Every so often there are events that go beyond our usual tournaments and tradeshows. Events that help us remember that some things are more important than those activities that we get wrapped up with on a daily basis. Gamers for Giving is one of those events. Gamers for Giving is an event ran by the game industry charity organization, Gamers Outreach Foundation. The event features video game tournaments, special industry guests, and a variety of gaming activities and competitions for event participants. Profits from the Gamers for Giving event are used to support Gamers Outreach initiatives. Most notable of these initiatives are their custom designed portable gaming kiosks for use at Mott Children’s Hospital, along with an initiative to send games abroad to help support our troops who are deployed overseas . These portable kiosks allow hospital staff members to easily transport video games and other sources of entertainment to patients who are immobile or stuck in bed for long periods of time.
ASTRO Gaming has supported the Gamers Outreach Foundation for the past two years during the Gamers for Giving event. This year we geared up each of the tournament stations with MixAmps so that competitors in the Halo 3, Modern Warfare 2, and the 2v2 Play with the Pros events could take advantage of some of the core features that the MixAmp provides: the instantaneous voice communication network, and the Dolby Digital surround sound processing. There are always a few treats that we experience at these events. The biggest is watching the gaming community come together for a great cause: pro players, sponsors, and a wide variety of volunteers working to help make the experience for the participants unforgettable. In turn, they are helping to raise the much needed funds to support the aforementioned initiatives.
One of the other fun aspects of this event was the completely new audience of folks who had never seen a video game tournament before that happened to stumble upon the event in the middle of the Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor, MI. They were caught off guard by the spectacle of what a video game tournament looks like, along with the passion and excitement that comes from the participants. There aren’t really words to describe the face someone makes when they are going for a soft pretzel and are met with groups of people yelling and cheering while both playing, and watching someone else play a video game in the middle of their local mall.
Congrats go out to the “Michiganimals” and “Two Yellow Dragons” teams who won the Modern Warfare 2, and Halo 3 tournaments respectively. Additional thanks go out to the organizers, volunteers, participants, other sponsors, and everyone else that help continue to make this event great year after year. We love being a part of this event, and we’ll see you all next year!
For donation and additional information, you can check out the official Gamers for Giving website: http://www.gamersforgiving.org/
– ASTRO Xarion (aka. Walter)
