News – Desert Bus For Hope Raises Record Amount

Earlier we covered Desert Bus For Hope’s annual charity drive, which sees comedians and gamers struggle their way through the infamous video game, Desert Bus.  Having just wrapped up their ninth annual marathon play-through, this year has seen the team play through 159 brain melting hours of desert driving, all of which was streamed to the world via Twitch.  This may sound painful, and I’m sure it is, but it’s all for a good cause, and this year has seen Desert Bus For Hope raise a record amount of money for the extremely worthwhile charity Child’s Play.

All in all, the charity gaming marathon expanded on the originally planned 131 hours, and in turn helped raise $677,188, up $33,945.42 on last year’s amount.  Even better, Desert Bus For Hope has now raised more than $3 Million, over its now nine-year history.  This has meant that thanks to Desert Bus For Hope’s contribution as a key sponsor of the charity, Child’s Play has been able to reach even more sick and needy children on a global level.

DBFH Live
The Desert Bus For Hope team live streaming the event on Twitch

Initially created and run by the comedy team LoadingReadyRun, the Desert Bus For Hope event really does only feature the one game, a game not even released.  Originally planned as a part of the unreleased Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors, Desert Bus literally sees players drive a bus through the desert from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas.  This all occurs in real time, and for anyone thinking you can just tape the controller’s buttons down and leave it running, the developers thought of that too, giving the bus a steering problem.  This means that players, and by that fact everyone who took part in Desert Bus For Hope, has to constantly correct the bus’ steering for the whole eight hour real-time journey.

Nevertheless, it’s good to see such a bad game used for such good, and we here at Rings & Coins would like to congratulate everyone involved in Desert Bus For Hope on such a successful charity drive.

Sophia Aubrey Drake

A lifelong gamer with a fanatical love of all things Nintendo and Japan. So much so that she's written a thesis on one and lived in the other. Currently on a quest to catch every last Pokémon. Follow me on twitter via @DivaXChill or @RingsandCoins.

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