A Brand New Donation Tracker!

At the end of last month BTMyDonate closed it doors and stopped accepting charity donations.  It's a shame but we had a good run with them and we raised a good bit of money with them as the tracker.  However I needed a new tracker and it has now been set up!  At time of writing the links on the blog and on the Twitch page have been updated but I still need to go through my YouTube channel and update the links on all my videos, which may take a hot minute to say the least.

If you've been here since the start you'll know that I actually started with Just Giving and then moved over to BTMyDonate after I heard that JG were skimming 10% of donations off the top in order to keep their site running.  I'm not throwing any shade at them for doing that, they need money to keep their shit going and they provide a good service but it didn't sit right with me.  If you donated 10 pounds to the Alzheimer's Society, I wanted you to be sure that 10 pounds was going to it.

There are 3 main reasons I've picked just giving and they are as follows

1) On the official website for the Alzheimer's Society they suggest to use Just Giving if you are doing fundraising for them.

2) Just Giving allows donations to be made via PayPal.  I've had a number of people who I don't know ask to make a donation but couldn't because they didn't have or couldn't use a credit card.  Now that PayPal is an option, hopefully this opens the gates for more potential donors.

3) Just Giving now ask you if you want to give an additional sum of money to support them AS WELL AS the charity.  For example if you donate 10 bucks, they will ask you if you mind putting an extra 1 buck on the top of that which will help run their service.  There is also no complaints if you opt to send 0 to them and only give to the charity itself.

So with this switch over hopefully we'll see a lot more money going into the charity.  Just a reminder to, if you donate through just giving I DO NOT SEE A SINGLE PENNY OF YOUR MONEY, it will all go directly to the charity.  It won't come anywhere near me.  You can still donate to me via Twitch bits, subs or directly via my personal PayPal, which I will use to improve content which will hopefully have the knock on effect of getting even MORE donators but if you have to make a choice please pick the charity EVERY TIME.  I'm improving this place slowly by myself anyway, I don't really need it.

Thank you for continued support and happy donating!

The End of BT MyDonate

Today is a sad day indeed.  This morning I woke up and check my email and I find a message from BTMyDonate.  Usually this is a happy occasion because it means someone has donated to the charity but this time it was a message telling me that the BTMyDonate service was shutting down at the end of the June

Why is this such a big deal? you might ask.  Well, when the site first started I used a site called JustGiving and everything was fine until I discovered that JustGiving were scalping 10% of donations for their own coffers.  Now I don't hate or fault JustGiving for doing this, they do good things for the various charities and they have to keep their shit running somehow but personally, if someone donated £10 to the charity for a game or towards an incentive, I want that person to know that the ENTIRE £10 went to the Alzheimer's Society and not to me or to anyone else.

Now you can donate until the end of the June, so if you do stumble upon this page or read this article, why not hit that donation button in the top right of the blog page and maybe we could hit a goal on MyDonate page and start a new goal on whatever service I use next!

And yes, of course, just because BT MyDonate is going down doesn't mean that the charity effort dies with it.  I am currently in the process of scoping out new donation services to use in its place.  I'm actually looking for one that not only doesn't take a little money off the top, but also has the ability to donate using PayPal, since that's one thing that people have requested in the stream.  I've even considered talking to the charity directly to see if I can set up a kind of tracker with them but I don't know if I'll get anywhere with that. 

Once again, thanks for the continued support of me and the Alzheimer's Society, it really does mean a lot!  Don't forget to donate and if you can't do that, don't worry, just share some of the content with your friends because more readers/watchers means more potential donations to a good cause!

Happy New Year! An Update

Well at time of writing it's New Years Eve but I'm going to be out partying when it actually ticks over so I'm making the post now.

First I want to extend all the usual thanks for the continued support and even bigger thanks to everyone who donated over the course of 2017.  Of course, going into 2018 I hope we can raise even more money for the charity and improve the site considerably.

As for blog news going into the year we have the 2players 1controller mini marathon coming up on the 7th of January and hopefully I'll be able to find time in February for the Crash series marathon.  I'm actually hoping to do a marathon at least once a month from January, if not 24 hour some kind of 12 hour general gaming stream where maybe people can donate for what's played.

Also the Advance Wars playthrough will be continued at some point but the guy I'm recording it with got married and moved house so he's been busy as fuck.  Anyway we're hoping to jump back into the battlefield sometime early January.  I of course have a number of playthroughs planned for my solo efforts AND there will be a streamed playthrough of Haunting Grounds (Demento) which was donated for by a friend of mine during my birthday.

So watch this space and keep supporting the site and the Alzheimer's Society!

Games Done Quick and Identity Gaming

I've talked about Games Done Quick multiple times on this blog but Summer Games Done Quick is currently running I'm going to talk about them yet again.  The reason I like to harp on about these guys so much is that they were so important in the creation of Identity Gaming that it's important that people don't forget to support them.

Before I get into my little story, fire up this link in a tab so that you can go watch them the second you've finished reading.

https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick

Right now they are doing a marathon for Doctors Without Borders by speed running an insane number of games over the course of 5 days.  If you read this article after it's finished then don't worry because they do another marathon around January for the Prevent Cancer Foundation called Awesome Games Done Quick.  These are fantastic events and you should show your support.

But just how did an event like Games Done Quick help inspire Identity Gaming?

Well a handful of years ago, around the winter time, I wake up super early one morning to find a text on my phone from my mother telling me that my father had passed away.  It was a sad time as you would expect, he suffered from Alzheimer's disease so understandably I became interested in Alzheimer's charities and how these organizations help sufferers and their families.  Just after that passing of my father, Awesome Games Done Quick started.  It was an event that I had watched in previous years and having something like that to enjoy after such a sad period was nice.

When it finished they had raised over a million dollars for the Prevent Cancer Foundation and that had me thinking that maybe I could try to emulate some of the work that they do.  Of course, I'm just one guy, a nobody with a blogger site, a stream and a YouTube channel so I knew going in I could never reach that kind of money if I only attempted something like this for 5 or so days.  So with that in mind, Identity Gaming was born as a sort of long term project.

Things were shaky at first, as you can see if you watch my early playthroughs and see videos of my early streams but thanks to the help of a number of friends and the people who donate to the Alzheimer's Society keeping me motivated I'm here today, still writing and improving in order to raise money for a charity that's rather close to my heart.

Sure, I'm not raising the million dollars in 5 days like the GDQ guys are but thanks to all the support £3000+ has been raised in a few years and that's fantastic.  I really owe it to the GDQ guys for inspiring me like that.  I get the feeling I'll be doing this for a long time going forward and it's all thanks to them.

Marathon Mayhem!

So as you may have noticed, the donation page is getting near its goal so in an attempt to get people to throw a few more pounds to the charity, I've added a few new marathon donation incentives. 

First, a complete list of donation incentives can be found here http://www.identitygaming.blogspot.jp/p/blog-page_4.html

The new donation incentives can be found at the bottom.  A whole bunch of retro gaming themed 24 hour marathons where I grab a system and playing nothing but that for a whole day.  The games haven't been decided so I'll be asking everyone for suggestions if and when they get met, donators will get more of a say in what games are picked so donate for those if you want to see some old school goodness.

Aside from the new incentives, don't forget all the old ones too!  Incentives for small series marathons of things like Resident Evil and Donkey Kong Country or longer series marathons of things like Megaman.  Also some crazy stuff like Guy game marathons and 2 Players 1 Controller with my buddy as well as other miscellaneous things!

If you wish to donate for any of these incentives hit that donate button on the right hand side of the page, donate a value and then leave the incentive you want your donation to go towards in the comment.  You do NOT need to donate the entire value of the incentive alone, so let's say an incentive is £50 you can have 5 people donate £10 for it to happen so even if you can only donate a little to the Alzheimer's Society then you can still get something for your money.

Finally, just to clarify, I don't see a penny of any money donated.  BTMyDonate is a UK service for charities and people doing fund raising to act as a tracker so people can make comments to their friends or people they know trying to do a project for a good cause.  I have never and will never ask for people to donate directly to my bank account, if you have enough money to do that then I'd rather it go to a good cause.

Thanks for the continued support!  Let's raise some dosh for Alzheimer's!!

£2000! A little update too

So after I finished last nights stream a bunch of donations came in and Identity Gaming has now raised over £2000 for the Alzheimer's Society!  HOORAY!

I just wanted to make a little post thanking everyone for their continued support and donations to this site.  As much as I enjoy talking about games on the internet and speed running things on twitch doing it for a good cause makes it all the better.  Also it's way more fun interacting with people than just sitting in my room and doing it alone so I just want to give a big thank you to everyone who supports this site and to the people who have donated to the charity.

However, there is still another £1000 to go on the current donation page and the goals will be getting bigger once that gets met so I'm counting on all of you to keep supporting me and helping the site and the cause grow even larger.

---

Also a little update regarding the speed runs.  I decided a couple of months ago that I would do my speed runs on a weekly rotation.  I made this decision in order to avoid burnout on any one title because it is very easy to become sick to death of a certain game after playing it so much.  The problem is, even if I change the game every week I still manage to get a little burnt out by the weeks end and this is something I'd like to avoid.

For now I'm going to experiment with a new system where I put each game on a 5 run limit.  Usually in one stream I'll do 1 or 2 runs so it means a couple of days of each game which in turn means a little more variety in the stream.  Also, as another chance for you guys to donate for something you can pick the next game by donating with the title in the comment.

So once again, thanks for the donations and the support and let's keep raising money for Alzheimer's! 

New Final Fantasy Incentives!

OK! I've been making some good progress on FF6 so it's about time to add some new Final Fantasy themed donation incentives to the blog!

The first isn't entirely new but it's pretty recent and that's a 24 hour session of Final Fantasy 7.  This will be available until a week after I finish Final Fantasy 6 so if you want to see that get your donations in ASAP.  I promise that this time I won't be doing any drinking (unless it's an energy drink) during the Stream so we don't have to worry about me getting drunk and falling asleep again like I did with Euro Truck.

The second is for me to go one entire disc of Final Fantasy 8 and only being allowed to say nice things about it.  I'm sorry FF8 fans, but I fucking hate that game and I could spend a long LOOONG time ragging on it.  However, someone suggested to me that I should offer this as an incentive because 1.  Actual fans of the game might get a kick out of hearing me sing it's praises and 2. It would hurt my soul.  The people who suggest incentives to me are rather sadistic.

The third incentive is a bit hefty at a total of £500 raised to get it but I think it's easily worth that price after doing some research.  I'm referring to a no junction run of Final Fantasy 8 which is a particularly difficult type of challenge for that game.  In case you don't know what I mean, in FF8 you can increase your stats by junctioning spells to them.  Considering the game has monsters that scale in level with you Junctioning is pretty important.  No Junction is exactly what it says on the tin, I'm not allowed to do that at all.  After reading a quick guide on gamefaqs to see if it was even possible, it seems that the game is stupidly hard and the final boss is ALMOST impossible.  If you ever needed an excuse to prolong my suffering, then donate for that.

The final incentive moves away from FF8 and goes into FF10 territory with No Yojimbo.  I promised when this started that I would go after secret bosses and such when playing these games.  In FF10 this includes a number of very challenging fights known as the Dark Aeons and when you kill them you have to content with the games toughest enemy, Penance.  Yojimbo is one of the summon creatures in FF10 but has a weird gimmick where the attack he uses is based on how much you pay him.  One of his attacks, called Zanmato, instantly kills any enemy in the game including Dark Aeons and Penance.  A cheap incentive of £100 in order to disallow me from being a cheap bitch.

If you wish to donate for these or any of the other incentives found on the right hand side of the page, please go do it at this link


https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/identitygaming2

Just so you know, none of the money donated comes anywhere near me and it goes directly to the charity.  BT also don't take any commission on donations so if you donate £10 then £10 will go to the Alzheimer's Society.

Thanks to everyone who have donated so far for supporting me, this website and the Alzheimer's Society, let's keep going!

Euro Truck Simulator 2 Roundup

The 24 hour marathon of Euro Truck Simulator 2 was completed last weekend so I thought I'd say some stuff about what went down.  The marathon was both a great success and a huge failure but that aside it was a surprisingly good time.

First I want to say a couple of things about the game itself.  I found Euro Truck Simulator 2 to be a surprisingly good game.  I thought it would be nothing but driving round Europe in a truck and while that does make up about 90% of the game there's a bunch of other stuff about running a delivery business.  You can buy your own trucks, hire people, set up garages round Europe and all sorts of other cool stuff that make the game quite enjoyable.  To be brutally honest, if I wasn't playing it for such a long period of time, it would be the kind of game that would be fun to play on a lazy Sunday afternoon or something.

OK! Now to talk about the marathon.  I mentioned that it was a huge failure so I'll get the negative stuff out of the way first.  The only reason I say it was a huge failure is because I didn't make it to the end of the 24 hour period.  This was mainly due to the fact that I put up an incentive to start boozing while playing and do a bit of virtual drunk driving (don't ever do it for real folks!).  I've done two 24 hour marathons before this and made it to the end just fine but this marathon taught me that going 24 hours while drunk is basically impossible, at least for me.  A combination of being drunk, tired and pissed off with my constant failure at the game itself caused me to throw in the towel.  Luckily I struck up a deal with the original donator for the incentive and paid a punishment donation for each missing hour (£50)

Which then leads me nicely into the huge success part of the marathon.  First I'd like to give a big thank you to everyone who watched and an even bigger thank you to everyone who donated.  If it wasn't for the support of all the viewers it would have been unbearable torture.  The marathon raised £330 for the Alzheimer's Society which makes it, if memory serves, the most donated for marathon yet!

So once again, huge thank yous to all you wonderful people who dropped in and supported.  Big shout outs to my buddy who sat behind me for a significant part of the marathon to keep my sane.  I hope you all continue to support Identity Gaming and the Alzheimer's Society! 

I'm planning a little mini marathon to make up for the lost time and I'm thinking of an idea for the next 24 hour marathon, this time with no booze.

'Tis the season to meet charity goals!

Merry Christmas one and all!

What an appropriate time for this to happen!  The first £1000 goal for identity gaming has been met!  Granted the final donation was made from my Daikatana fail donation except if someone hadn't donated for that marathon in the first place, we'd still be down £25 right now, so for the first time me sucking at something has actually worked out better.

I just want to take a moment to thank EVERYBODY who has donated so far.  If you were just enjoying the content or donated during a marathon, every penny counts and it means a great deal to me so once again thank you so much for all the donations and support for the blog.

So what happens now? Now that £1000 has been raised we just stop there? WRONG!  All it means is that the value has been doubled!  That's right, this time round we're shooting for £2000, so that means more content, more marathons, more streaming and hopefully more donations!

The link for the new donation page can be found here
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/identitygaming2

So please direct all your future donations to that page!

Now I have to go cook all day and celebrate Christmas and stuff so once again, thank you everyone for all the support and I hope you keep on supporting me.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Announcing the first Identity Gaming Giveaway!

Right, sorry for two Tomba marathon updates in a row, but I think you'll like this one.

So as we all know by now I think, I put out content in the hopes that you'll be entertained to the point of giving to charity, this is true for the blog, the YouTube and pretty much everything I do under the name of Identity Gaming.

Usually I try and drum up extra donations or by providing donation incentives for things relating to the various bits of content, you can see these donations on the right hand side of the page, however today I'm announcing the first Identity Gaming Giveaway!!!

Yep, during the Tomba stream this Tuesday (times will be announced on Monday via Twitter) ANY donations made will enter you in for chance to win copies of either Dungeon Siege 3 or Tomb Raider!!

The donation can be of any value but higher value donations have a higher chance of winning!  Also any donation you make can also go to any of the incentives on the right hand side of the blog, so make sure you give them a quick read before you donate!

You can donate here
https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/identitygaming

and the stream will be here
www.twitch.tv/taurinensis

I'm not dead! Just a bit sick! Silent Bomber 14 and other updates

If you're wondering why there hasn't been any content for the past few days, it's because it was my birthday....and then I got a bit sick.  But I've recovered now so I'm back in the driving seat and ready to chat shit about video games once again.

First things first, let me provide you with new video content to enjoy!

Then I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the charity! 

At the time of writing this post there is £956 sitting in the tracker, we're only a little tiny bit away from making the £1000 goal.  Once my Christmas holiday kicks in at the end of the week, I'll see if I can do anything about getting a few more incentives up to maybe get the goal met before the end of the new year, so keep an eye out on that side bar.

Then the stream.  On Monday the 23rd there will be the Tomba marathon, so hopefully we can get some donations during that.  Also starting from tomorrow I'll be starting my new Speed Run project of Ys for the PC, so if you enjoy those games that'll be worth watching.  Starting with casual runs as I have no idea about a decent route for a speed run just yet, but all in good time.

As far as YouTube is concerned, the Silent Bomber play through will be finishing soon and I'm hoping to record some new ones really soon.  Also I have an idea for a show on coin-op gaming in the works but the people I plan to record it with are currently busy doing Christmas stuff, so that might not get done till mid January at the earliest.

Finally it's business as usual for the blog, just me writing about crap and getting angry at stupid bullshit every so often.

So yeah, now that I'm a year older and not sick anymore, we can return to a decent flow of content again!  Thank's for your patience.

John Romero Made Me His Bitch

Oh man, that marathon ended in complete catastrophe

Allow me to tell you the story.  Last night I held the Daikatana "Until I Win" marathon, and for the first marathon of this kind, it did not end well at all.  First of all, you have to realise that Daikatana is complete and utter garbage of the highest level.  The AI is awful on both your enemies and your allies, the levels are all murky and shit so it's hard to see anything, the guns are all crap and unsatisfying, the story is a mess etc etc etc.

Despite all that, with the people who were with me in the stream both in Twitch chat and on mumble, I was kind of having a good time.  It's one of those games that's SO bad that there is a certain fun to be had by raging at it as you suffer through.  The fact that I had received charity money to do this made the suffering at least bearable.

But then it happened.

I was playing through the Vault level, I had just rescued some girl and now I was having to wrestle with 2 AI buddies.  Given that the stage is full of ladders and elevators this made things particularly frustrating.  Anyway I soldiered through and got to the end of the stage.  Now something to consider before I go into the next bit of the plot is that both me and my allies are at nearly full HP at this point.

The level loads in and suddenly BAM! I'm fucking dead.  I reload my save and I dodge a little bit then a few shots later BAM! my ally is dead, game over.  Rinse and repeat this god knows how many fucking times before I just had to call it quits. 

I can wrestle with bad design and and I can deal with horrible gameplay in the name of charity, but I could literally progress no further past this point because I was being insta gibbed at the fucking doorway to the stage.

So, even though the marathon's failure TECHNICALLY wasn't my fault, I'm going to match the donation provided by the guy who donated for this thing in the first place, and then give him a choice of incentive.  So if anything my failure just means more charity money, which isn't really a bad thing at the end of the day, it's just my pride that hurts.

Speaking of money, over a very short period of time, a total of £35 was raised, which is great considering I have streamed for longer and raised less in the past, so big thanks to all who donated.  If you include my punishment donation that makes the total £60, so not bad for a 6 hour stream all things considered.

The December marathon will be Tomba Until I Win and given that Tomba is a good, well made game, that one should be WAYYYY more successful!  So look foward to that one.  Finally, I'm going to review the part of the stream where it all went wrong and if it's interesting enough I'll upload it!

More Updates Regarding Steam and YouTube content

Right, this post isn't going to have a picture because right now my current internet situation is a load of complete bollocks.

Over the last few days, I've been surviving by tethering my iPhone to my computer and using the internet that way.  Up until yesterday it was perfect, but then I went and ran out of usage so now my phone's internet speed has been capped out for the month and it's slow as all hell.

Yesterday I was hoping to upload another episode of Silent Bomber, but with my net now being what it is, it's basically impossible to upload anything without it taking 3 years.

However the good news is that today 2 dudes came over to our apartment and basically set up our internet plan, now all we have to do is wait about a week for the little box to arrive and then I'm golden.

So, expect sporadic updates for a while since my net access is extremely limited.  I'll be at least trying to keep up with daily written posts but it takes so long to do anything that I might just get frustrated and give up, hopefully not though.

Once the internet does come I'll be testing the stream, uploading videos and then jumping right into the Daikatana marathon as soon as I get some free time, so look forward to that.

I still also have a key for F.E.A.R 2 available and I'm willing to give it to the first person who throws a charity donation to the Alzheimer's Society.

Thanks for your patience

A Big Donation Push

Begging for donations is not something I like to do.  This blog is about video games mainly and sometimes it's about stuff I do in Japan.  Between all the fun time gaming goodness and ranting about industry bullshit, it's very easy to forget what the goal of this blog was in the first place even if it is written on the side bar.

That's right, just over a year ago I think I started this blog with the goal of raising money for the Alzheimer's Society, donated by people who enjoy the content and want to raise money for a good cause. 

Right now, through the posts, YouTube content and Stream effort, the donations have reached a pretty staggering £726 ($1175) but a quick look at the donation page says that the goal is £1000.  We're so close to that first (yes, first) £1000 goal that I can smell the Alzheimer's being cured from all the way in my apartment in Japan.

So yeah, right now, I'm begging for donations.   On my knees begging you to donate even a little something to the Alzheimer's Society and hopefully we can meet that goal before the end of December!

Even though I'm begging I'm not expect to get donations for nothing.  If you look a little to the right hand side of the blog, then you may see a new text box that reads "Donation Incentives".  Most of these pertain to the stream so if you want to know when I'm streaming I suggest following me on Twitter @Taurinensis

However, all charity money is good charity money, so if you would like to see something streamed or something done for the YouTube channel or even just something you want me to write about feel free to request it!  Just type out your request with your donation, or send me an email with the name you used to donate with with your request.  Generally speaking, a donation of £10 will get me to play or stream most things as long as they aren't god awful sacks of crap.  If I feel your donation is too small for something then it won't be ignored, it'll become a donation incentive and then you can convince all your friends to make up the extra! 

But I'm a nice guy for the most part, I took on a Daikatana run for £10, so yeah.

So please, share this link with any gaming friends you have, or even anyone who just wants to help get rid of Alzheimer's Disease.  Let's hit that goal and move on to bigger, badder and better goals!

They Bleed Pixels Part 6 [Final]

That's another playthrough finished!

If you enjoyed it please consider a donation to the Alzheimers Society

www.justgiving.com/identitygaming

Thanks! Enjoy the video!

Nearing the First Goal!

Well last nights Counter Strike: Global Offensive Marathon was a great success!  Thanks to everyone who watched and donated and even bigger thanks to all the buddies on mumble to played with me to make that whole thing possible.  £140 was raised for the Alzheimers Society, so good job!

Speaking of donations,  over £700 has been raised so I'd just like to take another moment to give a great big thank you to anyone who had donated so far, so keep it up! The first £1000 has nearly been met so if you do have bit of spare money floating about, do consider a donation since it would mean a lot.

Keep reading, keep sharing and keep donating! I just hope that people are enjoying the content as much as I enjoy writing it.

www.justgiving.com/identitygaming

YouTube Paid Channels

I found out today that there are now channels on YouTube that you must pay a monthly subscription to in order to view.  Wow, what a load of fucking shit!

OK, I'm being a bit harsh, I do see the point of it here.  It allows creators of content to get something back for the work their putting in.  Not that they weren't getting it already with the whole YouTube monetisation thing, but this just gives them more options or some shit I guess.

Right now I don't give a flying fuck really because all the channels that are pay2view are a load of shit anyway.  But I hope people with gaming channels are aware of the fact that not ONE FUCKING PERSON with any kind of common sense would pay a fucking penny to watch shit like playthroughs and reviews.

I mean think about it, if someone like IGN went and put a subscription on their channel, people would just fuck off somewhere else for content.  If some Let's Player goes and does the same thing, people will just fuck of to another guy who didn't.  Even more so with playthroughs because why pay a monthly fee to view them when you could just buy the game yourself and fucking play it.

I know full well my nobody status on YouTube but rest assured that if I ever did somehow get to the point where subscription content would be an option, I would tell YT to go shove it up it's own arse.  If people are going to pay money for anything I create, I'd rather they direct it at the Alzheimer's Society than me, I can just get a fucking job!

Speaking of which, don't forget to throw a donation to the Society, that disease ain't going to cure itself!

www.justgiving.com/identitygaming

(Please forgive my shameless begging for charity donations, I won't do it often)