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The UK esports and gaming communities have raised thousands of pounds over the past few weeks from several Christmas charity fundraisers.
Underachievers raise money for UK mental health charity Safe In Our World
First up, new UK Counter-Strike (CS) esports organisation Underachievers reached out to Esports News UK to tell us about a tournament they ran, bringing the CS2 community together to raise money for charity.
They raised almost £500 for games industry mental health charity Safe In Our World.
The tournament featured 16 teams, with most based in the UK, including winners 8Sins, 3LG, Viperio, Team Hosky, Proximity, Sussex Esports (the esports society of Sussex University) among others.
It also had Dieanic, Affinity and EKO as casters, with Underachievers members CDJ, cimok and Bunker on board running the tournament, working production and observing, respectively.
Azrael won the clip of the tournament:
“Supporting charity is a big thing for us, and something we want to do a lot of going forward,” said Underachievers management CDJ.
“The aim is to work with lots of different charities, which are close to members of The Underachievers’ hearts and raise as much as we can.”
There’s more in this thread here:
Alex Byfield raises £710 for Make-A-Wish UK
UK CS player, caster and personality, Alex Byfield, also ran a charity stream for Make-A-Wish UK, which grants once-in-a-lifetime wishes to children and young people living with critical conditions.
Byfield agreed to forfeits at different milestones, including a pie in the face, leg wax, cinnamon challenge, clown make-up and more!
He also did a raffle and made hundreds of pounds worth of further donations through this, with the likes of Intel UK, Endpoint, TradeIt and Heroic providing raffle prizes.
Byfield told Esports News UK: “On December 15th 2024, myself and my stream underwent an arduous journey through spice challenges, hair removal and fancy dress in order to raise money for the incredible charity Make-A-Wish.
“I want to thank Ben Moore and Ben Sagnier for putting this together and to everyone who donated to fund gaming consoles for children recovering in intensive care.
“The challenges I faced in raising the money is a small fraction of what these children go through every single day.”
Here’s a video from Byfield on the raffle:
More 2024 Christmas charity fundraisers in UK esports and gaming
Another CS charity tournament is the Justice Christmas Cup, featuring UK organisation Royals.
Other similar initiatives included a weekend-long Valorant charity tournament raising money for Cancer Research UK, which was organised by UK esports organisation CTRL Esports.
Esports News UK also backed this initiative with an on-stream interview and quiz.
Overall, CTRL raised £1,795 for charity.
Elsewhere, after two weeks of livestreams from over 800 creators and 10m views, the Yogscast’s 2024 Jingle Jam raised £2.7m for its eight charity partners.
TommyInnit, The Spiffing Brit and Smosh Games hosted special streams during the two weeks of entertainment from December 1st to 14th to raise money for the charity partners: Autistica, CALM, Cool Earth, Sarcoma, The Trevor Project, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, War Child, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
UK YouTube star TommyInnit won a national charity award for sarcoma awareness, and another UK streamer, DanTDM, donated £300,000+ to fund TheRockinR gaming equipment for seriously ill children at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Other initiatives have also included the Equal Esports Charity Cup, Jingle Frags, JDG All-star Charity Day and more.
And last but not least, prior to Christmas, just over a month ago, Riot and streamer GaGOD teamed up for a charity stream, with a custom Valorant Spike Xbox up for grabs. This also raised money for Make-A-Wish UK.
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
