The Speed Gamers

The Speed Gamers are a group of people based out of Texas, who run marathons of video games to raise money for charity. As the name implies, these gamers don't just play the games, they try to complete them as quickly as possible, and on a live feed without tool assistance. The site also includes podcasts, a Twitter feed, and a massive fan-art section. They have grown an amazingly active community that rallies behind them, advertising on news sites and forums across the Internet. Notably, TSG has been featured in an article at The Escapist, as well as covered on CBS and NBC. In the past few months, they have started to produce original content, including Vlogs, artwork, and reviews.

So far, they have raised over $250,000 (USD) for various charities with the following marathons:


 * The Legend of Zelda - $1090.00 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
 * The Legend of Zelda - $1450.75 for Giggles Therapy
 * Metroid - $6123.79 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
 * Horror Marathon - $1060.00 for Lupus Foundation of America
 * Pokémon - $5923.69 for ACT Today
 * The Legend of Zelda - $6235.39 for Ally's House
 * MOTHER - $10450 for Susan G. Komen for the Cure
 * Final Fantasy - $50734.63 for ACT Today
 * Mega Man - $7188.06 for Earthday.net
 * Resident Evil (Halloween) - $8349.54 for Diabetes Research and Wellness
 * Pokémon - $18358.96 for Ally's House
 * Metroid - $11465 for Halton Autistic Family Support Group
 * MOTHER - $10749.32 for Susan G. Komen for the Cure
 * Super Mario Bros. - $57399 for ACT Today
 * Assassin's Creed/Prince of Persia - $10550.04 for Gulf Restoration Network
 * Castlevania - $10714.50 for Rocking H Ranch
 * Kingdom Hearts - $10207 for Best Friends Animal Society
 * Pokémon (first two generations) - $15394.03 for ALS research
 * Metroid - $8251.85 for Japan earthquake relief

They have also ran several marathons for other causes or to thank the community for their continued support. These include:
 * Super Mario Bros.
 * MOTHER - Lobbying for Mother 3's release in America
 * Halo
 * Metal Gear Solid
 * The Legend of Zelda - To support ACT Today in the Pepsi Refresh Project
 * Earthbound auction - For The Michael J Fox Foundation

Pending marathons:
 * Star Wars - Summer 2011
 * The Legend of Zelda - Winter 2011
 * Pokémon - Summer 2012

This group provides examples of the following tropes:
"There are no words. Thank you."
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes - Prizes are given out to fanartists and top donators, including t-shirts and hats in the past.
 * Announcer Chatter - One of the main attractions is the commentators, who'll do almost anything for a donation.
 * And when we mean anything, we do mean anything. One stunt they're going to to be doing soon as a reward for reaching a goal for their HQ is to carry Oscar (Who, to be honest, isn't the lightest guy in the world, although he's still awesome) on their back and walk a mile.
 * Ascended Extra - Phil volunteered to play Twilight Princess when their scheduled player couldn't do it. He's been a core member ever since.
 * Combined Energy Attack - Commentators will often call for the viewers to lend their energy to the player in difficult situations.
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome - One from a donator. During the 2010 Mario Marathon, one gimmick to raise donations was that after the scheduled ending, a certain amount raised would "purchase" an extra 2 hours of marathon. During one period, there was only a few minutes to go before time expired and the goal to add more time was seemingly out of sight... and a single, anonymous donator gave $1000, enough to keep the show going.
 * Awesome, but only enough with a couple more $100+ donations. They reached the checkpoint with over two hundred dollars surplus. Either way, this troper was too stunned and in awe to be mad about not being able to go to bed.
 * During the climax of the Mr. Saturn Black Friday auction, it boiled down to a bidding war between three users. They only had five minutes to bid, but whenever someone would bid, the timer would be reset. This lasted for at least ahalf hour or so before it finally ended.
 * Like the above comment, a certain Ammar donated a total of $2455--almost 1/4 of the entire amount--for the Kingdom Hearts marathon via auctions, winning bets with $600, $705, $1100, and $50.
 * Crowning Moment of Funny and Crowning Music of Awesome : Burritos put me on the toilet. Cute Girls put me on the toilet.
 * Pretty much every time Toast opens his mouth. Doubly so when Ana is involved.
 * The Castlevania marathon was particularly hilarious with those two, with the Castlevania 64 voice acting, the Paris Hilton book (turned Up to Eleven with Toast doing it in his Snake voice), and then the reading of some So Bad It's Good/Horrible fanfictions. And then finally, there is the moment where Ana has a special surprise for when the target is reached. Only Toast doesn't seem to know what it is. When they reach it:  Could be called Foe Yay considering how Toast seems to enjoy torturing Ana with his puns.
 * Crowning Moment of Heartwarming - The end of the Mr. Saturn Black Friday auction, in which flabbergasted Fangamer staff member Reid could only muster this, written on a blackboard:


 * Deep-Fried Whatever - This trope managed to possess the IRC chat for a good half day.
 * Eat That - Scorpion suckers, vegemite, hair sandwiches, incredibly spicy peppers...
 * Ensemble Darkhorse - Brea, arguably. His job makes it difficult to show up for many marathons, but when he does, he has a HUGE following.
 * Exty Years From Now - "In the Year 3000..."
 * Fan Art - Gwellin suffers from terminal fanartitis. If you don't draw, he'll die!
 * Hey, It's That Guy! - Several notable people have joined the SG group, including Lets Players Chuggaaconroy and Proton Jon.
 * Hurricane of Puns - During collaborative Skype commentaries, Toast (and to a lesser extent, Tyler Worth) have a lot of fun bombarding Anatotitan with puns.
 * During the Metroid 2011 Marathon, Tyler initiated "Operation Van Der Tweet", where the community members flooded actor James Van Der Beek's twitter with puns of his last name. It was a huge success.
 * Memetic Mutation - "5 more minutes..."
 * The community seem to have an abundant of in-jokes and memes relating to the marathons. Phil's hat being one of the most prominent of them all. Just check their wiki for a look at some of them.
 * Moral Event Horizon- Crossed when they started holding Babies for ransom in Super Scribblenauts for donations. Played for laughs of course.
 * Must Have Caffeine - Well, when you're playing games for a dozen hours at a time...
 * Nice Hat - Phil's hat is a community meme unto itself. Also, Gwellin and his Canada hat.
 * Pungeon Master - Toast
 * Quip to Black - Mostly imitating CSI (Caruso variety.)
 * Running Gag - Every time a person asks how old they have to be to join The Speed Gamers, the age requirement goes up.
 * Speed Run - The overall premise of their gaming marathons.
 * That One Boss - The Speed Gamers have faced a number of bosses that have set their goal time back several hours.
 * Most humorously when they went against Exdeath at the end of Final Fantasy V, wherein they spent over an hour trying a tactic that had been removed in the GBA version by accident. Oops.
 * Another notable example was Vexen. Put both fights together and you have almost two hours of failed attempts.
 * That One Sidequest: Catching 'em all is hard enough, but their first Pokémon marathon of 2011 included an additional challenge: Every single Pokémon from the first two generations, in the PC boxes, in National Pokédex order. Celebi alone took hours to catch.