Impact 2016 is a recently announced Super Smash Bros. Melee and Wii U tournament with the major focus of raising money for Extra Life and Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. The event will be held next year on April 9-10, in Orlando, Florida.

Game Savers is a nonprofit group focused on raising money for awesome charities and inspiring others to do the same. As we get started over the coming months and into our inaugural event, we will be bringing out new features and resources to help you run and organize your own charity campaigns online and with friends.

Our team consists of members and organizers in Smash Bros. community, as well as some of the team behind the Zeldathon series, a biannual event that has raised over half a million dollars for different charities over the last few years.

 

Our goal is simple: do good things. Getting there, however, takes a lot of work. Extra Life is a benefactor of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, a charity network that has grown to become one of the largest and most respected charities in the world. Extra Life provides funding for life-saving care in over 150 children’s hospitals in the United States. By donating, sharing the word, and participating in the cause, you can help make a difference in the lives of children both in your local area and across the country.

As members of the competitive Smash community, we’ve seen our community change and grow in numerous ways over the last few years. Many of those changes have been great for the community, but there have definitely been some growing pains along the way.

We believe in leading by example, so that’s what we’re going to do. We want to bring it back to where it began, recognizing the game, the community, and the people we’ve met along the way. Our goal is to bring people together, and we plan on doing that via the love of the game and the community that brought us all here. No one’s going to shift a community on their own, nor should they ever expect to, but we do know that one small act can make a monumental impact on the people around it.

We hope that by participating in this event, you can be inspired to help make a difference as well.

We chose to host Impact 2016 in Orlando because of its extremely dedicated and passionate Smash scene as well as the extent of amazing venues like the one we found. After we began work on the project in early February, it was announced that a separate charity event, Smash the Record, would be making its return to Orlando as well. We of course hope to reduce any potential confusion between our two events, and we think you’ll agree that what we’re doing is very different in style and presentation from any charity events you’ve seen in the past.

The major focus of Impact 2016 is very much the central tournaments and the hype and high-level play that result from a full national experience. Whether you’re able to personally support the cause or just want to watch some hype matches, Impact 2016 will have everything you’ve come to love and expect about Smash both for the viewers and players in attendance.

We’ll be posting more information in the coming months as we near the event, both here on Melee It On Me and on GameSavers.org. Registration will be handled via smash.gg, and we’ve got a few other surprises that you won’t want to miss.

Make sure to follow us for updates on @GameSaversOrg, and check out our website for more information on us and Impact 2016.