featuring Relient K in September, doing some part-time marketing work for a company, and trying to keep a social life has kept me fairly busy. No complaints or excuses though, life is too short for either and I am loving everything that I have been able to experience in the last couple of months.

Anyways, I wanted to write a quick post about gaming marathons and my opinions on them, since I have gotten about 7 or 8 e-mails about it in the last week. By now, I am sure many of you have heard about the Mario Marathon that took place last weekend with quite a bit of success.

Congrats to those guys, who were able to successfully smash our total from January. It's amazing really to think that they were able to raise that kind of money. It's a great story to hear that nearly twelve thousand dollars will go to Child's Play through their efforts.

In several e-mails I have been asked if I mind others using the idea of a marathon for charity. By all means, if you are interested in taking on the task of staying up and playing games for however long, please use the idea and raise money for a cause. I feel as if people assume I dislike people using the idea or if I feel that others are stealing my idea through speed running games for charity. Frankly, I am never bothered by the idea of others using the idea to raise money for charities like Child's Play. If you want to play Mega Man, Metroid, Mario, Sonic, Bomberman, Superman 64, or Pokemon for 48 hours to raise money for a cause, by all means do so. Be sure to send me a link too, I love checking our your efforts.

Looking back since January, there have been countless efforts to marathon through games and raise money for charities that I have been aware of and I am sure many more that I have never even heard about. Looking back at e-mails and saved links, I did a little math and from what I can tell, about $20,000 has been raised through Four48 and other similar marathons from people who have e-mailed me asking for permission to borrow the idea or who have e-mailed me with thanks for inspiration. That number is phenomenal and I couldn't be happier at the idea that gamers have been able to use their talents at defeating Ganon, Bowser, Dr. Robotnik, and other villains to help raise money for great causes.

For a quick update on what else I have been up to, you may notice that I haven't been broadcasting as much as I was previously. A lot of this involves the fact that it was difficult to create content of a quality I was happy about with one person. To be successful you need quality content, advertising, and execution. I just wasn't delivering and I decided to slow down on the broadcasts. I have however began a summer podcast series which I suggest you check out. Here is a link to subscribe via iTunes. I had a chance to interview some big names like Tom Green, Ben Heck, and Ron Richards, and I hope to add about five or six more by the end of August. Send me an e-mail as to what you think of them (Cameron@CameronBanga.com) and offer suggestions as to anyone you would like to see interviewed.

I'm also trying to set up a gaming marathon with the Four48 guys. Looking at hopefully in August sometime, but nothing is set in stone. We would all love to make another attempt at the Zelda games while raising some money for charity. If you are interested in watching, send me a e-mail or leave a comment.
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