As usual, apologies for the lack of news updates the last week. I just can't seem to find the time or content to update more often. However, we'll be getting some help in that department very shortly thanks to some great members of this community.

Before I talk about that though, I just wanted to give everyone a heads up in case you haven't noticed yet about the RockMed marathon that's live right now. It's been going for a little while now and is doing great. It was planned well from the start and is for a great cause, especially if you're a concert-goer, so check it out and say hi to the gang when you get a chance.

Also, big congratulations go out to Kevin whose Lego Marathon this weekend was awesome and went off without a hitch. He learned a lot from his first marathon and used those lessons to produce a great marathon and I look forward to seeing more from him in the future.

This next announcement I'm very excited about and it's an idea that's been developing on the forums for some time, but I was hesitant to pull the trigger on it for lack of a person with the enthuisasm and time capable of taking on the job. That changed recently when Robert Doucette and Alex, who have been great contributing and active members on the forums both volunteered to share the duties of being the official interviewers for GM.com. That means they will do their best to interview everyone running a marathon before and after their respective marathons. Those interviews will be posted as news on the main page each time they are conducted and should make the main page much more active in terms of updates. So if you're running a marathon, be sure to be ready for them to contact you for your interview.

So huge thanks go out to Robert and Alex for volunteering for the job, and I hope they remain active staff members of the GM.com community for a long time to come.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween weekend and election day (or Bonfire night for those of you in the UK). Marathon-wise, it was a fantastic Halloween weekend as all three gaming marathons that were broadcasting live all weekend did a tremendous job keeping people tuned in and entertained. Is it just me, or are we seeing the gaming marathon standard really rising to a new level lately? The presentation, planning, and professionalism of marathons run in October have been off the charts and it is very encouraging, and satisfying. I hope everyone has been enjoying them as much as I have.

It appears that November will be no different. I've added 5 (yes, 5!) new marathons over the last couple of days that were just emailed to me and all of them are taking place in November. I also have reason to believe that every single one of the gaming marathons planned to run in November are going to be top notch. So please, for your own good, check them out when they are live.

Despite the little dip in activity in September, the community has really picked it up over the last few months and now there will be almost as many marathons run from October to December than there were from June to August, which is awesome. I finally feel like gaming marathons are transforming from a summertime fad to a full on, year long trend. Even bigger organizations are getting into the act now. Organizations such as RockMed who provide voluntary, emergency care to music concerts all across the US and I'm sure have saved many lives in the process. They will be running a Rock Band/Guitar Hero marathon on November 14th which should prove to be one of the biggest gaming marathons to date and definitely not one to miss.

But as always, everyone in this community needs to support each other, and visit all the marathons when they are live. Even if it is just for a few minutes, it encourages those who are working hard to plan and run these things to do them again, and more often, which benefits everyone, least of all the various charities that we all want to support.

Happy Halloween everyone! We have a packed Halloween weekend marathon-wise with three great quality marathons all running simultaneously. The first one to start is the Resident Evil marathon presented by the folks at Comboattack.com and from what I've seen of it so far, it's fantastic. It's professionally presented, yet cozy and interesting with good interaction and a great quality stream. So definitely check that one out when you get a chance.

Second, is Not Another Video Game marathon hosted by Desiree Little and is the only one of the three this weekend to not have a Halloween-y theme. But that's ok, since it's a viewer choice marathon which are always great fun, and it should be a good quality marathon since Desiree has been planning it for so long, and is very commited to it.

Third, The Speed Gamers are at it again with their Halloween themed marathon, and will be playing through the scariest games they can find, while in full costume and bringing their usual, popular, brand of entertainment to the masses all weekend. TSG's marathons are always wortth checking out and always have a lively broadcast and lively audience.

As you can see from my descriptions, all three marathons will be worth watching and will provide a great weekend of spooky entertainment. In my opinion, this will be one of the best weekends of marathons that we've ever enjoyed, so do whatever it takes to watch at least a few minutes of each. They all deserve the support of the entire community and there's no reason to choose just one. Especially since, as always, the Live Streams page on this site will show all three marathons, with their chats, on the same page, so you have no excuse to not watch all three. It's what I do, and it the most convenient way to keep an eye on each one. See you there!

Sorry for the lack of updates this week everyone, it's been quite a slow one around the gaming marathon world. Kreyg put on another great impromptu marathon last weekend to celebrate the much anticipated release of Fable 2 which went off without a hitch, and was a hit with everyone who watched. Also, the Obama marathon has been going all week, so make sure to check out the last day or so of that one. They'll set a new longest marathon record if they can continue going strong and make it to the end. It's for a great cause too and I hope it's reminded at least a few people to go out and vote on Nov. 4th. It's the most important American election in recent history, so if you only vote once in your whole life, this is the one to do it in.

Nick's Marathon starts today so please make sure and support that one. The marathoners who are running it were inspired to do so by the recent death of their friend Nick, and are hoping to raise some money for a few charities related to the illnesses which took him. So it'll surely be a great marathon for a great cause, so everyone please check it out and watch some of it.

I'll be adding another marathon to the already busy Halloween weekend very soon. This one, being a Resident Evil marathon should fit in quite nicely with the Halloween theme and give viewers yet another option for that weekend. So once you're all done with you trick-or-treating, be sure to log onto GameMarathons.com and feast on the eye candy that all three of the Halloween marathons will surely offer. Remember, this community thrives on everyone supporting each other, so spare a few minutes to visit and interact with each marathon and give every hard working marathoner some love.

Kreyg's latest modern review is in! This time he gives an overview of the recently released Saints Row 2 on Xbox360. For a GTA clone, it actually looks pretty good and improves upon the success of the first game. Kreyg does a great job breaking the game down and covering the main points, so check it out!

Just a quick few notes for you guys today: First, I was just notified last night about VGTribune.com finally getting back to the marathon they planned to do in July, but were forced to postpone until now. I posted about it in the forums immediately after hearing about it as it was starting very soon after and first thing this morning, I made sure to get it up on the main page for those who don't visit the forums regularly. The marathon is currently running and will be for another 36 hours or so, so please check it out and give them your support.

Second, Kreyg will be doing his part in filling the marathon-less void of this weekend by holding his own 24 hour one. Hot off the heels of his last marathon just 2 weeks ago, he'll again be firing up the cameras and entertaining everyone for another day. This time he's hoping to show off an advance copy of Fable 2 which is very exciting, but failing that, he'll play through the entire story of Grand Theft Auto IV. I'll be putting up his banner and information as soon as I get them from him, so stay tuned.

Third, I just heard about another marathon planned for October 20th that will be a massive 5 day, multiple camera marathon that will include a myriad of different games from a myriad of different systems, all in support of Barack Obama's Presidential campaign. The goal of the marathon is to encourage young voters who are historically apathetic, to get out there and vote for real change in November and help get America back on track. This should be an epic marathon for an important and timely cause, and I'm personally looking forward to it. It'll be listed and heavily promoted on this site as soon as the organizer, Rey, gets me all the information.

It'll be a very exciting and jam packed few weeks for marathons, and a lot of activity will be happening on GM.com, so be sure to check daily and tune into all the fantastic marathons coming up.

Last weekend we all got to enjoy two great marathons after the long dry spell of September, in which only one marathon happened all month. First, Lenny and his Lights Out team did a good job with their very first marathon and managed to keep a good number of viewers throughout the 48 hours of their broadcast. I'm sure the whole community is looking forward to seeing more from them.
Second, Kreyg's impromptu, emergency fundraising marathon also did very well and delivered the kind of fun and professionalism that we've come to expect from Kreyg. He kept everyone entertained by playing various games requested by the audience, and managed to raise over $225 in the process. Hopefully that will keep him afloat during these hard times, and those who were so generous to donate to him should be honored.

This weekend was supposed to be covered by the Round, Pound, and Roll Around marathon, but they've decided to postpone it at the last minute because of some members of the team suddenly not being able to do it. So word from Evilralphwiggum is that it will probably happen in early November. While disappointing, the decision is understandable and there are many more marathons this month to look forward to.

Be sure not to miss the recently organized German marathon on the 13th being done by The Speedys. While I'm sure it'll mostly be in German, it could still be fun to watch and is a good fix to fill the time during what was sure to be a vacant few weeks until the activity starts up again near the end of October. So tune into them, and support them as you would any English speaking marathon.

Also, be sure to check out and register for the forums if you haven't done so yet. They are really expanding nicely and recently have seen a great influx of activity. There are plenty of discussions to take part in, and new topics are being started every day by Kreyg, evilralphwiggum, and Signia. It really is the best way for all of us to keep in touch with each other and have fun between marathons. Sign up NOW!

Robert's newest retro review is in! He takes an in depth look at the new Mega Man 9 and reviews every aspect of the game. Robert even compares the differences between the Wii and 360 versions in case you need help deciding on which one to get. Even though it's sped up, if you look carefully, you can see Robert's amazing skill in some parts. Check it out!

Robert's newest retro review is in! This time he checks out Dragon's Lair for the NES, a game that was panned and destroyed by the Angry Video Game Nerd. Surprisingly though, Robert likes it! Check out the video to see first hand the madness of this insane game as Robert rewards you with anime boobs if you make it to the end.

Robert's newest retro review is in! This time he takes an in depth look at one of the more well known games to come from the NES, Super Dodge Ball. Check out the review, get it for the VC, and bask in the chibi-ness.

During the current drought of gaming marathons, I've been trying to come up with even more ideas to bring traffic to the site and give people something to do in times like these. Since the last marathon in early September, GM.com has declined in visitors pretty steadily, despite the activity in the forums, and the regular posting of entertaining review videos, which concerns me.

So in an attempt to combat that and bring in more people every day, I've been tossing an idea around in my head that is admittedly completely unoriginal, has been done before, and I'm not even sure anyone will be interested in it. Despite that, the idea still intrigues me and I keep going back to it. So I put it here to all of you so that you can give your opinions.

On top of running this site and making changes every evening, I also try to keep up with gaming and staying in the loop. So I spend most of my evenings from about 4pm until 7pm EST just playing all kinds of random PC games; whatever takes my fancy that day. I have an almost insatiable appetite for games, and change what I play pretty rapidly (although I do always try to "finish" the game before I switch).

So my idea is that I will broadcast my desktop via Webcammax or whatever else I can find to do that via either Ustream or BlogTV every single night from 4pm - 7pm EST and allow whoever is interested to just watch me play whatever it is I'm playing. Not only will this bring activity to the main site every day, but might also build a core audience who is interested in that sort of thing.

There are some issues with the idea though. First and foremost, is anyone even interested in watching something like that? Just some guy playing random games every day? Keep in mind, since it's broadcasting my desktop, and I'll be busy playing the games, there will be virtually no interaction from me. It'll literally just be my gameplay on screen. Another issue is that I know people are already doing something like this, albeit in a different style, so it's nothing new. I don't know. I keep going back and forth on the idea so I need everyone else's opinions to help me sway one way or the other. So please email me, or post in the forums what you think, and if the response is favorable, I'll start broadcasting and making it a prominent feature of GM.com.

Robert's newest retro review is finally finished and it's a classic. Full of entertaining sillyness that will make you smile, it also puts one of the most overlooked arcade games, Time Pilot, under the microscope. So check it out and enjoy a little slice of gaming past.

Here's the newest modern game review from Kreyg who gives viewers a tour through the newly released, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and highlights both the good and bad aspects of the game. The bad aspects are few and Kreyg explains exactly why many are calling this one of the best Star Wars games ever.

It's Monday which means it's time for another modern game review from Kreyg! This time around he's reviewing Rock Band 2, probably before anyone else! Check it out in the game reviews section or view it below.

The newly designed GameMarathons.com is finally online! Thank you to everyone for your patience with me in getting it up over the last month. As I said in my last news post, just about every single page on the site has been redesigned and reworked. Not only that, but Robert, Kreyg, and Cory Hunt have been working hard with me in planning all the new features now on the website, and I can't thank them enough for their continued, completely voluntary support of GM.com.

Speaking of the new features now on the site, I'll go ahead and talk about each one fully to familiarize everyone.

-- First and foremost, the most exciting new additions are Robert Alley's and Kreyg Dezgo's weekly hardware and game reviews. Robert will be handling his specialty full of nostalgia, retro games, while Kreyg will be bringing you the latest, current generation game reviews. Both will also be doing occasional hardware and cool gadget reviews. Check out the new Hardware and Game Reviews section on the site and check out the reviews both guys have already done. Expect new reviews to be released at the rate of two per week.
-- We've added in a Staff page so visitors to the site can get an idea of who is behind the scenes, working on the site on a daily basis, and can contact them individually. Eventually we'll be adding in more pictures, and expanding the biographies over time.
-- Every single Archive page has been reworked and look much slicker. I also plan to record my own clips of the marathons as they are happening to include as clips on each marathon page The Live Streams page has also been reworked and improved. It should be much more enjoyable and intuitive to view live marathons now via that page.

I will continue to improve the website over the next week as there are still some details I put off including until it went live such as dates for the upcoming marathons and regular shows, and the enabling of comments for each news post using the same user list as the forums so there will be no need to re-register to comment. This will require that the forums be changed, which I will tackle later in the week. There are also two new marathons that I need to put up which I will be doing very shortly.

I hope everyone enjoys the new GM.com and please let me know what you think of the site, and if you run into any bugs I missed. And thanks as always for the continued support everyone!

I apologize for the lack of updates this week, especially since there are a distinct lack of marathons happening so far in September, but I promise it's for a good reason. I've been working hard on the new website all week and it's taking so long because it's literally being completely redesigned from the ground up. Just about every single page is being redesigned, and those that aren't being totally changed, are at least being slightly modified.

Good news though. After announcing the redesign last month, coordinating with my new partners Robert and Kreyg, intregrating new features, and working hard rewriting every single page on the site, it's finally ready to be unveiled. The grand opening of the new site will happen tomorrow (Sunday, the 14th) and I hope you all like it. I'm very excited about it and I think everyone else will be too once you see it.

The new site will also have on it a few more marathons that I haven't added to the old site so September and October won't be as barren as they appear right now, which is good news for marathon fans. So make sure to check back tomorrow or any day after that to check out the new site and enjoy all the exciting new features and gaming shows/reviews to come.

Well, as I predicted, the marathon activity has really slowed down this week what with September marking the end of Summer vacation and a return to school. But fear not! WePushTheButtons has you covered by offering up a marathon starting tonight that should be full of nostalgic fun and should hold you over until the new GM.com comes online.

Speaking of which, I've been working hard with my wife who is a web developer in getting the new site designed and fleshed out, ready to come online. We're about 60% done with it, which means it's just a matter of getting the pages inserted into the new design and having it fully functioning and bug free when it goes live. It should be coming online before the end of this week, and I think you'll all be excited and impressed with it. Just about everything has been redesigned and improved and there will be a whole slew of great new features to keep people on the site and coming back.

The new site will also feature regular broadcasted gaming shows by Robert of WPTB, who has already done a few marathons and lot of other cool videos, and Kreyg who is an entertaining host with a lot of great ideas. You can look forward to tuning into their shows at least once a week via their dedicated subdomains, and both of them will also be doing smaller hardware and games reviews on a regular basis that will be included in the news posts, then be stored in their own section on the new site. I'm also working closely with Cory Hunt who did the first Megaman marathon in bringing his fantastic Invitational idea to the site and hopefully expanding that into a regular league type event.

Couple all of that with the continued extensive coverage of upcoming marathons, CosmicFalcon's great reviews on past marathons, dedicated forums and possibly a dedicated chat, and you'll find lots of reasons to visit the site daily and join us in our excitment about the growth of the marathon gaming community.

This should be a good weekend for marathon watching, so make sure to tune in if you haven't yet. The Speed Gamers started their Earthbound/Bug Nintendo to death campaign yesterday, and two more marathons are starting today. One of them is the Star Ocean marathon that looks quite intriguing and will be a competition to see which team can finish the game first much like the excellent Paper Mario one from last month. The second is the MegaMarathonMan broadcast which has been in planning for quite some time and should be great because of that.

For those wondering what happened to the Halo Marathon that was scheduled for this week, I can tell you they were plagued with technical problems from the very beginning which ultimately led to them to take my advice and cancel the marathon. It's a shame because it seemed like they had the right equipment to make it great, but perhaps didn't leave enough time to work out the kinks, and underestimated what a feat a gaming marathon can turn out to be. After 15 hours, many of them were ready to give up, and so they did. Hopefully we will see another attempt made by them sometime in the future.

The site redesign is coming along slowly, but it's coming along all the same. I've pretty much worked out all the features I want to include and asked a member called M12Secrets to draw up the logo that I have had in my head since the site started (and he's done a great job so far), so now it's just a matter of settling on an overall design and working out the HTML. I promise you guys it will be worth the wait, as the new site will be much larger, easier to navigate, and much prettier to look at all around. Not only that, but Kreyg's and Robert's mini-marathons will mean that there will always be something going on on the site. CosmicFalcon's in-depth reviews and thorough logs will also be prominently featured so even if you can't watch a marathon 24 hours a day, you can rest assured that he has you coevered with what you missed. The four of us are very excited about working with each other and excited about the site's future growth, so I hope you all are as well.

Addendum: Ustream has been failing a lot lately, and it happened again this weekend. First, the Halo marathon had massive issues with Ustream not working right for them, and now TheSpeedGamers are finding that their embedded streams have stopped working and the only one they can get going is lagging horribly. Simply put, Ustream's servers seem swamped and are unable to handle the kind of traffic that gaming marathons attract. Therefore, I'm urging everyone who is planning a marathon now and in the future to stay away from Ustream and try BlogTV out. Kreyg and I have done some testing and their streams don't lag at all. Not only that, but their chat is much slicker and user-friendly than Ustream's. It can be a pain to embed, but the good folks over there told me exactly how to do it, so I cna impart that wisdom to anyone who wants it. The only drawback is that the chat splits after 150 people, but I'm told by their community manager that this is to prevent the chat flooding that we often see in more popular marathons, which is actually a good idea.

So everyone please switch over to BlogTV for your next marathon.

What a crazy weekend of marathons this was. We had two different ones fail for two different reasons, while old standbys, Robert (evilralphwiggum) and Kreyg, put on great shows surpassing the quality that we've come to expect from them. If you haven't already, please check out Kreyg's Xbox360 marathon that's currently running as it's one of the better gaming marathons put on this month and deserves a lot of viewers. The failures this weekend highlighted a growing need for me to restrict the standard of marathon that is supported by this website and thus, I'm no longer supporting marathons by those individuals who are aged 17 or under. I know this may seem unfair if you fall under that demographic, and I will make exceptions for certain circumstances (for example, Signia of the Sonic marathon is 16 but already put on a successful one so he gets a pass or if you're able to prove to me in advance that you'll put on a high quality show). The reality of the high rate of failures from those people under 17 somewhat forces me into this decision so as to maintain the integrity of the community and this website.

GM.com is constantly evolving and being improved, so here are a few announcements that have come in the last few days. First, as you all know, I will soon be redesigning the site to make it more professional and functional. With this redesign, I will be partnering up with those people who do daily or weekly "mini-marathons" and giving them professional space on the site to host their shows on. They will be a permanent feature of GM.com to provide entertainment between large gaming marathons and will work closely with me as the site moves toward the future. So far, Kreyg and Robert have both signed on to the idea and are excited about partnering up with the site, and I'm just as excited about working with them.

Second, in light of his recent stand-out contributions to the forums and to the community, I have decided to offer CosmicFalcon the role of logging every marathon, and also reviewing them when they finish, which he has accepted. So from now on, CF will post his reviews and chat logs in the forums for each marathon after they have completed, and his reviews will replace my little blurbs that get added when the marathons are moved to the archive. CF is able to be more thorough and fair about each marathon than I am, and it also frees me up pay more attention to the administration of the site itself. Not only that, but you guys will get much more detailed reviews which will be an interactive and major part of the new site.

Sorry for the lack of updates this week; I've been busy with the new site redesign and new gaming marathons trickling in. The marathons this weekend were largely unspectacular, except for The Speed Gamers who always put on a great show and surpassed their previous records of viewers and money raised. Everyone did what they promised to do though and broadcasted a complete show, so all in all, it was a good weekend.

If anyone out there is considering doing a marathon in the near future, please contact me so I can give you some support or encouragement, or get you posted on the site if you already have one in the works. I'm putting this out there now because I think the next few months (Sept-December) while schools are back in session are going to be pretty inactive in terms of new gaming marathons. Unfortunately, most of this website's demographic seem to be gamers between 16 and 22 years old who all attend school or college in the Fall and Spring. I say unfortunately because that means the Summer and second half of December are and will be packed, wall to wall, of gaming marathons while the Fall and Spring will be quite sparse. If it were up to me, I'd make sure there was an equal distribution of marathons all year round.

So, in other words, I need people to step up and run some marathons sometime in the next few months to really fill up the Fall schedule. Even 24 hour mini-marathons will do which are easily done over a weekend and shouldn't interfere with any school schedules. I'm also working hard to get the redesigned site up before the Fall slowdown because it will feature some dedicated pages of people who will be doing daily or weekly shows/mini-marathons for GM.com to help keep activity up. If you'd like to be one of those people, please don't hesitate to email me.

Well I was able to implement the "Live Streams" page a lot faster than I anticipated and it was just in time for this weekend's marathons. It was awesome for me personally to be able to see all the marathons at once on the same page as I like to keep an eye on each one that is happening, and hopefully the page will prove popular with you guys too. If you don't like it, or think it needs improving, please go on the forums and make your opinion clear. I'm always looking for feedback about any aspect of the site.

It's become clear to me recently that the site is outgrowing it's "homemade" look and needs a makeover. Maybe it's just me and I'm bored of the design, but I think it's time the site took the next step and became more professional looking and slicker. So over the next few weeks, I'll be working with my wife who is a web developer by trade to give the site a bit of a facelift. The overall layout will pretty much stay the same, but we'll change the color scheme, work with ASP and Javascript, redo the graphics, and generally just make the site super-slick and clean. I'm excited about the image I have in my head, and I'm sure you guys will love it too once it's finished.

In the meantime, if there is anyone out there considering doing a gaming marathon in the near future, please don't hesitate to contact me so I can encourage you or help you out. The community and this whole new gaming trend in general will rely on those who step up and keep the action going during the slower months before and after the busy summers. With the site redesign, I'll have dedicated sections of the site or pages for people who do regular gaming broadcasts between marathons (mini-marathons) to broadcast, and other events to keep people visiting and interested in marathons in general.

The next few months should be very exciting so stay tuned guys and gals!

Over the last few days, I've been trying to come up with fresh, new ideas to make GameMarathons.com more than just a directory of other people's work, but rather a full on experience that stands on it's own. A site that people will log onto, and spend time on between marathons as well as during them. I've come up with a few ideas that I'm working hard to implement, so please let me know what you think of them if you wish to opine.

First, I know I'm not alone in that I've wanted to watch, or at least keep an eye on all the live marathons that happen concurrently, but doing so requires multiple browser windows/tabs to be open and switching back and forth between them can get tedious. Also, I've heard one too many people say that they must choose one to watch simply because they couldn't pay attention to the others at the same time, which means the ones that weren't chosen miss out on potential viewers. To solve this, I'm going to replace the Contact page that is redundant with a Feeds page. The Feeds page will be just that; a page of feeds (I linked it to give you guys a little preview; please let me know what you think). On weekends like this one coming up where there are 2-4 marathons running at the same time, I will embed each stream with it's respective chat side-by-side so that every single stream can be viewed at the same time on the same page. I'll also be sure to embed the Chipin widgets for each one so that they don't miss out on any donations.
I'm very excited about this idea since it will allow all marathons to sure their viewers, thus boosting viewership numbers which will boost their popularity, without the tediousness of multiple Ustream pages having to be open. Also, I believe that it is one step closer to my notion that GM.com should become a dedicated partner and resource for video game marathons rather than just a simple directory.

Second, I need an idea that will keep people coming to the site daily and spending time on it. I don't have much right now to address that notion, so any suggestions from you guys would be great. I thought about doing my own daily gaming show where I just play one game at a time in a mini-marathon until I complete it for 3 or 4 hours each night, allowing people to follow my progress if they wanted, but I'm not sure if people would actually want me to do that, or if I even have the time for that. I also don't want to step on anyone's toes who is currently doing that.
Please let me know either by email or in the forums any ideas you have, or if you like that idea and want me to do it.

Well, so far it's been another awesome weekend of gaming marathons. All four of the marathons currently running are going strong and each has a respectable number of viewers. I've spent time watching each one and I can say with confidence that all of them are entertaining and lively, even the Halo marathon which I wasn't too sure about before it started. All of these marathons should still be running all day Sunday, so make sure to tune into at least a couple of them, or do what I do and watch 3 at once and support the general community.

If you haven't noticed yet, I've added a few more new, upcoming marathons to the sidebar so check them out and make a note of the dates, especially the Playapalooza would should be pretty huge. As I said in my last news post, I have yet to add a couple more that are happening in later months, but will be adding them as soon as I can. Until then, enjoy the fantastic marathons that are happening as I type this, and be sure to register for the forums and join the community. They are always open to everyone to keep in touch between marathons.

This week so far has been relatively slow and quiet after the explosion of activity we experienced last week. I think everyone is recovering from the great week of video game marathons that took place and getting ready for this weekend. Every marathon that ran last week was successful and every single one has promised to do another sometime in the future. It's already been confirmed actually that the guys behind the Final Fantasy VII marathon are planning a SNES RPG marathon to happen a few months from now which should be a blast to watch. I'm just waiting for their confirmed details to list them on here, and hopefully their experience doing the FFVII one will produce an even better marathon this time around. I've also had some notifications of completely new marathons happening in late September and late December that I have yet to put up on the page, so it's great to see that this form of entertainment will still be going strong at the end of the year.

Publicity for GameMarathons.com is still trickling in slowly as more people are getting on board with the concept which is great for the site, and for the gaming marathons listed here. We've been recently featured on VGTribune and Techmaze as well as on a few blogs here and there as those running marathons have generously remembered to mention GM.com, which is awesome. It's in everyone's best interest to get the word out about the site because the more popular it becomes, the more popular gaming marathons become, which means more money will be raised for charity and more people will have more fun.

I've been experimenting with advertising on the site, and I hope people don't mind that, but with the cost of hosting and the stagering amount of traffic the site is getting latey, it's almost a necessity. I messed around with Google Adsense, but the Google crawler isn't very good at differentiating video game marathons from normal athletic marathons, so it quickly became obvious to me that Adsense, with it's bunch of advertisements for athletic marathons, is pointless and I'd have more luck securing agreements with Ad networks who specialize in video game advertising. If anyone knows of any, please email me and let me know so I can contact them.

I hope everyone is looking forward to the marathons this weekend, especially the Resident Evil one which should be great, and be sure to get on the forums and join the flourishing community.

It has been a jam packed, but fantastic week of marathons so far this week. The busy week kicked off on Wednesday with Cookie and Xygni giving us an entertaining romp through Rock Band and was quickly followed by the starts of the relaxing Pixeljunk Eden playthrough and brilliantly presented Paper Mario marathon. Though the first two were short and finished early, the PM marathon is still going strong as of this writing and has managed to keep a steady stream of viewers entertained. On Friday though, we saw three new long-term marathons start including the MarioMarathon team's contribution to the Four48 Zelda marathon which was fantastic, and gave Cameron Banga's team a great jumping off point. It's a shame his stream is nowhere near the quality of the MM team though and a lot of people, including myself have lost interest.

Another notable marathon you should be sure to watch this weekend is the Final Fantasy VII one that has so far been quite fun, what with being made into a drinking game. Don't forget about the Paper Mario marathon though. You can still catch the tail end of it, and these guys and gals deserve a lot more viewers and donations than they've gotten so far. It's been a wonderfully presented, interactive, and fun marathon all the way through. I'm very proud of Chris, Andrea, Jeff, and Marla for sticking it out through a very long marathon and showing everyone how to put on a successful show.

Anyway, the three marathons that started up yesterday are all long term ones and they should all still be streaming come Monday, so make sure to tune into all of them for a greatly entertaining weekend. After a few days off during the week, we start all over again with the Resident Evil marathon on the 8th which should be smashing, so stay tuned people!

Shortly after making my latest news post on Saturday wherein I expressed my disappointment and frustration about some recent failures, I found myself discussing the notion of Cause and Effect with my wife as it related to my 2 and a half year old son. Specifically that, as with all young toddlers, he doesn't quite understand that actions beget consequences and vice versa, so continues on the dark paths of tantrums, refusal to eat and sleep, and general terrible-two angst despite threats of punishment.

It warms my heart and bolsters my confidence then when I find that this great community is nothing like my son, and has responded wonderfully to my parental lecture and harsh words of warning. It caused the effect that I desired in that it might make those who are rushing into a marathon headlong, take some time out to slow down and really think it through. Since I posted the news on Saturday, I've had more than a few people stop to ask my advice, reconsider their plans, or seem to want to put more thought and effort into their marathons in general. I really appreciate that from everyone, and appreciate all the response to the post that I've gotten. It's that kind of thought, effort, and professionalism that will turn gaming marathons into a global mainstay.

Changing gears now, I just wanted to announce that with a lot of help from my awesome wife, I've managed to get the code in for a viewer rating system that I will implement onto every single marathon's page. It is a simple 1-5 voting system where one can go the page of the marathon they've seen, click on however many Luigi heads they feel it deserves, and their rating will be added to a database and averaged with every other vote to display a "viewer rating". You can check it out and test it out on the Rare marathon page in the July archive if you like, and be sure to let me know what you think of it. Once I get that fully implemented, then I'll add in an official GameMarathons rating just above it (probably using Mario heads) where you'll see my personal and professional rating of the marathon based on various criteria.
Hopefully this system will allow those planning marathons to look into the past and see what marathons worked the best, or were the most entertaining, and have the highest ratings, and can emulate that success for their own.

I've had a lot of great suggestions for new features to the site, and I'll be working feverishly to get as many of them added as possible over the next week or so, so stay tuned and keep spreading the word.

I have worked pretty hard to make this site look professional and to take gaming marathons to the next level since I believe that they aren't just a silly internet fad. However, recent marathons from the last 2 weeks or so have not put forth the effort that I feel is critical to get the world to take these thing seriously. Of the last 4 marathons that have taken place over the last two weekends, three (3) have been dismal, unwatchable failures.

I'm not going to pull any punches here because I'm serious in my feeling that for marathons to succeed as a gaming genre, and to be taken seriously world-wide (especially if the marathons are for charity), there needs to be a level of professionalism and dedication that is apparant.
Last weekend started this sickening trend of failures when the Guitar Hero marathon ran for 45 of their projected 72 hours before being completely abandoned by almost everyone involved, leaving one left to crash from lack of sleep. Not only that, but it was rushed, so the video and sound quality were poor as well as the interaction with the audience. Is it any wonder they only got a few viewers?

Luckily, the Endless Setlist Rock Band marathon started at about that time and saved the weekend by giving us an entertaining 24 hours that was easily watchable. They managed to get a good number of viewers.

But the disgust continued this weekend when the long planned Nintendo Marathon gave us nothing but a couple of 11 year olds swapping out various wii games for a couple hours at a time, then finally petering out with an ever so poignant view of the living room window. It wasn't even watchable because the sound and video quality were so poor when it was going properly, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt because they were pre-pubescent kids running it. Helpful Hint: Harassing the chat for donations every 10 seconds is not fun for viewers.

"Ok" I said as the Wii sports: Tennis marathon was about to start. These guys seemed very serious about charity and their cause, even so much to be part of a charity funding organization. And although it was short notice to get them added to the site, I made sure to get them up there before it started. Eventually starting 3 hours after it was scheduled to start (5 hours if you include the original start time which was changed just before the event), we were treated to a very good quality picture and likeable characters. The marathon went on for a at least 13 hours, and although the lads seemed fatigued and very bored of playing Tennis, they looked strong and ready to go. At the 13 hour mark, I left with my wife to visit my mother-in-law and by the time I came back 5 hours later, the marathon was dead for no explicable reason, and what I could extrapolate from the chat was that it had died long before I got home. 13-16 hours?! That's all you wimps could do? I know it was an extremely boring game to play for so long, BUT YOU CHOSE TO PLAY IT at the planning stage of your marathon. You should have been prepared to be bored, and if you plan to go 24 hours, you better bloody well make your own fun and go the full 24hours! Utterly disappointing from a group of guys who claim to be so close to charity organizations.

"But it's for charity so who cares? Any amount we raise for however long we play for before failing is money they didn't have before."

Ah yes, I love that excuse. I'm sure the charity is thrilled you gave up and quit doing what you promised to do in their name and they're overjoyed by the paultry sums your poorly executed, failed marathons brought in.
Anyone can easily draw the logic line that a well produced, professional marathon that takes it's time building up some hype and advertisement beforehand is going to bring in a hell of a lot more money than a hastily assembled, boring marathon. There's a reason why the Mario Marathon got 60,000 unique viewers and made over $11,000. There's a reason The Speed Gamers have a large core following and are rising stars that will soon be bringing in large numbers consistently.
There's also a reason why the 3 failed marathons I mentioned before only made $500 between them.

So wake up people. If you are planning a marathon, or if it is already listed on this site, PLEASE do your homework before it starts and make sure it looks as professional and entertaining as the famous marathons that have passed. There is no rush! I don't get where this idea is coming from that people need to jump on some imaginary bandwagon and do their marathon before the fad dies. It's not a fad, and you have plenty of time to perfect your marathon set-up and make sure viewers are entertained.

Thankfully, this weekend is again saved by Rock Band (what is it about that game?) and Sean Feica's expert drumming exibition. There you can see a well put together, professional looking and entertaining marathon that you'd do well to emulate if you are planning one.

Big shocker that it is currently enjoying 240 viewers with over 5100 unique ones, and is on the front page of Ustream.