What is Desert Bus for Hope?
Desert Bus is a charity marathon benefiting Child's Play, a US-based charity that provides toys, games, and donations to children's hospitals and domestic violence shelters. Based on how much viewers donate during the course of the run, Desert Bus will be extended until the amount necessary to continue the run exceeds the amount donated.
In order to encourage donations, Desert Bus organizes live and silent auctions over the course of the run, while also engaging in giveaways for set donations, and challenges that the people on stream will perform live at the request of viewers. There's also a selection of Desert Bus merchandise, such as a limited run shirt and poster, where proceeds from the sale of that merch (minus production costs) are also donated to Child's Play.
Since 2007, Desert Bus has rasied over $4,000,000 USD for Child's Play.
Who organizes Desert Bus?
Desert Bus is organized every year by LoadingReadyRun, a Canadian sketch comedy troupe based in Victoria, British Columbia. They also typically invite their friends and creative partners to participate in the stream as well, and there are typically a number of celebrity guests who do call-ins and auctions to drive donations. Some of those guests have included the McElroy Brothers, The Doubleclicks, astronomer Phil Plait, and Vegas stage magicians Penn and Teller. Speaking of which...
Penn and Teller are involved? And why Desert Bus for Hope?
The hook of the marathon is that the participants will play only one game for the entire run: Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors, a game released in 1995 for the Sega CD.
Largely intended as a spoof of the video game industry, it included what is largely considered to be the single most boring game ever; a driving simulator where you drive a bus from Tuscon, Arizona to Las Vegas. In real time. For eight hours. And then you drive the bus back. Also, the bus will constantly list to the right side of the road and crash, unless the player constantly nudges it back onto the road every couple of seconds. For eight hours. And when the bus crashes, you start over. Occasionally, a bug will go splat on the windshield. This is something to be celebrated.
Desert Bus started in 2007, and the marathon has been based around the idea of trying to extend the run for as long as possible; to encourage viewers to donate, the LRR crew and their friends have built up a number of gags, bits, and sketches of varying complexity to keep donations flowing in, and viewers glued to their monitors. The most infamous of these being the driver entrances and shift changes, which are intended to compete as the most flamboyant introductions to what will be the least exciting marathon video game session ever.
Let's say I wanted to find out more about Desert Bus. Where would I go?
Desert Bus Dot Org, your premium source for all Desert Bus related news. If you'd like a schedule for the event, a list of auctions and giveaways that will be going on during the run, or more information on the drivers and participants, that's your best source. The run itself will be hosted on twitch.tv/desertbus, which should be embedded at the top of this post.
This seems like a really weird and silly thing, and you haven't really sold me on it yet. Why should I watch or donate?
I'll let Alex Steacy take this one.
Let's say you sold me on it; when does Desert Bus start?
Desert Bus for Hope will begin tomorrow, November 9th, at 10:00 AM Pacific Time / 1:00 PM Eastern Time.