Gamers Engaged

Your gaming crew can be more than just teammates 🎮💚

Mutual aid is all about people supporting each other through shared care, resources and community action; and gaming communities already do this all the time.

Whether it’s helping someone cover groceries, organizing support after a hard week or pooling resources for a local cause, small acts of care can make a real difference.

Start with your crew:
🕹️ Create a support group chat
🤝 Check in on each other regularly
💚 Share resources when someone needs help
🎮 Team up for community care projects together

The best co-op teams don’t just play together, they show up for each other in real life, too.

A layoff is rarely one loss. Which effects of layoffs receive too little attention in the games industry conversations?

There is the immediate loss of income and security. But there may also be the loss of routine, creative purpose, daily relationships, professional identity, and a future someone had been working toward for years.

These losses can overlap and compound one another. Yet industry conversations often move quickly toward résumés, job boards, networking, and the next opportunity—before people have had space to understand what has changed.

Career support matters. So does recognizing the grief, uncertainty, and disruption that may come with losing work that was deeply connected to someone’s identity and community.

Supporting laid-off workers means making room for all of it—not only the job search.

https://www.gamersengaged.org/blog/when-the-dream-job-disappears

What a day! Gamers Engaged was thrilled to be the nonprofit beneficiary of the Seattle Mariners’ first-ever RPG Day in early August, bringing together baseball fans and tabletop gamers for a celebration of storytelling, imagination, and the community that grows through play.

It was incredible to see T-Mobile Park filled with fans embracing RPG Day, connecting over a shared love of games, and showing just how powerful the gaming community can be when it comes together for a good cause. A special RPG Day giveaway from Paizo made the day even more memorable for fans who joined us through the Themed Ticket Special.

Most importantly, every ticket purchased through the special offer helped support Gamers Engaged’s work connecting gamers, game companies, and community advocates with meaningful ways to give back.

Thank you Seattle Mariners , Paizo Inc. , and everyone who came out and helped make the inaugural RPG Day such a fantastic celebration!

Last month we partnered with Card Kingdom and Canopy Neurodiversity Foundation to provide interns with hands-on experience, professional mentorship, and opportunities to build workplace skills in the tabletop gaming industry.

✨ Week 1 Highlights ✨

• Interns met their teammates and fellow interns, building relationships and establishing connections across the group.

• Card Kingdom's Product Release Operations team introduced interns to the Magic: The Gathering product release process, where they reviewed and sorted Commander decks and learned how products move through the warehouse.

• Interns explored the importance of setting goals and tracking metrics, seeing firsthand how data measures progress and impact.

• Through incredible focus and teamwork, interns processed and sorted more than 48,000 Magic: The Gathering cards in just four days!

✨ Week 2 Highlights ✨

• Walking Tour of the Card Kingdom facility- learning the journey of a MTG trading card throughout the business, AKA the “Lifecycle of a Card”.

• Professional Development: Interns interviewed various managers across the business- Grading Manager, Senior Analytics Manager, Inventory Manager, Automation Technician, and co-owners, founders, and brothers, John and Damon Morris.

• A Skills Assessment to determine best roles within the Card Kingdom ecosystem.

• Product Release Operations- worked to help “crack” packs of MTG for the latest Hobbit-themed release.

We're proud to invest in neurodiverse talent through paid internships that build skills, confidence, and pathways into the games industry.

Thank you to our partners at Card Kingdom and Canopy for making this opportunity possible. We can't wait to share more from this incredible group of interns! 💙

🎲 We’re back from the Serious Play Conference feeling energized by the conversations, connections, and shared commitment to creating meaningful impact through games.

Our Founder & CEO, Lyla Ross, facilitated Bridging the Gap: Advancing Social Impact through Games and Cross-Sector Collaboration, bringing together leaders from across games, education, research, and the nonprofit sector to share ideas, challenges, and tangible ways we can work together to deepen our collective impact.

A huge thank you to Gary Goldberger, Adam Davis, Rachel Gaudry, Amelia Herbst, Jason Egginton, and Daniel Jones for sharing their time and expertise, and to everyone who joined the conversation and brought their own perspectives to the room.

Another highlight was Kellian Adams Pletcher’s inspiring keynote on how fun builds connection and community, a message that deeply resonates with our work at Gamers Engaged.

We left Serious Play with new connections, fresh ideas, and even more excitement about what’s possible when we work across sectors to create impact through play. 💚🎲

🎲 Our Gamers Engaged team members, Nelly and Lyla, had the opportunity to attend Gen Con and see firsthand how one of gaming’s biggest conventions is making social impact part of the experience.

Throughout Gen Con, we saw ample examples of how a convention can intentionally create opportunities to give back, support community organizations, and engage attendees in making a difference.

From Carolyn Noe of Super Heroines, Etc. delivering the Trade Day keynote to charity partners connecting with attendees on the convention floor, community impact was woven throughout the event. It wasn’t an add-on or afterthought; it was Gen Con boldly positioning social impact front and center.

Nelly and Lyla also had the chance to see the Gen Con Blood Drive and Cardhalla—an incredible Gen Con tradition where attendees build a city out of donated trading cards and then come together to destroy it by throwing coins, with the funds raised benefiting charity. This year, Cardhalla supported Immigrant Welcome Center and Super Heroines, Etc.

Across the convention, organizations including NMDP, American Red Cross, Geek Therapeutics, Young Dragon Slayers, and more were engaging directly with the gaming community.

And we were excited to celebrate Mischief Toy Store, recipient of this year’s Diana Jones Award! 🏆

Mischief was recognized for demonstrating what community leadership can look like within the gaming world, stepping up for its community during a challenging time in the Twin Cities by creating and distributing ICE OUT signs and whistles despite facing backlash, another powerful example of how those in gaming can use their platforms to engage with and support the communities around them.

It stood out to our team how naturally these efforts were integrated into the larger Gen Con experience. It’s a great example of how conventions can use their platforms to strengthen communities, elevate organizations doing meaningful work, and give attendees opportunities to get involved.

We loved seeing that Gen Con makes social impact a priority and hope other conventions will be inspired to follow their lead. ❤️🎲

What happens when you bring together a room full of gamers for a good cause?

A little friendly competition and a whole lot of impact.

Gamers Engaged was honored to partner with ArenaNet and Zeno during ArenaNet's Annual Summit for a volunteer event that combined teamwork, fun, and math.

Together, volunteers assembled 1,500 Zeno Math game kits that will help kids build confidence and strengthen their math skills through play. Of course, it didn't take long for the three assembly lines to turn the project into a competition to see who could finish first. Safe to say, everyone brought their A-game!

A huge thank you to Katie Kholdi and Tessa Rivera from ArenaNet for coordinating an incredible day, and to Shayla Blanche and Kate Sedney-Read from Zeno for their partnership and dedication to making hands-on math learning more accessible. We'd also like to extend a special thank you to Colin Johanson, Studio Head at ArenaNet, for welcoming the team and supporting this meaningful volunteer experience, as well as the team at The SOMM Hotel for their hospitality throughout the event.

This is what collective impact looks like: organizations coming together across sectors, having fun, and creating opportunities that will make a difference for thousands of young learners.

There are just two weeks left to apply for the 2026 Play-it-Forward Grant!

Gamers Engaged is accepting applications from nonprofits using games and play to strengthen communities, foster connection, and create positive change.

Three $10,000 unrestricted grants will be awarded to organizations serving:

🌲 Pacific Northwest communities
🎮 Communities nationwide
🏳️‍🌈 BIPOC & LGBTQIA2S+ led organizations
📅 Applications close August 17, 2026.

Know an organization that should apply? Share this opportunity or tag them below!

Learn more and apply: gamersengaged.org/play-it-forward-fund