Abstract
Although we have long known that many different types of individuals play video games, the stereotypical “gamer” is often portrayed as a young male. Furthermore, research into questions such as violence and aggression, addiction or problematic play, and toxic gaming communities tends to frame gamers and gaming as anti-social. From a philanthropic perspective, then, gamers appear to be unlikely candidates for charitable giving. Following attendance at a fundraising game tournament for Gamers Outreach, a non-profit charity that provides video game systems to children’s hospitals, this research team conducted a survey of attendees. Our findings suggest that gamers are willing to support and monetarily contribute to a cause they believe in, but also that engaging potential donors through their preexisting interests and communities—in this case, games—can be a productive form of outreach. Finally, participants recognized and sought to combat gaming’s anti-social stereotypes, revealing a further motivation behind their charitable behavior.
In 2018, members of this research team attended a local area network (LAN) gaming event, where hundreds of participants brought their gaming computers and consoles to a large arena (a college convention center) for a 2-day series of game tournaments. On the surface, this event reflected researchers’ findings from studying previous LAN events; the tournament was predominantly peopled by young men, seated at computers, hanging over each other’s shoulders, and providing raucous commentary and cheers at one another’s wins and losses (Bryce and Rutter, 2003; Jansz and Martens, 2005; Swalwell, 2003). A section of the floor was reserved for popular game live-streamers, who were playing and presenting the event to remote audiences. Game-related vendors, from energy drink companies to gaming chair producers, were also present throughout the space, again reflecting typical LAN or esports tournaments.
This was, however, not a typical tournament. This event was Gamers for Giving, an annual, multi-day video game tournament sponsored by Gamers Outreach, a non-profit charity that places video game systems in children’s hospitals for the entertainment and morale of young patients. Having started in 2008, Gamers for Giving has raised significant capital each year of its existence, with the 2018 tournament we attended bringing in $772,598.59 (Gamers for Giving, 2018). Tournaments have continued to be a success even as recent years have had to move online due to the global COVID-19 pandemic; the 2021 virtual event brought in nearly $1 million ($966,700.37, from over 9800 individual donations; Gamers for Giving, 2021).
The divide between our first impressions of the Gamers for Giving LAN—that it was an event primarily focused on games and entertainment—and the high levels of commitment and donation the event displays serve as the motivating phenomenon for this research. From a philanthropic perspective, the young men who made up the primary audience at Gamers for Giving are not necessarily expected donors (e.g. Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011a, 2011b; Mesch et al., 2006, 2011; Wiepking and Bekkers, 2012). Furthermore, when it comes to the academic study of video games, much existing research tends to focus on games’ anti-social elements and potential impacts, such as violence and aggression, addiction and problematic play behaviors, or even game culture’s links to the alt-right and white supremacy (e.g. Consalvo, 2012; Fox and Tang, 2017a, 2017b; Gentile et al., 2004; Ivory et al., 2017; Ortiz, 2019). These anti-social elements again contradict expectations of philanthropy and charitable giving, which often emerge out of motivating forces like altruism and prosocial or aligned values (Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011a).
In contrast to this, our experience at Gamers for Giving (2018), and a subsequent survey of attendees we conducted following the 2019 event, adds to a growing body of literature on games’ prosocial contexts. By studying who chose to attend the event, the capacities in which they participated, and their motivations for doing so, this article provides a new perspective on gamers, showing them to be driven by a variety of prosocial forces, and on charitable giving, revealing what engagement looks like and how it functions among unexpected audiences.
Literature review
Philanthropy
In the United States, philanthropic giving is widespread, with over 65% of adults giving each year (Firch, 2019). However, the motivations behind giving, and how it changes based on demographic characteristics, are still a major topic of study, especially in the digital age. In a literature review of over 500 empirical studies, 1 Bekkers and Wiepking (2011a) identify eight primary reasons for charitable giving: “(a) awareness of need; (b) solicitation; (c) costs and benefits; (d) altruism; (e) reputation; (f) psychological benefits; (g) values; (h) efficacy” (p. 924)—but others (e.g. Brown and Lankford, 1992; Peloza and Steel, 2005) argue that charitable giving is heavily influenced by external elements like tax structures. Still more research shows that demographic characteristics like age and gender can also play into philanthropic behavior (Andreoni et al., 2003; Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011b; Mesch et al., 2006, 2011; Wiepking and Bekkers, 2012); there is clear evidence that older individuals contribute more than younger, and some evidence to suggest that women may donate more than men (although this latter finding displays more variance across studies). Socioeconomic status can also affect charitable behaviors, with studies suggesting that wealthier or higher-income individuals donate more money compared to less wealthy or lower-income individuals (Auten et al., 2002). Higher levels of education also correlate with higher levels of philanthropic giving (Schervish and Havens, 1997).
While these motivations for contributing to a philanthropic cause, as well as demographic influences on such contributions, appear to be robust across an array of empirical studies (Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011a), individuals do not all participate in charity supporting behaviors in the same way. Peloza and Hassay (2007a) break down philanthropic engagement via a typology of high-involvement and low-involvement behaviors. High-involvement behaviors, such as volunteering, community service, and gift-based financial contributions, tend to occur among people with a deep investment in the charitable cause. Low-involvement supporters may engage in some of these same behaviors, but often for utilitarian purposes (e.g. attending a charity event for entertainment or donating household goods to clear out space at home). They are also likely to contribute to charity more sporadically or in less time-intensive ways. Peloza and Hassay (2007a) argue that, while philanthropic research has generally prioritized high-involvement charitable supporters, “these non-traditional, less involved forms of CSB [charity supporting behaviors] can serve as important introductions to the charity; providing the charity with an opportunity to introduce its mission and its support needs to an untapped market of neophyte supporters” (p. 139). Considering this breakdown, it is important to determine whether Gamers for Giving participants are invested in the charitable cause (and therefore likely highly involved) or whether they engage in the event for more utilitarian outcomes (therefore employing low-involvement behaviors).
Concerns about so-called Millennial and Gen-Z giving are also prominent in discussions of activism, volunteerism, and charitable giving. Some argue that these generations tend toward “Slacktivism”—low-cost sharing of causes rather than real contributions (e.g. Morozov, 2009; Robertson, 2014), while others suggest online engagement can result in meaningful outcomes (e.g. Lane and Dal Cin, 2017; Steel, 2014). These ongoing debates become particularly meaningful when married to the specific case of video games. Video game audiences have long been constructed and understood as being primarily young men (Fron et al., 2007; Kocurek, 2015; Newman, 2017). In other words, existing research would argue that game audiences are exactly those least likely to donate to charitable causes (age and gender being significant factors).
Games as prosocial forces
Furthermore, much research on existing video games focuses on their anti-social role, addressing questions like violence and aggression, addiction and problematic play, and toxic cultures (Benrazavi et al., 2015; Consalvo, 2012; Fox and Tang, 2017a, 2017b; Gentile et al., 2004; Konijn et al., 2007; Sun et al., 2020). However, the success Gamers for Giving achieves each year, through the efforts of its unexpected philanthropic audience, complicates this narrative and merits further study. We address this event as a chance to update and extend prosocial research on games, as well as on philanthropy more generally.
In the early 2000s, a significant branch of research focused on video games and game spaces as platforms for civic and social engagement (e.g. Rheingold, 2000; Steinkuehler and Williams, 2006; Taylor, 2006). As senior games scholar Taylor (2019) has lamented on Twitter, however, this branch of game studies has been largely neglected as researchers have moved on to new and ongoing topics, such as the relationship of violent media to aggression, the rise of casual games and esports games as industrial forces, and even game audiences’ relationships to the alt-right and white supremacy. Further exploration of games’ potential prosocial impacts remains needed.
Relevant to this research, only a small handful of studies have discussed potential connections between video games and altruism. Games have long been used to center philanthropic events, as through charity bingo, poker, or golf tournaments (Owens, 2013; Peloza and Hassay, 2007a, 2007b), providing a secondary, complementary source of charitable donations alongside more direct giving (Apinunmahakul and Devlin, 2004; Peloza and Hassay, 2007b). Such events, however, often rely on in-person, analog forms of play. This is not only because in-person events face fewer legal issues regarding the regulation of gambling (Owens, 2013) but also because in-person events provide a source of social interaction and entertainment for participants (Higgins and Lauzon, 2003). Many attendees at charitable events are there for the event itself, rather than the charitable cause (Higgins and Lauzon, 2003; Peloza and Hassay, 2007a). Past research thus suggests that games can be a productive contributor to philanthropic and charitable efforts. More work is, however, needed to understand how video games, rather than analog card games, board games, or sports, can fit into patterns of giving. Furthermore, existing research primarily focuses on cases where games are external to, rather than inherent within, the philanthropic cause. Gaming-specific charities like Gamers Outreach and its Gamers for Giving event are less understood than non-game charities that simply host game-based events.
In one of the few extant studies on video games and charity, Owens (2013) describes three basic approaches to online charitable gaming: cause-based event gaming (e.g. an online poker tournament where proceeds go to victims of a natural disaster), charity-optional gaming (e.g. games where players earn in-game rewards or money that can be exchanged for real-world donations), and systematic social media game campaigns (e.g. social media games that lean on their player base for regular charity drives). Owens argues that these approaches benefit from games’ built-in interactivity, social connections, and immediate feedback mechanisms, making charitable contributions feel more meaningful and driving repeat donations. Owens’ article is, however, theoretical rather than empirical, necessitating further investigation of video games’ connections to philanthropy. Furthermore, the examples Owens provides again tend to be non-game charities that use games as a means to increase engagement, rather than philanthropic efforts where games are endemic to the cause. This is also a common theme of research on live-streamed charitable video gaming marathons or tournaments (e.g. Mittal and Wohn, 2019; Sher and Su, 2019), where gaming is used as an engagement tool to benefit other causes, and on philanthropy and gamification (e.g. Nguyen et al., 2012), where charities use game elements such as badges or leaderboards in non-game contexts to drive donations. Such work is tangential to the current study, which focuses on individual-level motivations to attend a game-related charity event, but it highlights productive research avenues that remain understudied in this area.
This study aims to reenergize conversations around games’ prosocial potential through a specific analysis of game players’ relationship to philanthropic giving and volunteer work. To this end, we ask the following research questions:
Who attends Gamers for Giving?
Why do individuals choose to participate in Gamers for Giving? What role do philanthropic motivations like awareness of needs or altruism play in the decision to participate? What role do video games play in the decision to participate?
Through these questions, we aim to clarify philanthropic motivations among young men and to address how communities built through and around engagement with a specific medium could result in unexpected prosocial, philanthropic behaviors.
Methods
This research draws on the results of a 20-item online survey of individuals who attended the 2019 Gamers for Giving charity event (n = 51). Because of this study’s exploratory nature, as well as our interest in the intersection of philanthropy and gaming, we purposively targeted Gamers for Giving participants following their attendance at the event. With help from the event organizers, the survey was distributed via a shared Discord server. Fifty-four event attendees returned the online interview, but three were removed due to lack of completion. As we lack an overall count of participants on the Discord channel where the survey was posted, a response rate cannot be calculated. However, event organizers estimate that 1200–1400 people participated in the 2019 Gamers for Giving event. Participants who completed the survey were entered into a raffle to win one of three $100 gift cards. All research procedures were approved in advance by our University’s Institutional Review Board.
In addition to basic demographic measures, the survey asked participants how much time they spent at the Gamers for Giving event, in what role they participated (i.e. volunteer, sponsor, vendor, or other), and if/how they had participated in the event’s various gaming tournaments. Finally, a series of open-ended questions asked participants why they chose to participate in Gamers for Giving, if they were involved with parent charity Gamers Outreach in any other capacity, and how they felt about the Gamers Outreach mission, the use of video games in hospitals, and what types of games were potentially useful in this circumstance. These open-ended responses were uploaded into the qualitative analysis software package NVivo and inductively coded (Braun and Clarke, 2021; Nowell et al., 2017); one member of the research team read each response and tagged it for its main ideas. Multiple codes could be applied to one answer. For instance, when asked why he participated in Gamers for Giving, one participant responded, “It’s a fun event for a good cause.” This response was coded as both “fun” and “good cause.” Following coding, researchers compared codes to assess which were most prominent, how they formed overall themes, and how these compared to existing research on philanthropy and prosocial behaviors.
Although this qualitative approach cannot yield generalizable results (especially given the relatively small sample size and purposive approach), generalizability is not necessarily a goal for exploratory, inductive, and qualitative research. Rather, such work aims for standards such as rigor, trustworthiness (the credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability of findings; see Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Nowell et al., 2017), or analytic generalizability (the ability to generalize a study’s findings within its specific field or context; Xu, 2020). We have attempted to meet these criteria through a systematic analytic process, internal checks for consistency, and clear explanation of our methods. Furthermore, our inductive approach means that our findings emerge directly from participant responses, providing insight into their self-reported reasons for attending this large and successful event.
Who attended Gamers for Giving?
Survey respondents were deeply embedded in the Gamers for Giving event, spending an average of 28.35 hours 2 there over the course of 2 days (plus setup/take down for volunteers and staff). Attendees also participated in several different ways, such as the LAN party (37 played, 7 watched, 10 did not participate), structured tournaments for various games (25 played, 14 watched, 15 did not participate), or as volunteers/staff members (15 total). Most participants took on multiple roles over the course of the weekend; for instance, joining the LAN before or after their structured tournament(s) or in between shifts as a volunteer. Attendees were highly involved over the course of Gamers for Giving.
The average age of participants was 27.36 years (SD = 5.69), and the majority of respondents were male (79.6%) and White (82.4%). Participants displayed a range of education levels, with 9.8% possessing a high school degree; 25.5% having attended college but not achieved a degree; 17.6% possessing a vocational, technical, or associate’s degree; 37.3% with a bachelor’s degree; and 5.9% with a master’s degree. Income was similarly dispersed, with 27.5% of participants earning at or below $30,000 per year, 23.5% between $50 and $70,000, 13.7% between $70 and $100,000, 21.6% between $100 and $200,000, and 2.0% at $200,000 or above.
While our small sample means these data should be taken with caution, comparing these exploratory demographics to research on philanthropy highlights the fact that survey respondents are somewhat unusual when it comes to charitable giving. Not only is this group relatively young and male (characteristics that can affect likelihood and levels of donation; for example, Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011b; Mesch et al., 2006), but their education and incomes are broadly dispersed. Level of education and capacity for giving (i.e. financial stability and a level of surplus income) contribute to philanthropic behavior, with higher levels of each strongly correlating with larger donations (Auten et al., 2002; Schervish and Havens, 1997; Wiepking and Bekkers, 2012). Gamers for Giving participants do not fit the model for expected philanthropists, yet are highly involved in this charitable event. The question then is, what motivates them to participate and donate?
Why did they choose to participate?
To answer this question, we move to the qualitative results of our study, specifically the answers to the questions “Why did you choose to participate in Gamers for Giving?” and “Why do you choose to work with Gamers Outreach?” (the parent organization for the annual Gamers for Giving fundraiser). Through our inductive analysis, we broke down participants’ self-reported reasons for attending the event or working with the charity and then organized these into broader themes. For the sake of simplicity and readability, we refer to these resulting themes as motivations for attending/participating. We also consider answers to the question “How would you describe the Gamers Outreach mission?” to ensure that participants who are motivated by the Gamers for Giving/Gamers Outreach cause are on track in their interpretation of what that mission is.
Gamers for Giving
When asked why they chose to participate in Gamers for Giving, respondents overwhelmingly stated that they were motivated by the cause; we coded 41 separate references to this within responses. Typical responses in this category included, “I love the cause and the community behind it,” “[it’s] an excellent charity with a great purpose,” and “They do great things and I wanted to help them make that happen by volunteering.” These answers were consistent across participant roles, with players and volunteers all highlighting the importance of the cause. Significantly, respondents were also consistent (and correct) in how they described that cause, highlighting how Gamers Outreach provides “video game carts to entertain people in hospitals,” helps “put a smile on a kids face when they are in the hospital getting their treatment,” and “help[s] families deal with the stress of loved ones in hospitals.” Awareness of needs, altruism, aligned values, and support for a cause are well-known motivating factors for donations (Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011a; Shier and Handy, 2012), as well as for high-involvement charity supporting behaviors (Peloza and Hassay, 2007a); the strong influence of cause helps explain why gamers, although non-traditional philanthropists demographically, contribute extensively to Gamers for Giving.
Interestingly, while “good cause” was by far the dominant motivation for attending and participating in Gamers for Giving, subsequent explanations tended to be game-related or event-related. For example, the second most common code (25 references) indicated that participants attended Gamers for Giving due to its selection of game tournaments; this was followed by the codes “tradition of attending” (17 references), “community” (17 references), and “fun” (14 references). Collectively, these codes form an overall theme suggesting that event’s structure and focus on gaming and socialization is important to participants.
Participants whose responses were coded to the “games/tournaments” tag indicated that they attended Gamers for Giving to participate in specific tournaments. One participant, for instance, stated that Gamers for Giving hosted “the only CSGO [Counter-Strike: Global Offensive] tournament in [this state].” Similar statements included “I am a big fan of BYOC [bring-your-own-computer] LANs” and “The Overwatch tournament, the people, and the fact that it benefits kids is a nice, added bonus.” A selection of popular games, combined with the other local tournament offerings, drove participation in the event.
Similarly, the event’s consistency and community drew in participants. In the “tradition of attending” code, participants made statements like “have been going for 10 years, it’s tradition between me and a few other friends,” or “I have been attending the event for a very long time, it is not only extremely fun but it’s obviously for a good cause. Charity is the icing on the cake for the event for me—I’d attend either way.” Community responses highlighted the draw of video game communities; “I like videogame communities. they are the most welcoming communities out there,” “I wanted to go to be around likeminded people,” and “It is for a good cause and it is fun to be with others with one sole purpose. Gaming. It helped me bond with so many other people that I would not have met if I had not gone to this.” Finally, the “fun” code was applied to statements like “It’s a fun event for a good cause,” “Wanted to have fun and play with my friends,” and “I have been going for the past 4 years. It is a fun event to go to and help a good cause.”
These responses highlight first how there was often overlap between the cause, the community, and the games themselves, with many responses fitting into several categories. Because our data is cross-sectional, we cannot evaluate if or how often game-based motivations for attendance might transition to investment in the cause (i.e. a person who attends the event to play games learns about Gamers Outreach and becomes a supporter of the overall cause rather than just the Gamers for Giving event). The prominence of the “good cause” code suggests that this might be the case, as belief in a cause tends to lead to high-involvement charity supporting behaviors (Peloza and Hassay, 2007a). On the contrary, the fact that many participants were motivated by the games themselves may mean that these individuals engage with the charity for utilitarian or entertainment purposes and therefore lean toward more low-involvement behaviors (Peloza and Hassay, 2007a). Further longitudinal research will be needed to explore this relationship fully.
However, the responses also indicate that games and gaming communities served as a separate motivating factor for participant involvement. This is further reflected in a similarity comparison, which groups codes by their tendency to co-occur within the dataset (see Figure 1). 3 In this comparison, “fun” and “games and tournament” were part of one cluster (e.g. “Great charity, Fun lan. Been a great combination of the two and a variety of tournaments”) while “community,” “friends or social network,” and “tradition of attending” formed another (e.g. “I have been attending for the last few years and always have a great time going there and getting new people”). Thus, a drive to play games and to engage with like-minded individuals emerged as distinct motivations for participants, which may further explain Gamers for Giving’s high level of success, allowing multiple forms of participation can broaden an organization’s potential donor base (Apinunmahakul and Devlin, 2004; Higgins and Lauzon, 2003; Peloza and Hassay, 2007b).
Reasons for participation clustered by coding similarity.
Gamers Outreach
Answers to the question “Why do you choose to work with Gamers Outreach?” showed similar responses, although it should be noted that fewer participants (n = 16) answered this question; many who attended the tournament for the games, rather than the cause, were not involved with its parent organization, suggesting that participants divide between high- and low-involvement behaviors depending on their motivations (Peloza and Hassay, 2007a). For this question, the cause was again the lead motivator, with nine references. Responses ranged from the simple—“Because I love their mission” or “they are an amazing cause and it feels good to be a part of something like this”—to the more complex: I enjoy working with the other volunteers who are really amazing and motivated individuals who wish to make a positive impact on the world. Gamers Outreach provides an opportunity to bring people from all over the nation together for an annual event to raise funds that put more portable gaming kiosks in hospitals. I want to be part of that mission.
All responses in this category, however, highlighted the importance of Gamers Outreach’s cause—providing gaming equipment to children’s hospitals.
Following this first code, social connections (four references) and the volunteer community emerged as secondary motivators (two references); participants felt the Gamers Outreach employees and volunteers were “authentic people who truely are driven to make an impact on kids” and “Great people, great cause, fun atmosphere.” Few responses preclude a meaningful similarity analysis, but these responses are consistent with the motivating influence of awareness of need, altruism, and aligned values on philanthropic behavior (Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011a). Again, though, participants are also inspired by social and community forces.
The Gamers Outreach cause
Finally, given how often participants attributed their involvement to “the cause,” it is worth assessing in further detail how they describe that cause. As briefly mentioned above, the majority of survey responses described the Gamers Outreach mission as the organization itself would describe it: to provide the company’s mobile gaming stations (“Go Karts”) to children’s hospitals to entertain and support patients while they are admitted. Participants also delved deeper into what “helping kids” meant, arguing that games could provide entertainment, help kids cope with the difficult and unusual environment of the hospital, distract them from their challenges and decrease stress, help provide social connection, and even increase patient cooperation with doctor and hospital instructions. 4 Many participants also provided general positive reactions that could not be coded into a specific category: for example, “Great mission for a good cause,” “charitable org with a focus on the right thing,” and “An excellent endeavor, done by excellent people.”
Following these descriptions of the charity itself, however, some participants also suggested that Gamers Outreach served to promote the gaming community (seven references). Within this theme, participants argued that Gamers Outreach was “a wonderful fusion of physical/mental health and the gaming community. It highlights the positive side of gaming while providing a proven benefit.” The non-profit, they felt, worked, “to funnel gamers passion for good. Gamers, like most groups of people, are good people, and this gives them a way to give back using their hobby that they are passionate about.” Participants even related how games had helped improve their lives and that Gamers Outreach extended these benefits to others: I would describe their purpose as providing the outlet these kids need to help them get through tough times. Video Games have helped me do that in my own life, so I know about disappearing into a game to help alleviate stress or mental anguish for a time and coming out better. I use games, at times, for relaxation. The Go Karts they’ve built are doing just that for those kids.
Within this theme, we see that game players are attentive to games’ anti-social reputation and that they repudiate this characterization. Players are, in their own terms, pointing to games’ potential prosocial outcomes and arguing that these need to be promoted and emphasized. They see Gamers Outreach as a means for this promotion and a mechanism for changing the overall perception of gaming in mainstream culture. This theme also aligns with the mythology of Gamers Outreach itself; according to their website, the idea for the charity arose after founder Zach Wigal, then a high school student, organized a game tournament that was canceled due to “protest from a local public safety official” (Gamers Outreach, n.d.). The officer was concerned about games’ violent reputation and potential negative impact on young players. As Gamers Outreach phrases it, “still determined to host a tournament, Wigal and his friends began organizing a new event to illustrate the positive impact gamers can make when they come together to play video games.” Gamers Outreach and Gamers for Giving launched in 2008 as part of that initiative.
This background and participants’ responses, combined with a similarity analysis that groups respondents’ descriptions of the Gamers Outreach mission based on coding overlap (see Figure 2), thus reveals that promoting the gaming community as a prosocial force forms a separate, distinct motivating factor for participants who are involved with the Gamers for Giving event and the Gamers Outreach non-profit. While “promote gaming community” does overlap with “increase patient cooperation” in the coding similarity analysis (likely due to the latter’s single occurrence), the gaming community emerges as a cluster separate from other, mission-based codes like “help kids” and “decrease stress.” It is also closest to the cluster made up of “provide games to children’s hospital” and “raise money,” potentially suggesting that participants who seek to promote the gaming community also take a more utilitarian view of their philanthropy (focusing on material contributions) than those who focus on benefits to recipients. While helping children’s hospitals and their patients was by far the lead motivation, survey respondents were also attentive to how that mission could help revamp games’ negative, anti-social reputation. Reclaiming and promoting their favored hobby as beneficial was a contributing factor behind participants’ philanthropy in this space.
GO mission clustered by coding similarity.
Discussion
Adding to a growing body of literature that connects gaming to prosocial behavior, our findings suggest that people in gaming communities are not only willing to support a charitable cause through a gaming event, but also that supporting the cause is one of their main motivations for attending. While video games have often been studied in the field of communication for their anti-social impact, charitable events like Gamers for Giving demonstrate that video games can precipitate philanthropic behavior. Indeed, putting video games at the center of these events can be a fruitful avenue through which to engage certain populations in charitable giving since the demographic groups that are found to be least engaged in philanthropic efforts tend to be overrepresented in the gaming community.
Given the relatively small number of participants in our survey, the self-reported, cross-sectional nature of the data, and the purposive online sampling procedure, the results of this study should be taken with caution. It is probable that survey respondents represent those who are most involved in the Gamers for Giving event and its parent organization; therefore, they likely understand and are motivated by the cause to a greater extent than more casual attendees. Furthermore, while both the research team’s attendance at the event and the survey responses lead us to believe that most Gamers for Giving participants are male, reflecting general expectations for gaming audiences (e.g. Ratan et al., 2015) and LAN events (e.g. Bryce and Rutter, 2003; Jansz and Martens, 2005; Taylor et al., 2009), we also know from past research that male participants are more visible and vocal in gaming spaces (e.g. Cote, 2020). Therefore, our results likely do not fully reflect the make-up and diversity of participants. While the past few Gamers for Giving events have occurred virtually, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we anticipate returning to future tournaments and recruiting respondents in person, both to increase our response rates and to try to diversify the sample. This would also allow us to compare results longitudinally, to see if and how perspectives on the event and the charity change over time.
Future research should also assess the hybrid components of the Gamers for Giving event in greater depth. While the events we attended in 2018 and studied in 2019 were primarily in-person, even these had online components. For instance, the 2018 event featured a Bob Ross painting competition, where several live-streamers attempted to recreate a Bob Ross painting. Viewers could donate money to Gamers for Giving; donations over certain thresholds allowed the streamer who received the donation to sabotage their competitors in a variety of ways, from making them paint upside down to glitter-bombing their works-in-progress. Thus, the actions of online donors affected in-person engagement at the event. The 2020–2022 events were also held fully online, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Further study of these events, and others like them, could provide a new perspective on the role of online philanthropy, especially among younger audiences. Online donations are increasingly significant to many organizations (Shier and Handy, 2012), and crowdfunding platforms often serve as a tool for “micro-philanthropy,” where many individuals donate small amounts to specific causes (as in the case of GoFundMe and similar sites) or organizations (as in the case of viral donation campaigns like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge; Steel, 2014). Live-streaming has also shown significant potential for generating charitable giving (e.g. Mittal and Wohn, 2019; Sher and Su, 2019). However, motivating factors for online donations are less studied than offline donations (Shier and Handy, 2012), again extending uncertainties regarding patterns of giving among young, digitally engaged populations. Hybrid events like Gamers for Giving could be a fruitful avenue through which to build an understanding of online versus offline philanthropy, as well as how people give in a digital era.
Regardless of these limitations, however, we can draw some preliminary conclusions from these survey data. Our findings first suggest that participants report joining the Gamers for Giving event for many of the reasons past research would predict, including altruism or support for the Gamers Outreach mission and values. However, we also see evidence that the games themselves drove attendance, and even engagement with the charity, for at least some participants. Several reported attending the event specifically for certain game titles and tournaments, while others described and supported the GO mission for its potential positive impacts on games’ and gamers’ prosocial reputation. Indeed, several participants highlighted their desire to reclaim or promote their favorite hobby as a beneficial, prosocial endeavor.
Overall, connection to and identification with the gaming community appeared to be a key factor driving event attendance, perhaps increasing the significance of participants’ motivation to help a good cause or to boost the community’s reputation. Thus, we argue that the communities built around or through specific media may help encourage philanthropic or charitable action from those (e.g. young men) who might otherwise be difficult to engage.
It is worth noting that the cause itself is uncontroversial—people from diverse ideological backgrounds would likely agree that providing additional resources to hospitalized children is a worthy endeavor. As one participant put it, “who doesn’t want to help sick kids?” It is possible, therefore, that this specific cause presents few barriers to adoption—making it easier to support as an add-on to a desire for the gaming experience (e.g. the participant who describes the charitable cause as the “icing on the cake”). Future work should examine the link between video games and support for other (perhaps more controversial) types of charitable causes.
In addition, while we’ve focused on the positive philanthropic behavior that is associated with this particular gaming event, this does not minimize the importance of other issues that have been raised about gaming communities. For instance, scholars have documented ongoing negative practices within gaming spaces and the barriers faced by some demographic groups (i.e. those who are not White men; for example, Consalvo, 2012; Cote, 2020; Fox and Tang, 2017a, 2017b; Ortiz, 2019). Undoubtedly, gamers still have a ways to go when it comes to improving the experiences of these groups within their communities.
Our results suggest that gamers are aware of games’ anti-social reputation and that at least some are actively invested in overcoming this stereotype. They do this both through promoting the game community as fun and welcoming, but also through their emphasis on how games can benefit players in terms of mental health, stress relief, and distraction, among others. This reflects the results of existing research; Bourgonjon et al. (2016), for instance, found that gamers tend to attribute diverse positive outcomes such as community, self-development, and even personal well-being to their game play. A desire to promote games as a prosocial, beneficial enterprise therefore also motivates participants’ charitable behavior.
Interestingly, when participants were asked which games they would recommend for kids, they listed mostly non-violent games such as Minecraft, puzzle games, sports games, party games, or the LEGO game series. This suggests that there are implicit assumptions, even among gamers, about which games are appropriate in the context of a children’s hospital. Although some participants were explicitly driven by a desire to counteract the games’ association with anti-social outcomes, they may still recognize the potential for negative impact and therefore restrict the kinds of games certain populations are exposed to. Participants focused on the need for “light hearted/family friendly games that would be enjoyable for kids to play,” rather than more mature, intense, or violent titles. Future work should unpack this tension further to assess the boundaries and limitations of players’ perspective on games as beneficial and to make explicit their implicit assumptions about appropriate or inappropriate games.
This preliminary look at a case where philanthropy meets the gaming community raises interesting questions for both constituencies. On one hand, those interested in increasing charitable giving and philanthropic participation among young men might well ask themselves whether to add LAN parties and gaming-oriented events to their fundraising repertoires. On the other hand, gamers and those who study gaming may want to consider how gamers situate games as prosocial and actively work to communicate their benefits to outsider audiences, but also express some limitations or reservations on this optimism. Taken together, these insights trouble multiple narratives: those that cast gamers as deviant or problematic, as well as those that cast gaming as entirely benign.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
