What’s MGL- – Games over Gangs

Yusha Evans

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Channel: Yusha Evans

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Said I'm already gone off with the labor again to welcome back to the channel for returning members. If not, if you are new to the channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button and check out all of our links in description below. Why did I create NGO? Muslim gamers? Lee? What's the point? Is it gaming harm? Is it a waste of time? What do you what are you doing over here? You show what is the point of this endeavor? That is what I'm here to explain. Because I've had questions about this for so long now, over the past three months that we've had mgL up and running, I keep getting the questions of why am I doing this? What are you doing? Where is this going, etc. So let me give you a

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little history and why I decided to create the Muslim gamers league create the content for this channel, what was the point and purpose? Now we all know that around a year ago COVID-19 restrictions struck the entire globe. And pretty much the traveling that I have been doing for the past 10 years plus going on 1213 years came to a complete stop. I went from traveling full time all over the globe almost all the time on the road, spending, you know, a few days to maybe a week, sometimes more at home and then being out on the road again. And that was the can. The complete focus that I had was where I was going next and the lecture I was doing etc. With that coming to a

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full complete stop in March 2020. I started to have way more free time at home 100 it is a good thing to be home. It's a good thing to spend time with families good thing to have more time for studies. But you know, in this lockdown era, there was only so much that you can do as far as occupation goes within home. And I myself am a gamer I grew up playing video games I grew up with the Atari system. The very first Atari system I grew up in did send them a Super Nintendo Sega Genesis. PlayStation one came out I got it PlayStation 2345 all of it. So I've always had you know, I've always been someone who likes gaming like video games, I just never had the time, especially

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over the past 1012 years. The only time I had to play video games was you know, in between some of my trips and some free time and downtime, I had summers were a little bit more free. I didn't travel as much in the summer, I tried to spend more time at home with the kids and the family. And so I would have more time to game with the few brothers that I play with and few friends that I had from back in the day and also with my children and we all play video games together. So I started to notice a few things. As I got back into doing a little bit of gaming I had some more free time. And we are allowed to enjoy hobbies in our free time I used to build called race cars in my free time

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before my spinal surgery. Martial Arts is something that I've always done in my free time. Tech is something I've always been involved with. I've been a techie I grew up as a techie. I've always like taking things apart. I like knowing how they work. And I like knowing how to make them work better. etc. So this is always you know, we're allowed to have hobbies. Some people like sports, I love sports. I like playing football, like playing basketball, like watching basketball like watching football. I am a human being Yes, I have hobbies, I have hobbies, that outside of you know, religious things, which is absolutely fine. No one in their right mind would tell you that having

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halaal hobbies is hard. I'm not going to do that.

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So I started to notice as I started gaming, and I was watching my children more closely because I had time to spend at home. And that is they they love gaming. And they also love the the watching other people play games. I don't know when that trend happened. Because again, I've been very busy for the past decade. I don't know when the trend happened. But the trend is now that people enjoy watching other people play video games as much as they like playing them themselves. It's become a form of entertainment. So I started watching this and realizing you know, my kids like to watch other people play games they like watch tutorials and walkthroughs etc. But where are they going to

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get this content? Where are they going to get the content to watch other gamers You know, they're going to YouTube watching Game as well on Twitch and watching gamers watching live streams. And I'm realizing I don't have any control over this environment whatsoever. I don't know what's going on in this environment don't know what these gamers or these streamers are talking about what music they are playing in the background. You know what games are playing that might involve shut up there might involve nudity, it might involved all of the kinds of things what kind of environment all my kids going to, to watch these gaming streams and learn about gaming. So I started watching some of

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these gaming streams myself and realize that was not really a family friendly. Hello, option out there I did not see.

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So I'm thinking to myself and then I started looking into streaming. And I saw a report pop across

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late spring 2020 that said that this gaming streaming industry and streaming in general on Twitch people streaming gaming people stream just chatting people on YouTube as well people do just streaming games else

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To String just talking and people like watching it, that the streaming segment of the entertainment industry, the streaming segment of the entertainment industry was slated to become the largest segment and multibillion dollar business in 2020.

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And I'm lightbulb clicked in my head. I said, you know, we as Muslims don't have any representation in this space. And I'm someone who likes gaming, I know there's a lot of Muslims out there who are are gamers who are techies big why, because when I do have some free time I play with them, my children play with them. I see Muslims on all the time, I've played with brothers in the call of duty and Warzone and, and in other games. So I'm realizing that we don't have any space for us, nor do we have any representation.

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And if this is the largest it this is becoming the largest entertainment segment.

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And this is an opportunity for that our there's an opportunity for that, because I've always said Muslims should be in,

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in media, and in entertainment, and what I mean by entertainment, and television and movies, there should always be a proper Islamic representation. So the light bulb went off in my head that we need to enter this space and create an environment where Muslim gamers, youth, adults, whomever it may be brothers and sisters, who like gaming, who like tank, who like all of these things, have a space to come to that is family friendly, that is as hard as we can make it. And that also can help bring the youth closer to the religion of Islam who can help, you know, keep the youth guided on you know what to stay away from the pitfalls and the tricks of gaming and the addictiveness of it and more than by

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the addictiveness of in the gambling aspect and all of these other things. How can we do that in one consolidated space, so I started doing my research. And that's where the idea for discord came because I was involved in a few discord servers. And I realized that discord was a beautiful place to create an environment for Muslims to go to come together, who have the similar interest of gaming and tech and all of these things. And then we can moderate this environment. So Muslim gamers league was born, we created a Discord server. I think this was back in November. We tried to make it heavily moderated rules and regulations are clear front and center. mud. There's moderators on all

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the time and all of our moderators are youth, our greatest moderator Mashallah May Allah bless over the meadow was 15 years old. Another one of our great moderators is 17 years old, and we're looking for more moderators, and all of them are from the youth who are moderating this space, making sure that everything that goes on stays in within Halong parameters, we give guidance, we do reminders, we have ion channel, we have an Islamic channel, all kinds of reminders being put out, we're putting reminders on videos that go out on the channel. And we have within within three months, we are going close to 1800 members 1700 plus eight dinner members who go we get about maybe

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1000 members every every week to week so it's it's a beautiful thing when hamdulillah the people are starting to grow and we're starting to push the discord server so that brothers and sisters can come and have a safe Hello Space, we have an entire sisters segment that is only for them and is moderated by sisters. And you have to set your identity permanently in the server as a sister to go over there. And and we keep that heavily moderated for them so they can have their, their their own space to be able to do this. We have all kinds of things going on. We have content creators now. We have I think it's four brothers who are content creators over the middle of the ship at the BNF

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Gara, who you might know from his channel here, and on EF Tao, etc. They are out there producing content under the banner of the Muslim gamers league who are mixing gaming and tech with dour. This is our higher intent and purpose is that yes, maybe 567 hours playing a video game I'm probably wasting some time. But if we can take those few couple those same couple hours a week, few hours a week, then we're playing video games and we are trying to make sure that of course the games are themselves

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within the realms of not being absolutely impermissible. We don't endorse or allow games to be streamed or playing our servers that involve shared nudity music, we make sure we teach brothers and sisters how to turn the music off on games and turn to

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the adult portions over games and vulgarity etc. So we're trying to teach our brothers how to key in sisters how to keep this environment as permissible as possible. But while we're doing our streams while I'm doing my streams while meta, we're doing some de manera the other content creators that we have and we'll be opening up the applications for more content creators soon while they're gaming. They're getting down there talking about the religion that religion is front and center we are Muslim gamers league. So the religion is front and center and the end goal is to take this in

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Make it a huge platform as big as we can ensure along with Diana, to where we can make a dent in the streaming entertainment industry that people will know that there are Muslims out there who are upfront about their religion who are also good at gaming, good at Tech good at coding. This, we have some coders in the server on the left who have created bots and all kinds of things to heavily moderate our environment, to show that we can live in this world that we are represented in now, as well as have our religion front and center that we can find the balance, the balance, and this what we're trying to teach our youth, the balance between the dean and the dunya, and balance between

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Dean and dunya. And trying to keep a moderate approach on each. And so far, we've had plenty, so many non Muslims have come to our streams have come to my streams, and I'm sure the other content creators will take the same who come to the stream and say, Look, I'm not Muslim, but I love the environment that you guys have here. It's very chill, it's very family friendly. It's very relaxed, and we are able to give them that hour in the indirect way. And when people approached us about the religion, we're able to then discourse with them in a direct way. And when they come to our channels, when you come to my YouTube channel, you're going to find Islamic content as well, not

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just gaming in tech, but we're going to make sure this curated that will content meant for the streaming industry meant for the streaming entertainment industry. And when you search you Shannon's been at but I met him on YouTube, you're going to get Islamic content. So we're giving the data in that way so that we're not just wasting time now, for parents who are watching this.

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If you're someone who believes the games are absolutely how long you don't allow gaming your house, no problem that is your prerogative. And may Allah bless you in that increase you in the hiring goodness, and grant you the highest ranks. I'm Jen, no problem with that. But this is for those parents whose children are into video games, who are do have a PlayStation who do have a PC. We also talked about PC building on the channel. As you can see, if you see on the last video, we did a video of building the stream PC just a few days ago. And we have two PCs that we built, we're helping our youth to understand how to build a PC, how it works, etc. For those parents who do have

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children like this, this is your opportunity to make sure that they remain in a halal environment with other Muslims with other Muslims. And we tried to guide that interaction to the best of our abilities to help bring our youth closer to the religion of Allah subhanho wa Taala while they're doing something that they enjoy, so we're tasting like this, this is why part of the title was games over gains, because for me, as a parent, I have three children but hamdulillah I would much rather than be under my roof, playing a video game with me or other Muslims talking about a loss of kind of data hearing about a loss of Hannah with that and knowing that Muslims when it's time to pray, we go

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and pray we turn off the game, you pause it, we come back, putting our priorities in check, we talk about priorities all the time. This is an environment I would rather them have in the online space, rather than a free for all or I don't know what they're being involved in. I don't know who they're talking to. I don't know what chat rooms are entering into. I don't know what they're watching on the stream that they're watching. Rather than that I have a moderating environment that goes through Muslim gamers League, the watching Muslim streamers, they're interacting with Muslims or hamdulillah. And we're all trying to continually see remind each other about Allah subhanho wa Taala

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that is for me, I would much rather have that because that is something I can moderate that something is under my control. If my kids are when they're all out in the streets, doing who knows what I have? No, I have no control over that. And this is a crazy world that we live in. And once you lose control of what your children are doing this is worship and can come in and play and take them all down the wrong move. I've seen it far too many times I've seen so many parents come to me like this. So this is the goal is to try to create this moderated environment. This moderated environment where Muslims who like gaming who like tech who like coding who like PC building, who

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like all of these things have a space to come to that as a moderated as high level as possible environment as we can create insha Allah is not we're always going to make mistakes, they're going to be things that slip by us and motum on on the discord server, there's going to be games that syllabus is going to be a game that I might be playing on stream, when something happens that I can't be, you know, absolute control of some music might pop in for one second, then we have to turn it all of these things are part of understanding human experience that we do the best that we can and try to please the loss of Hannah with Anna, as much as we are able. This is why I created Muslim

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gamers league because I have the time to do so at home to relax. And I want to be able to use my free time to the best benefit that I can rather than free time to sitting in here gaming with brothers and having the lads good environment when you try to find other brothers and sisters to game with.

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But rather than just having that in that space, you know that time just be gone. Now that time is being used to upload streams to remind people about a loss or kind of without to remind them about the purpose of life. We're also reminding each other so we're trying to gain some good deeds out of that which we do even in our hobby time. And that's the best form of trying to gain some favor with our x before Allah Subhana without destroying

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To find a way to do everything that we do to make some higher end and make some good in insha Allah and that is our end goal is to create a professional Muslim gaming space to take the gaming industry by storm and shot a long time. We have some very, very talented people in Muslim gamers leading they're really good at gaming who are really good at it and it is an absolute profession these days people are making six figures very easily on gaming and streaming and becoming professional gamers part of the esports teams leagues hopefully we'll have our own team Muslim gamers league mgL on NBA EA Sports one day insha Allah huzzah Anna, and we will be able to show and represent the Muslim

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faith in this space, which has been neglected. There is nobody out there doing it. There's nobody in the gaming space. There's nobody in the gaming streaming space. There's nobody in the streaming space period that is interacting with gamers to share the message of Islam. Yes, I found Muslims on Twitch. But they're, they're giving lectures and that's fine. What I'm doing let me Allah bless you in your endeavor. They're giving lectures, they're giving talks, they're giving, you know, little mini conferences with four or five speakers. And that's fine for the audience who is going to come for that. But for your average Muslim youth these days. And for your average non Muslim who is

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involved in who comes to twitch or comes to YouTube, that's not what they search for, and they're not going to find you. We have to be able to reach them where they are, while still trying to maintain the best permissibility as possible. We're going to our youth, our youth are coming 1700 of them within three months have proven and this is without a lot of I haven't been pushing this hard. I haven't been promoting it hard. I haven't been throwing it out there. It's just become kind of word of mouth off of my social media. A couple of podcasts. I've been on a couple of videos I've been on 1700 so far strong. And now we're going to continue to push it because I've seen the benefit

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that can happen. I've seen brothers and sisters come on to our discord, who are seeking answers who are feeling like their distance from Allah subhanho wa Taala who are having emotional issues or having mental issues, and we're able to create the space for them to help them to the best of our abilities with something they enjoy and like to do. So we're trying to mix that hobby with bringing people closer to the religion of a loss of handle without or remind them on law remind them of the evils of gaming that are out there. When it comes to the addictiveness when it comes to, you know the impermissibility of some games or shirt, nudity and music and all of these things were giving

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some guidance on the fact that we will continue to produce content on this channel to guide in that factor like how to turn off you know, making sure you turn off all the music and the games, how to avoid noodling the games, how to avoid adult content games, how to avoid getting trapped into the addictiveness and the gambling portion of you know loot boxes and things of that nature. So we will continue to try to produce that content to help those who are joining us at Muslim gamers league keep their experience online is that impossible, as hell if possible, as well as we'll be adding more content creators over the coming months, where we will have insha Allah who to add a small army

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of content creators out there producing on YouTube on Twitch content and stream that reach out to the broader gaming audience. About the dour to bring people towards the hate and loss of Hannah with Ireland is oneness and enjoying a hobby that we love to do and that we're passionate about. Being able to make something you're passionate about with the hour with your religion is a very amazing, amazing way to blend the two together. That is why we created or That is why I decided to start and create Muslim gamers league it would not have happened without the help of some amazing brothers up with a Dingo who is my design editor and the design editor for mg on the logo and the banners and

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all of that stuff, our brother Meadow who was the moderator of the chat over the Dean chipata, I think 360 our content creators been extra for those if I missed you, you know who you are, they have made this possible and hamdulillah. And our goal is to continue to take this higher and higher and higher and reach the Dow as far as we can, as well as bring the Muslim youth to an environment that will keep them away from gangs. What I mean by gangs is just all sorts of craziness that they can find in the online space and in the real world and bring them closer to a loss of Hannah without a through this environment, games over gangs. So if you have any other suggestions that we can add to

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enhance the experience at NGO, please drop them right here.

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If you have any questions, drop them right here or you can send them you shamans [email protected] that is in the bio. The link to our Discord server is right here in the bio. The link to all our socials is right here in the bio, the link to my stream is right here in the bio. So make sure the link to all of our content creators is in my home page. At the very bottom. I've linked all of our official content creators and more will be added over time. So we look forward to seeing you on the next live stream in sha Allah and the content that is coming forward out of mjl also the link to our merch store for those of you who want to pick up some nice professional, fancy champion and brand

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and

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And and hoodies, hats, beanies, iPhone cases t shirts short sleeve long sleeve, check out the link below to our merch store, you can get it shipped directly to your home. I hope that this was helpful in explaining because I get asked over and over again why NGO Why did I create Muslim gamers league is for our youth. It is for my children. It is for the data. We'll see you in the next video in sha Allah make sure you hit that LIKE SUBSCRIBE turn the bell on all that good stuff you're not doing give a thumbs up I said Mr. A Come on often with Allah He over get