People who don't understand why fans will sit down and watch esports won't know what to think about this. Tommy Refenes, the co-developer of Super Meat Boy, just held a walking marathon for charity... in Grand Theft Auto V.
As the official page on Twitch explains, his mother suffers from Type 1 Diabetes, and he wanted to raise enough money to buy her a diabetic alert dog. Alert dogs have been trained to detect when a person's blood sugar is too high or too low, and let the person know. This could potentially save her life in the future.
Tommy's sister started a fundraiser to earn enough money, and he helped by running a stream on Twitch in which he walked the full length of GTA V's map. Watchers were encouraged to donate to the fundraiser and also guess how long it would take him to finish his "marathon," for a chance to win prizes.
6 hours later, he'd crossed the entire GTA V map. He also devoted just over 2 hours to walking the map of Red Dead Redemption, and another 4 for GTA: San Andreas.
The fundraising goal was set at $15,000. It met and exceeded that amount following the live stream.
It's wonderful to see gamers coming together for a good cause. While we've heard of other video game charity live streams, a marathon of this sort is a bit more unusual. Think it'll catch on?
