Gaming does good. Three words may make up the Twitter hashtag associated with the Gaming Community Expo (GCX) but they are much more than that. “Gaming Does Good” is more of a mantra, an idea that fueled the start of an annual gaming event dedicated to bringing gamers together with the desire to live that mantra.
GCX originated as Destiny Community Con in Tampa, Florida back in 2016 and raised half a million dollars for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital through Twitch donations and more. With humble beginnings and a vision for the future, the folks behind the event grew Destiny Community Con into GuardianCon and eventually Gaming Community Expo.
RELATED: Guardian Con Raises $3.7 Million for St. Jude Children's Charity
GCX is more than just a community expo. It also includes the GCX Charity Marathon, which plays host to a variety of different streamers that play a variety of games, all while raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
St. Jude enables families to pursue the care and treatment needed for different types of cancer, such as Leukemia and Rhabdomyosarcoma, with no expense to the family. The support from St. Jude goes beyond the research into curing cancer, however, and includes treatment, travel, housing, and food for the family. If that was not enough, St. Jude then distributes their research for free so that it may help as many kids as possible all around the world.
Last year’s GCX in-person event was canceled because of the global pandemic, but the expo still raised $8 million dollars and offered 2020 ticket holders a ticket to the virtual GCX event this year and next year's in-person event. With that in mind, Rare Drop Chief Marketing Officer Ben Bowman would love to see this year’s event raise $10 million for St. Jude. While that may sound like a lot, it is nowhere close to Bowman’s larger goal of having the gaming community as a whole fund 10% of St. Jude’s annual cost.
“I want, eventually, the gaming space to provide 10% of the annual funding necessary for St. Jude because I know that we can and it’s something that is important.”
Getting an entire community to raise 10% of St. Jude’s annual cost is no small task and will take time and effort, something Bowman and his team at Rare Drop have been giving a lot of. While the Rare Drop team puts together GCX every year, the event would not continue to grow without the amazing people who take part in it.
To get the gaming community to raise 10% of St. Jude’s annual cost’s more of the gaming community needs to be involved. This is a large reason that the event is no longer Destiny Community Con, because it is much larger than just the Destiny Community, regardless of how generous Guardians can be. However, Destiny is still a large part of GCX, with Bungie diverting all profits from Bungie Foundation items on the Bungie Store to St. Jude during this year’s event.
More and more gaming communities are joining GCX year after year, proving that gaming does good. At the end of the day, gamers are people, and people have the capacity to do great things, so it's really no surprise that a gaming community can come together to raise millions of dollars for charity year after year. While GCX is an annual event, it is not the only time or place that gamers raise money for St. Jude.
Gamers all over the world run charity streams throughout the year without the connection to something like GCX’s Charity Marathon. Thinking about it, with how large the gaming community is, and how much it already raises for St. Jude, getting to Bowman’s goal of raising 10% of St. Jude’s annual cost is not that far-fetched of an idea.
Tickets for GCX 2021 can be purchased on the GCX website here.