 Welcome to the wide world of eSports, the show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Katharine Noor. Today our topic is Gamathon, eSports Giving Back. My guest is Dexter Carr Jr., the CEO of Game for Good. Welcome Dexter. Hi, it's wonderful to be back. All right, you actually have probably been my guest more times than anyone else. This is your third time and I'm really excited to catch up with you. Definitely, definitely. So what's the latest Dexter? Yeah, so we've been making a lot of changes. The first and foremost, I remember the previous times we were on your show, the company was named G Haven eSports, but we decided to rebrand to Game for Good. Do you feel it better? The name this A was Catcher 1, but 2, it better defined what our mission was, to summarize it, which was to basically demonstrate the value of gaming beyond entertainment. What it looks like to actually game for good and game with a purpose. That's kind of where we got the idea from. So what is the driving force behind Game for Good? Why do you game for a purpose? It kind of started from just my personal background. Video gaming has been more than just a space for the killing time or getting good out of the video game. It's given me so much more and it's helped me create friendships, it's helped me just practice different skills and from there, I've created so many different bonds over the years and a lot of people that realize that at its core gaming isn't about not just having fun, but about building a community. And once we see a lot of content creators, the biggest thing they focus on is building that community. How do you connect with other people from a distance? Even when we aren't able to reach out to each other due to a pandemic or distance, we're allowed to be able to come and contribute to each other and build those lifelong friendships. So what is Game of Thon? Yeah, so it's very similar to the idea of what a charity stream is and also the best analogy would be kind of like a walkathon, where how different walkathons are fundraising, where you know, based on how far you walk, you know, people raise money or don't even put money toward that. What difference is a Game of Thon is more for video gaming, so it's not how far you walk, but how long you play. And since we're gaming anyway, we might as well put those hours in some use so no one could ever say again, hey, you're wasting your time playing video games, nope, I'm gaming for a purpose, haha. That's fantastic. I mean, when you think about some famous walk, like March of Dimes, they have a walk every every March and to raise money. And so I think that there's a lot of similarities, that's kind of a fantastic way to do that. And so how does it work? Like how how can people become involved and and how can charities become involved and how can individuals become involved? Yeah, of course. So that's actually also one of the new things that we're doing. So recently, we've done multiple fundraising events, kind of testing out this ideology of how it works, of how to be able to use the hours gamer's game to end a couple of that with donors to raise money. And we have multiple successes. We've done five of them before. And we're actually building a full platform called Game for Good, which allows you to, when you create an account, you're able to connect your gamer profiles on all your favorite gaming platforms that you play on to it. And then we're able to use the data of how long you play to generate, to push that engine and coupling that with different donors and sponsors on the platform to value that engagement with you to be able to raise money for funds for different causes. So does the gamer get to pick the cause? Yes, they do. We have some in the past with MEPs. We had at most three at one time, we were kind of just testing out the idea for the full platform. We'll be able to have multiple charities and fundraisers on our platform so the game could choose whatever fundraisers they want to game towards. And on top of that, it doesn't matter what game you play because the value added is from gaming of itself. Okay, so you can, so if you're a Fortnite player, CSCO player, Valorant player, whichever, you can use the platform, is that right? Yeah, yeah. And the best thing is you don't have to be a streamer. You don't have to do charity streams just to engage with this platform. You've taken that mindset, you've taken that and you've turned it into something that could be used by the everyday gamer. So if you don't want to put your face on the screen and stream, you don't have to. All you got to do is just do what you normally do, create an account connected with your gaming profile, whatever platform you do, and just game like you normally would. And then where does the money come from? Yeah, so the money comes from our sponsors. We take a portion of that revenue and add it into the, how do we say our player earn engine? So we take it from a sentence of what we have from our sponsors, we're able to put that, no, like a dollar per hour or 10 per hour in that so whatever the base upon who our sponsors are. And so whenever you're able to pick a cause, you'll see our different sponsors and donors that are there. You could pick one and that's how you're able to translate your hours into funding. Okay, so the player, do they pick the sponsor or is that pretty random and selected by you? Yeah, so the sponsors, first of all, the sponsors are able to pick the causes that they want to donate towards. And then there's a list of them and the gamers are able to pick which sponsor they want to have their hours be translated to. So some sponsors may want to pledge a dollar per hour. Maybe they want to pledge, no, maybe for every 10 hours they'll donate $20. It gives everyone that the freedom of flexibility of being able to give while at the same time engaging. So if I'm a brand, you know, and I'm thinking, oh, I want to reach this target market. But I also want to be tied to a game for good and giving, you know, giving back because I think that that's part of the message that I want to send to people. Can I contact you and become part of this? How does that work in terms of that sponsor wanting to do that? And then how are they actually advertising, you know, will their image or their logo be shown to the gamer? Yes. So when they come on the platform, they're able to, and they sponsor for whatever cause what not, their logos and their brand will also be associated with the cause that they're supporting. So gamers are able to know, okay, these are the brands are supporting the cause that I care about. And we create different engaged opportunities to increase likelihood of those gamers connecting with those brands. You know, I see this is a really good way for a non endemic brand to infiltrate esports because gaming because I think a lot of times they're a little uncomfortable with how they might come across and that they might not become not look very, I don't know, might be a little awkward when they don't really have anything to do with gaming. But this might be the perfect way that they can get their message to this younger audience. Is that right? Definitely, definitely. This was meant to accomplish kind of two things. First and foremost, is to create that middle ground where you're absolutely right, both endemic and non endemic organizations, but those non endemic who wanted were interested in how to like enter that esports space. You don't know how this is a way that can be done. Everyone understands fundraising. Everyone has that compassionate piece. And this is once again, we're all coming together for a good cause. That's one and two. And this is kind of one of the biggest things kind of drove the idea of creating this. One of the biggest challenges that was brought to me, it's brought to every esports professional is how do you monetize esports? How do you do it? It's good when it comes to attracting attention, but besides sponsorships, advertising and winning championships is not much of a good way to make money from it. And it's like, how do you make it profitable at the same time? No, driving impact. And my answer was not to create another vertical in the industry, but to create horizontals. What leads back to our company's mission demonstrate the value of gaming beyond entertainment by creating tools and services and products that able to demonstrate and using gaming and esports as a vehicle of means to an end of itself, we're able to demonstrate that we could create horizontals instead and how gaming could be applied in other industries as well. And the first thought process that I had was what's the one thing that everybody can relate to? Fundraising charities, because everybody does, it doesn't matter where you go. Everyone has some sort of fundraising play. And by creating a tool that utilizes that it creates a bridge for everyone to come to where everybody wins from that. But also it's a great way to engage and enter this space on a very neutral way. That's the beauty of it. Sure. And I would think that your partnering or having relationships with marketing executives who are trying to get brands into the esports and gaming space that they would appreciate being able to tell their clients, well, here's another opportunity. It's not directly buying ad space or sponsoring this event, but it is using your kind of using your brand in this other space that connects you with a charity and even better because it isn't so in your face, I think. No, you're absolutely right. And we encourage organizations to take advantage and leverage our platform because also what it does helps create content. Absolutely right. Just blasting advertisements here and there. Maybe people will choose to engage them. Sometimes they'll just add a block or skip their ad. But with this, with the platform and this tool, they can create their own campaign and create ways to engage, not just through a platform, also through themselves as well. I said, hey, we're using this tool. Come, no game with us as we're raising money for this cause. And it's another way to demonstrate that, hey, we want to engage as well, but we're speaking your language. And so that's one of the ways to do that. You know what I like about it most is that in a sense the gamer is saying, I agree to this advertising. I agree to your blasting me with your ads because I know it's for a good cause. And by doing that, the brand really does get a nice foothold. And the biggest and the one of the things that I like to say the most becomes the ROI to brand just like how we're translating the hours into their into the dollars was coming from those brands. What that is, they take it and also thinking about it more of a business mindset, let's say charitable mindset is that's an exchange, an exchange of time for the basic pain for their time in a way and that money in the painful is going to a cause. So they have that guaranteed eye the eyeballs, they guarantee the attention by people engaging with them for this cause. So therefore they can say that a doubt are right. We're knowing we're getting this engagement level. It's not just people who are just no looking over us. No, we're actually engaging with us was almost more like guaranteed engagement. Sure. And so you mentioned that you've had five events so far. Can you tell us about those events and the charity? The events that we've done brother five, they were more so like kind of testing out the MVPs that test out the the the model for the gametons. No, we looked at different different charities nearby and also so we've done one charity called Team of Therapy which is in the Baltimore area raising money for kids going through chemotherapy. No, giving them all helping them go through that, with video gaming. We have done stuff for to make a heart association as well as for the action against hunger and some other organizations like that. And also almost recent one, our first one with the other organization was with a local company here called Game Gym and they do this summit three times a year, two, three times a year, and there is money for the American Heart Association but not for the national children's hospital. And so it was just really, really cool. And upcoming we're working with the Marinus STEM Festival and we're going to be using the opportunity to raise money for helping more relief funds for Ukraine during this time of conflict. So really excited for that. You know, I was going to say that would be a good one. I remember an organization that I'm involved in, we did an event to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims and I thought Ukraine war is a very good example of the kind of charity that creates a lot of, you know, emotional, you know, kind of feelings where people want to get involved and participate. I agree. Yeah. So, you know, and also it's interesting, you mentioned the charity of helping the kids going through chemotherapy. I think it's kind of a perfect match when you find these charities where the kids are gamers or like to game that are benefiting from the charity. So it just seems so perfect. What do you about that? No, I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, it demonstrates that, you know, hey, gaming could be used as a form of therapy. No, gaming could be used as a form of no escape. Gaming could be used as a way that you may even realize you like to game until you have a reason to do it. And this is a great connector. Sure. So last time we spoke, you know, we talked about what you were doing. Since the last time we spoke, what's new with your company? Yeah, so we're actually been currently rebuilding our standalone. So after our MVPs that we've done, we're now currently building the standalone gaming platform called the fundraising platform called Game For Good. We're currently in the reclose beta testing right now. We're going to be having an open beta coming up and we're aiming for end of June beginning of July. So people who are interested can definitely reach out to me and I'll be able to get them on that list of two people to come on. And then one of the biggest things we're currently doing is that, as I said before, we're working with the Miranda STEM Festival to host a week-long eSports event in which one of the things we're trying to do is create that bridge between STEM fields and the career paths that can lead to into the eSports and gaming industry. So we're going to have some panelists talking about what those career paths with opportunities, what's the diversity in the industry and really trying to make an impact and bringing those opportunities to the eSports and DMV areas specifically. Fantastic. And so I noticed that you're wearing the G Haven jersey, which I think is fantastic. Thank you. Tell us what's going on with G Haven. Yeah. So G Haven has become our more gaming division. So because of the content creation, our teams and then we're also going to be looking to start up our own tournament league itself. So that's kind of things we're focusing on and bringing people together. No own gaming umbrella. So that's what things we're really planning out for the end of this year. So you know what's kind of interesting is that in the, I've noticed and I talked about this for Sharon Gill in the last show that since the pandemic began in 2020 that there's been this emergence of all of these eSports and gaming business. When did you start before the pandemic or during? Well, I started before the pandemic. I became up with this idea. So I was so mean that my personal business partner, we had this idea back to 2017. And we actually started building it in 2019. And then 2020 pandemic, quarantine, we were like, wow, that's crazy. Like, didn't see that coming. But we made a lot of pivots during that time, and now it's an opportunity to really open our eyes to understand what is the true direction of the company we're trying to build. Do you think the pandemic that your business kind of benefited from the pandemic? Or do you think it was a big, sort of almost a negative challenge? No, it was, I mean, the pandemic at face value was negative for everybody. But I think it was positive, mainly because the fact that it really challenged our core belief of what our company was really about. And by understanding that belief allowed us to be able to easily make pivots to allow us to create new business models that still resonated with our true core, which led us to where we are now. Sure. You know, I think that there are a lot of charities who have done the same fundraising thing year after year after year. And that they're that those who participate and those who give are getting older and older and older. And so that maybe they need to look at new opportunities that do target the younger markets. And that, you know, I would think that you could actually approach some of these kind of charities that have been doing the same thing for so long and and kind of give them this opportunity. Maybe it would be starting small for a while, but it would be maybe diversifying their their ability to raise money. What do you think of that? No, you're absolutely right. We actually had to go to market strategy and what that looks like. I'm kind of focusing on hence what the the five events we did prior was to kind of demonstrate what it how the whole event looks like. And then leading by example, I would not spend my philosophy for a long time in my life how lead by example. No, I'm not going to actually do something that I'm willing to do myself, even in my business, how I lead it, but also with leading this with other organizations, other charities, okay, this is how you do it. You could do it too. And from that able to share what we have with them to add value to their organizations, their business models, their philosophies and their mission. So what is your dream for game for good? My dream for the company overall is to truly create and inspire what I like to like to call socially conscious gamers, gamers who who know what it means to game with the purpose and they make differences based on that. They actually are more and attentive with what they do on the platform that they have. As we're seeing more and more conflict creators, you know, I want to be able to know that's what our lifestyle is, we'll look to game with the purpose. We have a powerful tool in front of us. Let's change the world with it for the better. Fantastic. Well, we are almost out of time. I would ask that you let people know how they can find you and give you the word. Yeah, definitely. If you want to get in contact with me, my LinkedIn, Dexter Carr Jr., my email, djcarrr at ghavenesports.com and then my number two for 03510809. We'll look for people who want to be beta testers open beta testing for our new platform coming up. And then for organization and branch are interested in sponsoring the upcoming eSports that we have in October with the Mariners STEM Festival, it'll be from October 24th to the 30th. And it's all about, you know, reaching the youth and introducing and demonstrating the career pathways for STEM and eSports gaming industries. So looking forward to hopefully reaching out here for me, guys. Fantastic. Well, thank you, Dexter. I really appreciate you being a guest on my show. Of course, thank you so much for this time. I appreciate it. All right. And to our viewers, if you would like to be a guest on the wide world of eSports, please message me on LinkedIn or you can email me at Catherine at norlaw.com. And thank you for joining us today. Next week, my guest will be Tom Leonard to talk about his new eSports podcast. See you then.