Posted at May 26, 2020
0

How Gamers are Giving Back

It’s all fun and games until someone raises $25,000 for cancer research. That’s when we learn that sometimes games can be more than just fun. They can be a way of helping people, as many streamers are proving every day.

Take, for example, streamer Michael Mairs who has raised thousands of dollars for cancer research. Known as “Smirky” to his fans, Mairs is a Communications major at the University of North Texas who started streaming in 2018. Since then, he has raised more than $25,000 in donations to the St. Jude Cancer Research Hospital.

And Mairs isn’t alone. Streamers pull in thousands of dollars a year from subscribers, and more than a few have chosen to give back. Since 2015, the humanitarian aid organization Direct Relief, has received more than $9 million in donations courtesy of charity streams. That’s out of the over $145 million that Twitch streamers have donated to charity since 2011.

Charity streams often take the form of multi-hour marathons, such as those organized by Games Done Quick, which recently raised $400,000 for COVID-19 relief. GDQ specializes in speed run events, where players try to complete games in as little time as possible. As of 2020, they’ve raised over $22 million for charities such as Direct Relief, Doctors Without Borders, and the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

Then there’s Desert Bus for Hope, the world’s longest-running internet charity. Hosted by the cast of YouTube’s Loading Ready Run, the streams feature gameplay from the notoriously tedious Desert Bus minigame from “Penn and Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors.” The more donations received, the longer the stream continues, with the proceeds donated to Child’s Play, an organization that provides toys and games to children’s hospitals. The annual event has raised over $5.2 million since 2007.

In addition to gameplay, the Desert Bus stream includes special challenges suggested by the viewers. This is something they have in common with Michael Mairs’ charity live streams. In Mairs’ case, viewers are presented with a variety of options depending on the amount of their donation. In his stream last Friday, for example, Mairs performed jumping jacks and pied himself in the face at the request of donors.

But more impressive than the stunts or the money is the outpouring of support from the gaming community. Gamers can get something of a bad reputation thanks to some of the more toxic members of the community. It’s too easy for all gamers to be judged by the actions of trolls and bullies. Non-gamers are more likely to think of swatting and sexual harassment than doing good.

Charity streams prove that gamers are more than just the worst stereotypes about us. Even some streamers are surprised by the degree of positivity. “There’s definitely a different vibe in charity streams,” said 35-year-old streamer Tim “Trick2g” Foley. “I stream every day, there’s a bunch of trolls. If you let that get you… but when you do a charity stream, they just get behind it.”

For most who participate, charity streams are a way to give back while doing something they love, while others have more personal motivations. Foley, for example, knows first-hand the devastation that natural disasters can cause, having survived the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines and Hurricane Andrew in Florida.

Meanwhile, Mairs is a cancer survivor, still bearing the scar from where a tumor was removed on his nose. He also has a ten-year-old cousin named Faith who was diagnosed with bone cancer in September. “I’m not doing this for me,” he said during a stream Friday. “I’m not doing this for self-gain or something like that. I play for Faith, for my dog Athena I lost this past week who died of cancer.”

To Mairs, charity streaming is more than an occasional thing. He approaches it as something like a part-time job. He’s already raised about $14,000 in this fundraising cycle, blowing his initial $10,000 goal out of the water. Mairs isn’t done yet and hopes to raise a total of $15,000 by the end of the month.

Tags: , , ,

0 Comment on this Article

Add a comment  

CAPTCHA