David “Allied” Hance is a World Champion SMITE player that commentators say “plays better from behind”, and now he’s trying to overtake a hard fight once again- but this one is with cancer.
Allied retired from competitive action earlier this year, choosing to step down from a role with his old team EnVy, and move on to casting SMITE Pro League matches at Hi-Rez studios in Atlanta, Georgia. After frequent absences due to illness, he announced earlier this month that he had been diagnosed with cancer originating from the GI tract.
The SMITE community immediately sprang into action, and a number of personalities and SMITE teams held marathon streams to raise money for Allied’s treatment. Today, the developers/company behind SMITE made an unprecedented move by holding its annual “Spring Fling” (a silly stream where players and staffers perform challenges in front of thousands of people) and declaring all money raised during the stream would go directly to Allied. Limited edition skins were promised to players who donated at least $1500 during the stream, and special avatars for any donations over $10.00. Naturally, the internet was the internet, and some people complained about the skin offer and threatened chargebacks, but the atmosphere was overwhelmingly positive. Hi-Rez has since announced the skin codes will be given out during the May 5th SPL broadcast. The Spring Fling stream raised $71,223.82 and $5000 came directly from his old squad, Team EnVyUs.
Wow. @TeamEnVyUs just donated $5,000 towards the #AlliedStrong cancer situation. EnVy is easily the best competitive org Ive ever been with.
— Omega (@EnVy_Omega) April 28, 2016
The Smite community is amazing! #AlliedStrong pic.twitter.com/iBEQrEe7uX
— HiRezStew (@schisam) April 28, 2016
In all, over $100,000 has been raised over the past two weeks to help Allied with his treatments. In a Twitlonger on April 26th, he stated he would be moving to New York to begin cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, and thanked the entire community for their support.
SMITE is one of the newer communities in the eSports scene, but they’ve certainly shown they are one of the biggest and most supportive when it counts. The hashtag #AlliedStrong was trending for a while in the United States on Twitter, just one way of showing the great numbers of fans, players, and gaming supporters out there.
Allied has a lot of people cheering for him this time around – and that’s a great place to start.
.@EnVy_Allied stops by the Spring Fling! #AlliedStronghttps://t.co/Yeil1OopEg
— SmitePro (@SmitePro) April 28, 2016
Ways to Donate:
