Evo is widely recognized as the biggest and most prestigious fighting game tournament in the world. Tens of thousands of players in the fighting game community (FGC) gather every summer to not only see and compete to be the best of the best but to celebrate the uniqueness of the community. Evo is more than just a tournament. It’s become a convention complete with an artists’ alley, exhibitor’s hall, and panels led by both industry talent and fans. It’s now a yearly spectacle. Evo has always been special, and we at Gamers Outreach were honored to be a part of it again.
Last year’s attendance marked a significant milestone for Gamers Outreach. Evo 2024 was the debut of our current light-up booth, which has enhanced our visual aesthetic at events. It makes it easier for us to tell different stories about how our programming enriches the lives of hospitalized children. We fundraised three GO Karts at Evo last year thanks to attendee donations. That said, we knew we couldn’t miss the chance to run it back at Evo 2025.
This year, we’re pleased to have raised enough funds for another two GO Karts! Aside from having our informational booth set up to talk about our mission, we also had two GO Karts filled with fighting games to play. Whether it was Evo mainstays in Street Fighter or Tekken, it was great seeing Gamers Outreach supporters new and old enjoying the GO Karts on display. The Gamers Outreach booth presented the opportunity to play the best fighting games, meet renowned guests, and take part in drawings that all support our mission of bringing the “power of play” to children in hospitals around the world.
Booths are better with friends
The Gamers Outreach booth gave presented attendees the opportunity to try out the newly released HUNTERxHUNTER: NENxIMPACT. Arc System Works also provided us with codes for Guilty Gear -Strive- and Under Night In-Birth to compliment the other fighting games in our Evo GO Karts.
We also benefitted from a kind donation from our friends at HORI. Thanks to HORI, we equipped one of the GO Karts with a Fighting Stick Alpha, giving players flexibility to play how they’re most comfortable.
With these options at play, it made our meet-and-greets even better. Throughout the event, players came to our booth to play the likes of Justin Wong and JeonDDing, two of the most well-known players in the FGC. Even DeputyARUUU came by to play with JeonDDing.
How often do you get the opportunity to play against some of the best in the world? The friendly competition just made the vibes that much more wholesome.
Making Donations Fun
It’s not just the games, guests, or the overall look that attracted attendees to our booth. The raffle prizes definitely helped. In addition to more fight sticks from HORI, our friends at Gaming Generations, Atari, Nacon, Razer, and Victrix added awesome items to our prize pool. Prizes included games, peripherals, collectibles, and even a Nintendo Switch 2, which definitely caught the eyes of on-lookers.
Gamers Outreach is all about giving back. That being said, it would be boring simply asking for donations at every event we attend.
For every $5 donation to Gamers Outreach, attendees got a raffle ticket for one of those items. Every donation also automatically entered supporters into a second-chance raffle on the last day of the event. This drawing featured both the Switch 2 and the AS Traveler: Sakura Edition fight stick from Evo Japan.
Evo 2025 also saw the debut of the new Gamers Outreach enamel pin set. Attendees who donated at least $15 got a pin of their choice. A $50 donation gets the whole set. The set includes the Gamers Outreach logo, a GO Kart, a Save Point Machine, and our “Helping Others Level Up” tagline in futuristic-looking print.
If you weren’t at Evo, don’t worry! We’ll have our pins featured at our PAX West booth in just over three weeks!
Consider Monthly Gifting
If you’d like to continue giving on a more consistent basis, we’d recommend getting involved with Monthly Giving. Monthly Giving supports our programs and everything in between, while enjoying a more personal relationship with our foundation.
Those enrolled giving at least $10 a month get exclusive perks like invitations to quarterly calls with the Gamers Outreach to hear and talk about all the latest happenings with the foundation, early access to tickets for Gamers For Giving, and other benefits. Members this month are being entered into a drawing to win a full set of the new Gamers Outreach enamel pins, so there’s just one of a bunch of reasons to be enrolled in Monthly Giving!
Our next quarterly call is next Thursday, so now’s the perfect time to be a part of Monthly Gifting!
See you soon!
Evo 2025 was a whole lot of fun and we can’t wait to come back next June! If you’re someone who came to our booth, we really appreciate you! We met a lot of cool people, and it was great talking about our mission, games, or just in general with everyone. If you came by to donate, play games, take part in a meet-and-greet or just chat with us, we hope you had enjoyed the event!
We took so many photos this year that there was no way to integrate them all into this blog! If you’re interested in checking out more awesome pics, be sure to check out our Flickr album.
As mentioned earlier, the next event we’re headed to is PAX West in Seattle at the end of the month! Hope to see you there!
Support Gamers Outreach
Check out ways you can help on our mission of providing both recreational and therapeutic experiences for hospitalized families. You can also check out and follow our social pages on Facebook, X, Instagram, Bluesky, YouTube, or join our Discord server!