The Muscular Dystrophy Association is launching Let's Play For a Cure to raise money from gamers.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association is launching Let's Play For a Cure to raise money from gamers.
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Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Let’s Play For A Cure targets gamers

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

The Muscular Dystrophy Association is launching a multi-week livestreaming event, Let’s Play For A Cure, to raise money for the charitable group from gamers.

The 2.7 billion gamers in the world are an important source of revenue for charities like Extra Life, AbleGamers, Take This, or Stack-Up.

Each week’s event will feature top talent and gaming influencers, including Grammy-winning DJ Zedd, five-time Counter-Strike champions Missharvey, Voyboy, Trick2g, and JonSandman. The event will showcase popular games including League of Legends, Rocket League, Fortnite, Fall Guys, and Call of Duty.

The MDA will produce seven weeks of live programming, and the events have already started. On Saturdays, Twitch will air a show at 4 p.m. Pacific time through October 24.

The main event on October 24 will feature 10 hours of content, kicking off at 11 a.m. Pacific. Special guest Zedd will return and be the main host of the gaming marathon that will run alongside the live broadcast. The stream will also feature special appearances by Missharvey, along with esports athletes from Counter Logic Gaming and Call of Duty League, who will be dropping by throughout the day.

The MDA raises funds for research, care, and advocacy, for over 300,000 people in the United States, living with muscular dystrophy, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), and related neuromuscular diseases.

Esports player JonSandman is helping to raise money for the MDA.

MDA Let’s Play is a year-round gaming community that comes together every weekend to play games. It started a year ago with the help of people like MDA CEO Lynn O’Connor Vos. Funding is critical during the pandemic, as many in-person events aren’t possible.

MDA Let’s Play moderators include Fabiola Amaya, a Houston MDA ambassador. Participating sponsors in the MDA Let’s Play For A Cure event include Shake Shack, AOC Gaming, Discord, and GameStop.

Funds raised from these events will go directly to MDA to provide funding for research that is shared freely to develop treatments and cures for muscular dystrophy, ALS, and over 43 related neuromuscular diseases including Duchenne and SMA.

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.