Amazon Ads & Twitch launch gaming mental health support

Amazon Ads and Twitch have launched a gaming-based mental health initiative with Movember for young men, offering free support sessions through gaming communities in Australia.

Called Squad Support, the programme also involves Minds Support Network and GamerCounsel, which will provide trained counsellors and support practitioners for one-to-one and group sessions. Participants can choose to play individually with a counsellor or join a small group session with two others.

The project is based on the idea that some young men find it easier to connect through shared activities than in a conventional counselling setting. It uses the phrase "U GUD?" as a prompt for players to check in on friends, drawing on the better-known gaming expression "Git Gud".

According to figures cited by the organisations behind the project, 47% of Australian male gamers aged 18 to 34 have made friends through video games. Separate research from Mission Australia's Youth Survey found that 38.1% of young respondents experience loneliness at least some of the time.

Sessions will take place on Discord, where participants can communicate by voice, video and text while gaming. The initiative has been allocated 500 participant hours of support, including time for triage and safeguarding.

While the campaign is focused on young men's mental health, the free sessions are open to anyone in the gaming community who could benefit from support. Minds Support Network will continue to offer its standard services outside the programme.

Four Australian Twitch creators are promoting the campaign: Bajo, Crayator, Jack Buzza and Midbeast. It will run across livestreams, social media content, interactive polls and a custom Twitch emote built around the "U GUD?" message.

Willie Pang, managing director, Amazon Ads ANZ, said: "Gen Z and young millennials are connecting through gaming, and Squad Support meets them where they are. Our first collaboration with Movember brings together a shared ambition to reach young people through the communities and experiences they already value. By combining Twitch creators, engaged communities and interactive experiences, Amazon Ads, through Twitch's Brand Partnership Studio, is demonstrating how brands can go beyond traditional advertising to show up in culture and build meaningful connections with audiences that are notoriously difficult to reach and engage."

The campaign was developed by Twitch Brand Partnership Studio, the creative team within Amazon Ads that works on campaigns for Twitch's livestreaming audience. It is aimed at a demographic that public health campaigns can struggle to reach through traditional channels.

Gemma Battenbough, head of Twitch Brand Partnership Studio, said: "What makes Twitch special is the authentic connection between creators and their communities, where audiences chat and connect in real time. Most Australian Twitch viewers are young men aged 16-34 - 75% in that age bracket, 73% male - and exactly the group mental health campaigns often struggle to reach. Squad Support meets them in a space where they're already spending time with friends, building on that sense of community to make support more accessible. It's a simple check-in to carry beyond Movember: U GUD?"

Gaming and support

Minds Support Network is a national allied health provider based in South Australia, while GamerCounsel is an online counselling platform that delivers therapy through gaming environments. In this programme, Minds Support Network is handling clinical delivery and GamerCounsel is managing participant registration.

The approach reflects a wider push to make mental health support available in settings that feel more familiar to users. Rather than asking participants to enter a formal clinical environment first, the service is designed to place interaction within an activity they already know.

Dylan Poulus, global lead, esports and gaming, Movember, said: "Reaching young men with mental health support starts with meeting them where they feel comfortable. Gaming is already an important space for connection, and Squad Support builds on this by bringing trained professionals into an activity young men enjoy. Through this initiative, we're helping make conversations about mental health feel more natural, while encouraging gamers to look out for one another. Sometimes a simple 'U GUD?' can be the start of a meaningful conversation."

For creator Bajo, the initiative has personal resonance. "When Squad Support reached out to me with this idea, I was immediately intrigued. I thought back to the times I needed help when I was a young man, when it was hard to know where to turn. This feels like it would have been a safe space for 18-year-old Bajo to open up, and I hope young men who don't feel comfortable talking offline might give it a whirl," he said.