Season of Pride 2021 Breaks Viewership and Donation Records

Back in June, we covered the (then-upcoming) third annual event by Midboss to raise money for LGBTQIA+ Youth. Initially called Summer of Pride, the event this year was renamed to Season of Pride, to give a more global and international appeal. It was also renamed to get across the idea that Pride isn’t limited to a single month or season (I.E Summer). This year’s event has broken viewership and donation records, setting a landmark milestone for the event.

Organized by developer and publisher Midboss, the event raised over $29,500 for eight different charities and had 2.2 million views during the event. Collectively, this totaled 186,000 hours of viewership of these Twitch streams, where over 70 LGBTQIA+ streamers around the world played games to raise money for great causes.

THAT'S A WRAP!

Thank you everyone for a very successful 3rd year of our Season of Pride charity event—every streamer, every donor, every retweeter, every Mod, every fan!

We are so proud of what we accomplished together.

Thank you!🥰

—Team MidBoss
🎮💗❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🎮 pic.twitter.com/B5EBYVw0zB

— ✨MidBoss✨ (@MidBoss) August 1, 2021

These causes included The Trevor Project, Trans Lifeline, and Gaymer X, with other charities such as Mermaids, Minus18, Black Girls Code, Girls Who Code, and Women in Games International joining partway through the event.

CEO at Midboss, Cade Peterson, commented on the success of the event, stating: “Our 3rd annual Season of Pride event was a smash! We’re so proud of what we’ve done this year and every year. It continues to grow and touch the hearts and minds of gaymers everywhere, all while bringing together so many amazing people to fundraise for some very deserving charities doing great work to make the world a better place for underserved minorities while promoting positive LGBTQIA+ characters and stories.”

Comments were also provided by the Director of Advancement at Trans Lifeline, Bri Barnett, who stated: “Season of Pride bolsters everything we do at Trans Lifeline, it spreads awareness about our services, it lets trans people see that they are supported by a wonderful community of content creators, and it provides vital funding for our work. The communities on Twitch fund over 15% of our budget annually, it’s impossible to overstate the impact of these events.”

Lastly, Mae Morrison, the Influencer Manager at Behavior Interactive (developers of Dead by Daylight) commented, stating: “Working on behalf of Behaviour with Cade and Season of Pride was a truly lovely experience. We had a lot of laughs, raised some money for amazing causes and it was great to partner with an organization that uplifts queer voices all year round.”

Now personally, I think that the fact that these streams fund over 15% of Trans Lifeline’s budget, should reinforce the fact that these types of non-profit organizations are extremely under-funded and under-represented. The fact that the Twitch community rallies together for these sorts of things proves that despite what some people may say, Video Games (and places like Twitch) can be a force for good. That’s the power of people banding together for a common cause.