Set your schedules and follow https://www.twitch.tv/playgamesmoredotcom, because on Sunday April 20, 2025, I hope to break our PlayGamesMore longest Twitch live stream record of just over 16 hours, by playing 17+ hours of pinball. Every pinball game played while standing. No flipping on a stool while playing.
Will be kicking this off in the early AM of Sunday April 20, 2025 (somewhere between midnight and 5 am), exactly one day before our 3 year anniversary streaming on Twitch and goal is to play for 17+ hours. That means if we start the live stream at say 3am PST, that I’ll be playing until 8pm or so that night, if can successfully reach this goal.
The plan is to play one or more of the following three pinball machines: Jaws (Stern 2024), James Bond 007 (Stern 2022) and/or Iron Maiden (Stern 2018), but if we acquire another game in the interim (doubtful) that could also be in play.
I’m planning to take some breaks and sit periodically when not playing throughout the stream, as Twitch has safety requirements for streamers/streams that need to be followed.
Just to keep our virtual pinball friends in the game, we’re also planning a virtual pinball tournament, so that others can join in the play celebration and beat their personal best. We will use the FREE Pinball FX table: Williams Fish Tales, so the most people can play. You can play across any platform that Zen Pinball FX runs, PC or consoles, that support tournament play. Like many of our other tournaments, this will likely not have a password. Tune into the stream on April 20, 2025 for those details.
How many pinball games will be played in 17+ hours?
I’m guessing somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 complete games average per hour (6 x 17 = 102 games), but I probably will catch some really good games that go longer. If possible, I’d like the number to be at least 100 games played, but the bigger goal is the 17+ hours of playing than the number of games. Am also planning on singing some Karaoke during the event, probably like 15-25 or so songs. So, not only am I planning to play a bunch of games, I also plan to sing what would consist of an entire live concert during the event.
Have others streamed longer than 17 hours playing pinball?
Yes!
I’m not pretending this will be the longest anybody has ever stood up, played and streamed pinball. It will only — if I’m successful anyway — be the longest ever PGM live stream and longest I personally have ever played pinball in any single game session.
The last very long live stream we did was in 2023, so it’s been awhile since we’ve streamed any event that’s gone over 10 hours. We’ve routinely had live streams running 5-7 hours, so this event would be about 2-3 times larger than live streams we’ve been streaming recently.
Humpday Wednesday streams I frequently played 4-5 hours standing, without any breaks. I will train for this event, perhaps with a few longer Humpday Wednesday streams in preparation for this April 20, 2025 Sunday event.
Why I’m doing this?
Several reasons as follows:
- To celebrate and thank the viewers that have been loyal to the PGM livestream over the last three years, many watching hundreds of hours, and a few approaching 1,000 hours of the 1,800+ hours I’ve live streamed on Twitch
- I love playing pinball! I’ve been playing pinball since as long as I can remember playing any game, so why not have the longest stream be about playing pinball?
- Would like to have the longest ever stream be pinball-oriented. Currently the longest stream to date was just over 16 hours, and it was playing all unplayed games on the iiRcade, a company that went out of business in 2023. It’s time to update this record.
- To see if I can actually do this — if I have the physical strength and energy to stand and play this many pinball games in one very long play session, one long live stream. I don’t know if I can, of course, this is an attempt, not a guarantee … but I’m going to try!
What if I fail?
Then I fail. Life goes on. I am not the kind of guy that dwells on failure. If you don’t try things you’ve never tried, you never know how they will turn out.
As stated above, there are no guarantees here. If I thought this was an easy challenge, something I could easily accomplish, I wouldn’t try it, but I’m also not going to do anything unsafe. If I start to fatigue too much, if my hands and wrists get sore, I’m going to shut it down and call it early. Safety more important than making any goal to me.
That said, I’m going to train for this. I want to make it.
I’m taking the challenge seriously, but plan to have a lot of fun on the stream and make it as entertaining as possible.
Previously, I’ve played 50 or so games in a session before without any physical discomfort. Sure, I was a little tired, but my hands and wrists were in good shape. We travel down to Next Level Pinball periodically and play (mostly) pinball there all day long. Usually I will play anywhere from 30-60+ games of pinball throughout the day and evening. 40 more isn’t a huge amount more, really.
As for the standing part? That doesn’t bother me. I prefer to stand playing pinball versus sitting anyway. Again, I will take some breaks and sit between some of the games. I’m going to take breaks — on stream — no breaks where we go offline of course or put up some “be right back” message. This will be an uninterrupted live stream. We don’t run ad breaks during these live streams, so the only ads seen will be the ones that Twitch might run on their own (usually when you first join the stream).
If I go off screen it will be for a brief time to go the bathroom or grab something to eat and come back. This is how the 16+ hour stream went. I didn’t go off camera for very long. We’ll probably have something showing the number of games played, number of songs sang and an event timer. Just to keep the numbers.
I hope you’ll plan to check in and see what’s happening on Sunday April 20, 2025. This should be a fun time.
If you’ve never checked out any of our PGM live streams, you’re in for a treat. This one will be special and I hope you can attend and are entertained.
I’ll be there to root you on! You got this!