Riot Games and the League of Legends community have a long-standing tradition of charity work, even having their own fund to support charitable organizations around the world. Therefore, when the entire world was affected by Covid-19, Riot Games in general and professional League of Legends players naturally could not stand by idly.
Recently, the Mayor of Los Angeles – Mr. Eric Garcetti announced the recognition of Riot Games – the company that has donated 1.5 million USD (equivalent to over 35 billion VND) to nonprofit organizations and relief funds in California to support the fight against Covid-19.
Of the 1.5 million USD donated, the two co-founders of Riot Games – Marc “Tryndamere” Merill and Brandon “Ryze” Beck each contributed 500,000 USD. The remaining amount was contributed by the Riot staff working at the headquarters in the United States.
Prior to this, a slew of professional players and organizations competing in the LCK in South Korea also contributed significant amounts to support the fight against the pandemic in their country. Player Jeong “Chovy” Ji-hoon and the DragonX team donated 10 million won (about 195 million VND) along with all the proceeds from merchandise sales in March. AD carry Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk and legend Kang “Ambition” Chan-yong from Gen.G also each donated 10 million won.
“Chairman Lee” – Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok from T1 even donated 30 million won (about 600 million VND) to the Covid-19 relief fund, and the organization donated all the money from the livestreams of the players to this fund. The 30 million won entirely came from Faker’s personal assets, and he donated directly to the healthcare organizations in need of support, without requiring any promotional image.
Not as loud as League of Legends, but the Dota2 community also has its own way to contribute to the fight against the pandemic. The tradition of Dota2 is thrilling and intense tournaments, however, due to the pandemic, LAN events were completely canceled. Realizing this, the We Play! organization came up with a new way to combat the pandemic by hosting an online tournament called We Save! Charity Play, inviting the strongest teams in the world to compete for charity fundraising.
All the money raised and the tournament prizes will be sent to two charities: CEPI (a charity funded by the US government, which is leading the efforts to find a vaccine for the virus) and the Global Giving fund. As a result, Dota2 players have a tournament to watch while also contributing to the fight against the pandemic. Currently, the tournament has raised 186,787 USD (approximately 4.2 billion VND) for charitable efforts.
In the other Esports title, CS:GO, the leading figure in the shooting game community, streamer, commentator, and semi-pro player – Mai “Bomman” Nam Hải recently announced that he would donate all proceeds from his stream on March 25 to the Covid-19 relief fund along with the phrase “Vietnam will win the pandemic.”
According to Bomman’s sharing, the total amount raised after the stream was 38,565,000 VND through Vietcombank and 162 USD (about 3,800,000 VND) through Paypal. He also mentioned that all details about the donated amount as well as images of the money transfer would be transparently published for everyone to see. Indeed, with such significant and inspiring actions, Bomman deserves to be a representative for CS:GO in Vietnam.
On the global pro player front, team Astralis was one of the first to take action in promoting the fight against the pandemic. However, they did not use donated money but leveraged their own fame to guide people on the most basic ways to combat Covid-19. Members of Astralis changed their in-game names to fundamental messages such as maintaining distance, staying home, and washing hands thoroughly as the best ways to fight this pandemic.
