Gaming has always been one of my favorite pastimes. Since my early days of spending hours upon hours playing the Commodore 64 to grinding out a new season of Diablo 3, I love to play. And ColoradoPlays.com is an outlet that lets me do this while supporting charities.

Although I’m not as heavy of a gamer as many others, I do enjoy a good plot.

Not only that, but I wanted to create a brand that centers around playing in all its forms. Video games, golfing, bowling and anything else I can find to do in Colorado is the premise behind ColoradoPlays.

What is ColoradoPlays.com

Initially, I created ColoradoPlays as an outlet for my gaming habit. I also wanted something to work as a base of operations for supporting various charities.

Another aspect of the blog is to demonstrate you can still enjoy yourself with games while contributing to fitness. In that regard, it closely mirrors CrossingColorado.

In reality, there are several facets to ColoradoPlays aside from simply playing video games on the PC or Xbox.

Playing the Games

I am currently developing the backbone of the website. Although I don’t have a lot of content on ColoradoPlays just yet, there are plans in motion to vastly expand its library.

Currently, most of our gameplay centers around the PC. That’s because I simply don’t have the money to get some of the other equipment to stream or record Xbox or Playstation games.

I am getting ready to start doing some retro games, though. I recently bought a device that lets me hook up my older game systems to the computer.

But it’s not just video games ColoradoPlays focuses on. We also go to locations around the Denver-metro area and explore other ways to play. From going down Historic Fraser Tubing Hill to golfing at one of the many courses, we like to get out.

Charity Work and Donations

One of the primary aspects of ColoradoPlays is donating to gaming charities. About 30% of any money generated by the blog, its Twitch feed, merch store or YouTube channel is given directly to Extra Life.

If you don’t know, Extra Life is a charity organization that benefits the Children’s Miracle Network. Our team supports Children’s Hospital Denver.

We also donate and attend fundraisers for Geeks of Grandeur, a charity organization that focuses on helping children in hospitals through gaming and other diversions.

During certain events or live streams, we’ll donate 100% of anything ColoradoPlays makes directly to those charities and more. For example, we also support 8-bit Salute though Operation Supply Drop.

In 2018, we took the money generated from Adsense revenue of ColoradoPlays and joined in silent auctions at Geeks of Grandeur’s Hallow-Baloo Halloween fundraiser party. The silent auctions go to the charity while we won a free year of coffee.

Though, I did have to add a bit of my own pocket money to make sure we won. 😉

Gamifying Fitness

I want to demonstrate how anyone can gamify fitness in a myriad of ways. For me, it’s all about burning calories playing the Xbox Kinect. So far, I’ve lost 80 pounds by playing a variety of games using my body as the controller.

But Kinect games aren’t the only way you can gamify fitness. Depending on your imagination, you can gamify everything from lifting weights to the number of calories you eat in a day.

In other words, you don’t have to lack muscle definition or gain weight by being a “gamer.”

In reality, there are several studies that demonstrate how physical activity improves certain parts of the brain. These parts also impact how you play video games.

So in essence, you could get a competitive edge in things like Fortnite by adding more physical activity to your daily routine.

Developing the YouTube Channel

At the moment, ColoradoPlays doesn’t have a lot of videos up on its small YouTube channel. This was a recent addition to the brand, and content is currently being recorded.

The fun part is differentiating the video games from real-life games. I don’t know how this will work in terms of keeping subscribers, but it’s all part of the brand.

I don’t want to create just another “let’s play” style of channel. Unfortunately, building something a bit more unique is a bit difficult on YouTube. And although we’ll still do let’s plays, it won’t be our primary focus.

While we don’t have fancy equipment to drive the video feeds, we still have what we need to get started. As such, I’ll command ColoradoPlays much like I do WriterSanctuary…

Upgrading as needed as time goes on.

Live Streaming on Twitch

Since 2014, I’ve been streaming off and on with Twitch.tv. However, I’ve had a resurgence in streaming over the past few weeks. It’s something I very much enjoy as I meet new viewers.

Granted, our Twitch channel isn’t all that large. But we should hit affiliate status by the end of October 2019. This means we can drive sales and use our donations and “bits” to help the charities we’re part of.

In reality, it’s all about the engagement factor. I like being social during live streams, whether it’s gaming or talking about writing. In fact, I have no idea why we keep stopping.

It’s too much fun!

Personally, I watch gaming YouTubers and Twitch broadcasters for their personalities. I could care less about what game is being played as long as I find the person engaging or funny.

I hope others like to watch us for the same reason.

The Future of ColoradoPlays.com

As opposed to my other blogs, ColoradoPlays is still relatively new. However, we want to do so much more with the brand while donating what we can to help charities.

For now, we’ll just keep creating content as time permits from blog posts to videos. After all, it’s not only for our financial benefit. I love giving, and ColoradoPlays gives me a platform to do just that.

The first stage, though, is to get the Twitch and YouTube channels established. This means getting some videos up and spending some time playing. Which I do on a daily basis anyway.

I might as well hit the record button.