Had enough of the tricks of October? How about some treats now that we’re in November! Generous donations #forthekids were collected by gamers and games studios throughout the previous month to benefit different children’s charities. Bungie has already brought in a whopping $1 million for the Game2Give charity during its fundraising drive (which is ongoing until November 10th!). November 2nd was Extra Life Game Day, a culmination of fundraising done throughout the year to benefit kids in Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals across the US and Canada.
Studios and streamers alike have dedicated large chunks of time to raising money for the Extra Life to help kids in need. Standing Stone’s Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online held their mega fundraising streams the weekend before, and DC Universe Online hosted a livestream marathon on the game day. Other familiar studio names and games are sitting in the top team leaderboard for donations, including ARK’s Studio WildCard (#6) and Guild Wars 2’s ArenaNet (#10). The gaming websites Giant Bomb, Game Informer, and Shacknews also broke the top 10 team list! Hi-Rez (#13) and Ashes of Creation came in on the individual leaderboards at #13 and #18, respectively.
Breaking news: Extra Lifers have surpassed $10 million – yes, TEN MILLION DOLLARS raised #ForTheKids treated at @CMNHospitals + @CMNCanada thus far in 2019! Tune into our kid correspondents for a special report: pic.twitter.com/ZqolasPFBC
— Extra Life (@ExtraLife4Kids) November 4, 2019
Gamer generosity doesn’t stop there. Other charities also benefited from livestream fundraisers, such as the National Breast Cancer Foundation. But you might be asking yourself, do these fundraising marathons work? Do your few dollars make a difference? Yes! Look at what Bungie pulled in. For Extra Life, in the 10 years between its inception in 2008 and 2018, Extra Lifers (what the Extra Life organization calls its legion of team and personal participants) had raised over $50 million for kids in Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals across the US and Canada. And so far in just 2019, these heroes have pulled in donations surpassing $10 million dollars!
Communities of superheroes
Not all heroes wear capes. Some look like ordinary folks who just happen to be a part of our gaming communities. Take the DCUO community: It came together to raise $7,653.92 during the game’s fundraising drive. Standing Stone’s community manager, Cordovan, also brought LOTRO and DDO communities together to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network. Team Standing Stone hosted a different marathon for each community with a goal of raising $10,000 for the Boston Children’s Hospital. On October 25th, he took to the airwaves with LOTRO. He turned around and did the same thing for DDO on October 26th. For both communities, there were rewards of custom forum avatars, forum titles, and the ability to pick from a list of community loot. There were even group incentives as the community met milestones. Not only did the community help Cordovan reach his 10K goal but he surpassed it! Team Standing Stone exceeded the $15,000 mark; the current donations equal $16,921.
Plenty of others have taken part in this fundraising event. On just the individual leaderboard, there are over 5,000 who have played and livestreamed games to raise funds for Extra Life. Those who earned smaller amounts are no less important and heroic than those who raised more. All of it combined is what makes the difference! Other familiar names that have participated are Ubisoft Quebec and Toronto, Wizards of the Coast, Dreamhack Montreal, PUBG Watch and Win Challenge, Fortnite, Kings Isle, Square Enix Montreal, Gamespot, Twitch Prime, Play it Forward Esports Tournament, and ArenaNet’s Rubi Bayer. One of our own MOP community members and supporters, HikariKenzaki, hosted a 24-hour stream-athon for Extra Life.
It is the FINAL night for donations to @nbcf for our #BreastCancerAwareness streams, and we are so close to our goal! Come help us push past that finish line tonight in @lotro and support Breast Cancer Awareness! Fun starts at 8:30pm CDT! #twitchstreamer @vanmarshall #charity pic.twitter.com/1LEqwiIvCm
— Yicky | Ryan J | (mangolorian) (@yickythemando) October 30, 2019
More generosity
As much as this month has had a focus on Extra Life, there were streamers putting in the hours to raise awareness and funds for other worthwhile causes. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Twitch TV streamer Yicky raised money for the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
We’d love to highlight more, so if you know of any others we can shine a light on, please pass it along and we will include them here! And if you don’t feel full up on warm fuzzies yet, indulge in these other stories.
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From happy stories to good deeds within our virtual worlds and the real world around us, there’s so much good in the gaming community. That’s why Massively OP’s MJ Guthrie pens Massively Uplifting: to highlight those generous, inspiring, heart-warming, and uplifting tales that exist throughout the MMOverse. Send your suggested stories along to warmfuzzies@massivelyop.com for our next entry!
