COPE Chronicles v5.0
Spring Edition
Financial Success in Gaming
So you love to game. You really want to do little else and are tired of people making that a bad thing, right?
How do you make gaming your career, your income, and sustainable wealth that makes mom and dad proud?
Variations of that challenge has become the most requested support from COPE over our 4 years.
As we close out April, aka Financial Literacy Month, COPE has partnered with a long time friend and trusted resource to bring more financial literacy to our gamers and content creators. It is one thing to make money and another thing to save it. The real key lies in ensuring that saved money grows over time to secure a sustainable and prosperous financial future. Scott Quinto, VP, Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley, has shared some resources for gamers and their families to begin their financial literacy education. COPE has curated trusted advisors for everything from legal, taxes, accounting, coaching, education, and wellness. It was time we stepped up our game to provide education and resources to help build sustainable wealth from gaming. Scott has a strong understanding of sports and esports careers through his NFL, MLB, and esports clients. He also has a 16 year old gamer and cosplayer who has recently discovered Pax and Dreamhack. This partnership reflects our continued commitment to providing free education and resources that help our community keep doing what they love in positive ways.
Check out these links:
Financial Literacy: Your Guide At Any Life Stage | Morgan Stanley
PAX East Recap
PAX East was March 22nd - 24th last month and, as always, was held at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Some new faces on the COPE team attended their first event and we got to see some old friends and partners. Big shoutout to Luke and PAX Arena for setting us up next to the registration desk. We had the pleasure of speaking with a lot of families, as well as educators, on the best ways to support kids and all the amazing opportunities in the gaming space.
One of the vendors that we got to know, Aim Controllers, was kind enough to donate a custom PS5 controller to us. The controller was raffled off over the weekend to raise money for COPE.
The biggest highlight, for me as a parent, was meeting and speaking with TechnoDad. His son, TechnoBlade, was one of the most respected and watched Minecraft YouTubers. He passed away last year from cancer at the young age of 23. His dad, TechnoDad, took up his mantle and uses his platform carry on the legacy of his son, all while giving back to the community that supported him with scholarships and cancer awareness.
COPE’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
PAX East Networking Event
To kick off PAX East, we co-hosted a networking event at Tony C’s Sports Bar on March 21st in Boston. Tony C’s provided a great view of the harbor and was an excellent place to network with great food and drinks. Many of our partners and friends stopped by for a drink and to catch up, including the GameHers, friends from Dreamhack, as well as collegiate and industry leaders. Thanks to our sponsor, Withium, and Justin Jacobson, Esq. for organizing the night.
One of the highlights of the event was watching our CMO, Cameron, geek out when he noticed Censor walk up behind him. He started up a convo with Censor who was cool enough to chat with us for a while and even signed our poster that has travelled with us to every event over the last 3 years.
Stay tuned for our next networking event in Dallas to kick off Dreamhack!
COPE Spotlight
Perry Calias - Board Member
Though one of the most respected men in pharmaceutical development, Dr. Calias has always remained an avid gamer who takes pride in beating every God of War game, start to finish with 100% completion. While he also spends time with his wife playing Stardew Valley, his son plays DnD and is also a Dungeon Master.
Dr. Calias has over 25 years of biopharmaceutical experience in pharmaceutical development across the drug and device sectors of healthcare. He is a co-founder of ETC Consulting, Chairman of the Board for Zea Biosciences, a member of the editorial board for Drug Delivery and Translational Research and a NIH Ad Hoc Reviewer: ETTN-A (11) Small Business panel on Drug Discovery for Aging, Neuropsychiatric and Neurological Disorders. He obtained his Ph.D. in Bio-Organic Chemistry from Tufts University and his B.S. in biology from Suffolk University.
FireUp Esports Lounge
Visiting this place was absolutely cool! They have a whole lot of PCs, game consoles, and more. One fun thing about it is they have a variety of different games to try out. They have Fortnite, Among Us, GTA5, VALORANT, ect. Some of the games there do require your own account, however they have games that already have a separate account prepared for as an optional choice if people don't want to, or even go through the process of making or signing into their own account in a public place.
The employees there are really friendly and so is the owner. The lounge does also offer memberships that benefit in a specific way. I'm not gonna spoil what the benefits are, but if you can't afford a membership they do offer specific amounts of time depending on the price. Near the PCs there are small cabana-like areas that offer console games, but the only consoles they have plugged into those are Nintendo Switch and Playstation 5. I think that's decent enough, as judging from the size of the area I can understand why they would only plug in those 2 specific consoles.
Let's mention their VR room! It is equipped with an oculus pc vr set as well as sound proof foam on the walls and a window where the spectators can look outside the front of the building, if they would like. It does offer a variety of VR games, such as Job Simulator, Rick and Morty, Beat Saber, and more. However, the memberships do not cover VR time and you will need to purchase VR time at the front desk.
The lounge also offers a complete bar area as well as good food and drinks, I am not gonna go into full detail about that though. The lounge is currently located in Roseville, California, as that is their only location. It is unknown whether or not they will open more locations in the future.
Written by: C1N1CK
Upcoming Events
May 30th - June 1st - Dreamhack Dallas
If you haven’t bought your tickets for Dreamhack, please use code DREAMBIG for 15% off your purchase! 50% of sales will go to 10 awesome charities including COPE.
If you can’t join us in Big D, please sign up to stream for DREAMATHON. Registration here! Then DM or email us, and we will help promote your stream event.
March 21st - XP League NAFs at Full Sail University
August 16th - 17th - GCX Orlando
Make sure to subscribe and to follow our socials for up to date content!
COPE’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.