One of gaming’s most successful annual charity streams will start this weekend as The Runaway Guys Colosseum enters its fifth year.
Buoyed by an Avengers-like coming together of 20 popular streamers, The Runaway Guys (TRG) event is known for its fun, unpredictable, and authentic atmosphere as well as the genuine friendships that exist among its on-screen participants.
As in years past, viewers can expect video game streams – Among Us, Mario Party Superstars, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Banjo-Kazooie are all on the agenda – live music, skits, and interactive opportunities. It will be streamed live starting Saturday, February 26 at 10 a.m. Pacific time and running for 12 hours each day through Feb. 28 at Twitch.tv/protonjon.
Last year’s event raised over $400,000, which was the sixth-highest amount raised in 2021 for an event broadcast on the Tiltify streaming platform. This year’s event will almost certainly push the total amount raised by TRG for Direct Relief to over $1 million since 2018.
“I’ve always really liked the fact that the gaming community is always so eager to help people out,” said Emile “chuggaaconroy” Rosales, a founder of the TRG. Rosales has 1.26 million subscribers on YouTube and his videos have been viewed 1.2 billion times on that platform alone.
“Our community donates to this cause, and we do too… I think it’s awesome, I’m always so impressed with it,” Rosales said.
Fellow TRG streamer Tom “Tom Fawkes” O’Grady said “it feels unbelievable” to have been part of TRG’s charitable efforts. “The meat of it is that we just wanted to help raise money. We never thought it would get this far.”
Asked how he and his friends have managed to build such a dedicated community, Rosales said it is because viewers can see that the on-screen performers are actually having fun.
“We are all friends in real life. It’s not just us doing a job together. Everyone here is passionate about this. No one just walks off after it’s done,” he said.
O’Grady said that what he was most looking forward to over this weekend was the “comradery” after two years of having to stream at home due to the pandemic. This year’s event will see talent gather in three locations.
“We are what appears on the label. We’re just a group of friends playing video games. We like interacting with each other and having a grand time,” said O’Grady.
In addition to Rosales and O’Grady, Jonathan “Proton Jon” Wheeler, Timothy Lloyd “NintendocapriSun” Bishop NintendoCapriSun, who founded TRG with Rosales are expected to participate in the stream, as are notable streamers JoshJepson, MasaeAnela, FamilyJules, and others.
Video game-based charity streams have become a substantial source of philanthropic giving over the past few years, with the advent of platforms like Twitch, where streamers can broadcast themselves playing video games or chatting, and Tilify, which provides a platform to help streamers accept donations.
In 2020, Twitch streamers and viewers donated over $83 million to charities, following $145 million in donations from 2011 to 2019, according to the Amazon-owned company. Direct Relief has received over $15.5 million since 2016 from tens of thousands of donors from the video game community.
Rosales said that he encourages viewers to give whatever amount they feel comfortable with. To this end, there is a segment called “$3 Train” where viewers who donate at least $3 have their name read out during the stream. The streamers also create other ways to make viewers part of the event.
“Our whole thing is that we have donation incentives for weird and wacky things you can make us do. I always say that the difference between being an entertainer or not is that the entertainer will eat the bug for charity,” he said.
Regarding the cause, Rosales said he and his friends chose Direct Relief due to the transparency of the organization as well as the ability to understand what donations would be used for.
“I’ve always liked what a tangible charity Direct Relief is. We can say. ‘Here are hard numbers for what was done in response to flooding or a hurricane, here are the hard numbers for what was given,” Rosales said.
Even as TRG gets bigger each year, Rosales and O’Grady said that viewers can expect the same kind of show that they have come to expect since it began.
“We have a good thing going and we don’t try to bite off more than we can chew. We know what we can be and try to do that really well,” said Rosales.
“It’s going to be 12 hours per day with pure music and gaming pandemonium,” added O’Grady, who said that the event will maintain its interactive nature, with audience members given the ability to change what happens in-game on and on stream.
“You can make a jump (we do) in a video game infinitely harder or infinitely more hilarious,” he said.
