The Game Dame™

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Injured Soldiers recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center enjoyed an evening of video game competition yesterday at a gaming tournament organized by Cause, a nonprofit organization that provides comfort items to and organizes recreation events for wounded Soldiers.

GameStop, the world’s largest videogame retailer, donated 10 of the highly coveted Nintendo Wiis to Cause during the event and Major League Gaming (MLG), the world’s first professional video game league, provided technical assistance and sent personnel and their top professional gamers to help Cause run the tournament.

“Recreation and entertainment are vital to the recovery process, and the healthy competition and the social aspects of videogaming are very beneficial to these young men and women,” said Barbara Lau, executive director of Cause. “The Wii is fun and easy to use, even for Soldiers with injuries that might prevent them from operating a standard game controller. We are grateful to the individual donors and to corporations like GameStop and MLG that help us make these events possible.”

“This tournament is just a small, first gesture to these troops who have made such an enormous sacrifice, but we hope that our involvement can show them our gratitude and encourage the millions of MLG fans to join us in whatever way they can to support our brave troops at home and abroad,” said Mike Sepso, CEO of Major League Gaming. “GameStop has been a great supporter of MLG, and when they heard that we were participating in this tournament for the Soldiers they immediately jumped in and generously offered to donate the hard-to-get Nintendo Wiis to show their appreciation as well.”

MLG is a professional videogame league and sports media business focused on growing competitive gaming into the next mainstream sport. The company represents the best gamers in the world – Major League Gamers. MLG also operates a pro circuit that hosts competitions in several cities across the U.S., and produces TV programming that has aired on USA Network and is distributed online and on mobile phones.