Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) November 11, 2013
For the past seven days a group of five pro-gamers known to their social media communities as TmarTn, iiJERiiCHOii, MrErnestLe, MuzzaFuzza and GoldGlove have been playing Activision's new Call of Duty: Ghosts video game nonstop, all for a good cause. They are raising money for the Call of Duty Endowment.
"Veterans sacrifice a lot for our security, but they also get great experience and training while they serve in the military. So it’s crazy that when young vets finish their service, they’re 70-80% more likely to be out of work than non-vets," says Dan Goldenberg, Executive Director of the Call of Duty Endowment. "The Endowment has funded the placement of over 1,500 vets so far and we want to bring that total to 25,000 over the next 5 years."
Just after one week, the fivesome has raised over $20,000 and expect to continue playing until they have completed the game in another 4-5 days time. The Call of Duty marathon live stream is nothing new to these gamers. This is their 2nd year running the stream but this year they knew they wanted to mobilize their social media communities, totaling over 3.2 million fans, for the Call of Duty Endowment.
"$1,510 has been the average cost to place a vet in a good job through the non-profits the Call of Duty Endowment supports," says Ernie Le, known in the gaming community as MrErnestLe, "so we decided as a team last summer to focus this year's 'Race' on raising money for the Endowment."
"We are donating all the money we receive from Twitch.tv advertising and encouraging our viewers to donate." says Trevor Martin, known in the gaming community as TmarTn. "Viewers receive an entry for every $5 donated into a Sweepstakes with prizing from brand integration partners Monster Energy, Razer, KontrolFreek, Eat24.com, Elgato and GUNNAR Optiks."
Jennifer Michelsen, Co-founder and CMO of GUNNAR Optiks, joined "The Race", as the Call of Duty Endowment has special meaning to her. "My brother-in-law recently returned home from a two and a half year deployment in Africa and the Middle East, apart from my sister and their children. We have many friends and family that have made immeasurable sacrifices to protect our freedom. We owe it to our veterans to help make the transition to civilian life as smooth as possible. GUNNAR was honored to lend its vision and support to such an incredible event."
Between the gamers social media efforts and those of their brand integration partners "The Race" has already surpassed last year's stats by reaching over 55,000 concurrent viewers at Kickoff and over 1.24 million uniques across the past seven days. The average view per unique is 62.6 minutes.
About "The Race":
“The Race” is a non-stop marathon live stream to finish Activision’s new Call of Duty(R): Ghosts video game. To watch the gamers in action and make a donation, please go to http://www.Twitch.tv/TheRace.
About the Call of Duty Endowment:
The Call of Duty Endowment is a non-profit, public benefit corporation founded by Activision Blizzard. The organization seeks to help service members transitioning to civilian life find high quality careers by assisting organizations that provide job placement and training services to veterans. For more information about The Call of Duty Endowment, please visit http://www.callofdutyendowment.org.