Stack Up helps veterans through games.
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How Stack Up uses video games to save veterans from mental illness and suicide

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 19 min

Stephen Machuga credits video games for saving his life. In dark days as an Army Ranger captain in Iraq, Machuga escaped being harmed physically. But mentally, it was hard for him to stay focused and keep from panicking.

During his 13 months in Iraq, he narrowly escaped a suicide bombing. After that, he ordered a $5,000 Alienware gaming laptop and started playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. He lost himself in that game, as well as World of Warcraft, and was able to hide from the horrors of war.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. 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.