Video games' festive charity extravaganza Jingle Jam targets 1,000 streamers

gamesindustry.biz:

Way back in the early 2010s, Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane suddenly became very famous very quickly.

It was the early days of YouTube, and with their entertaining videos around Minecraft, the duo – with their channel The Yogscast – became unexpected internet celebrities. As a result, in the build up to Christmas 2011, the duo started to receive gifts from fans.

"They were a bit embarrassed by that," shares Rich Keith, the chair of Jingle Jam. "And they said to everyone 'don't give us gifts, give it to charity.' They linked people to this Oxfam charity drive, they set up a JustGiving where people could donate through that, and they raised a big figure."

That is how Jingle Jam began. And outside of a few jokes and references, there wasn't much more to it. That was until 2013, when Yogscast started pulling together a collection of games that were given to people who donated over a certain amount.

"Things really took off at that point. They raised $1 million that year," Keith recalls.

Then in 2021, Jingle Jam expanded beyond the confines of the Yogscast channel, with numerous streamers holding online streams in support of the project.

"More and more people started to get interested in it from a streaming point-of-view," Keith says. "It felt like a big opportunity, back in 2021, to say that Jingle Jam didn't have to be on just one channel, and anyone can do their own Jingle Jam stream. We could reach even more people and raise even more money by doing that. That was our second really big change and it has opened it up massively.

"We now get, hopefully, 1,000 different content creators doing Jingle Jam streams or piece of content or posting... you can do anything for Jingle Jam. But the focus really is around livestreams and getting those names to do it."

Jingle Jam became a registered charity in 2022 and started to focus its remit. Its mission is around making the world a better place for children and young people. In 2023, the money raised was spent supporting 20,000 young