Gamers Champion Mental Health Awareness

Many forms of live content exist today—most of which are at your fingertips at all times. When people come together to create entertaining live content for a good cause, it creates a lasting impact. To that end, RPG Limit Break, a gaming live-stream marathon, has been held annually each Mental Health Month since 2015 for fun and funds.

RPG Limit Break features role-playing games as its main genre and is a meeting grounds of like-minded players. The event celebrates “speedrunning,” a competitive approach to playing video games by completing them as fast as possible. Players gather together, set up their consoles, follow a schedule and stream their speedy “playthrough” of games.

Back in 2015, as the organizers of RPG Limit Break were getting to know each other, we realized how many of us have seen the disparaging effects of mental illness. We wanted to communicate to each other and to the rest of the gaming community that struggling with mental illness is okay—and so is asking for help.

That’s why we’re proud to hold RPG Limit Break during Mental Health Month and donate event proceeds to NAMI. NAMI, through its various programming and initiatives, is an outlet for proactive discussion and recovery to take place. NAMI helps many individuals get the help they need, and we like that our event helps those efforts.

Last year, we raised over $164,360 for NAMI through our generous live-stream viewers. Funds raised supported tangible efforts, including the NAMI HelpLine, mental health education classes and awareness campaigns to stop stigma. We modestly want to achieve at least $150,000 again this year, but we look forward to (hopefully) exceeding those expectations with the help of our viewers.

This year, RPG Limit Break will take place from May 5–11 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’re slated to have over 200 attendees. But anyone can tune in. All you need to do is visit our Twitch channel and check out the schedule—there’s no sign-up or information required to view the stream. (You can also find the live-stream on NAMI.org.)

There’s a week-long schedule full of role-playing games, spanning a broad range of titles from older consoles to modern ones. There will be opportunities for viewers of the stream to get involved in the action, by naming characters, selecting various routes, choosing menu color backgrounds and more. And, of course, the potential for interesting or hilarious glitches is always abound, so stay tuned.

We’ll also be having conversations with players and community members throughout the week about who they are and why supporting mental health is important to them. Don’t be afraid to say hi and share your story, as well, or feel free to just sit back and enjoy the event. We’ll see you there!
 

During RPG Limit Break, you can donate any amount of money you’d like to NAMI.
Any donation is greatly appreciated and directly helps someone experiencing mental illness.

Note: A previous version of this blog was published on NAMI.org in May 2017.

Patrick McMahon is one of RPG Limit Break's staff members. He handles building out partnerships & organizing interview segments during the event.