Year after year, these people continued to be involved. Not only were there the AC and the DAoC communities - whom I considered "our" communities, games we regularly played - there was the sudden interest of gamers outside of those games. Wil Wheaton linked to us. Tycho and Gabe from Penny Arcade posted a link to us, giving away prizes to people who pledged.
Our community - gamers - got involved. More than our neighbors, more than our parishes, more than our companies, our fellow gamers were there when we needed them. It wasn't a matter of money. It was an outpouring of support, of concern, of hope.
Support For Today And Tomorrow
At the 2005 Walk last year, I walked without my beloved Kwipette for the first time. She was bedridden, in the beginning of what would be a four-month ordeal, as MS took hold of her body and caused serious neurological damage.
I walked that day, feeling more alone than I had ever been in my life. I took every step, fighting back tears, as my thoughts kept shifting back to my wife, unable to so much as lift her head without becoming violently ill from the lesion that had formed on her brain.
But at my side were my fellow gamers. A number of local (and not-so local) gamers had traveled to Lancaster, PA to join our team. We carried sponsorship from Three Rings Design, Inc. and Monolith Productions, Inc., who both took an active role in helping us get more pledges. Developers from Mythic Entertainment and Turbine, Inc. were at my side, taking time out from their incredibly busy schedules to walk with us.
They are my friends, my monarchs, my guild members, my heroes, my enemies and (quite rarely) my victims. We share little in common, except the love of moving around pixels on a computer. But when I swallowed my pride, faced my fear and put a call for help out to the world, they are the ones that answered.
Is my situation an exception? Not at all. In fact, we rate relatively low in the field of gaming charities. Child's Play, perhaps the most famous gaming charity of all, has raised over a million dollars in donated toys and money, in just three holiday seasons.
We are gamers. We are a community. And sometimes, we do good deeds.
Shawn "Kwip" Williams is the founder of N3 (NeenerNeener.Net), where he toils away documenting his adventures as the worst MMO and pen-and-paper RPG player in recorded history.
