Games Done Quick

Overview

Games Done Quick is a charity speedrunning marathon that raises money for several charitable organizations, mostly Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders. Mainly held in January (Awesome Games Done Quick) and July (Summer Games Done Quick), the event has raised over $10 million since 2010 by encouraging Twitch users to vote for character names, run challenges or entering raffles. Online, the event has been notorious due several awkward moments from runs and some controversies regarding the handling of donations.

History

The first event was held in January of 2010, and earned over $10,000 for CARE.^[1] The following January, it raised over $50,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The first Summer Games Done Quick was held in August of 2011, and raised $20,000 for the Organisation of Autism Research. To date, their highest total raised is 2.2 million dollars, which the event raised in January of 2017.

Awesome Games Done Quick 2018

On January 7th, 2018, the winter Awesome Games Done Quick event began at the Hilton Washington Dulles. The event ran until January 14th, and set a new record for money raised by a Games Done Quick event, raising $2.26 million.^[4] During the event, Twitch only allowed subscribers who paid a $5 per month subscription to access the chat feature.^[5] This was done to combat spam problems that had plagued the chat in previous years. This led others to host Twitch streams on their accounts so posters could chat freely.

During the event, several speed runs gained media attention. Deadspin^[6] covered streamer Zallard1 beating Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! and Super Punch-Out!! simultaneously using one controller (video shown below, left). Kotaku^[7] covered a stream of "Resident Evil VII by streamer Carcinogen, praising Carcinogen's hosting ability and pointing out several humorous moments from the gameplay (shown below, right).

SGDQ 2018

On June 24th, 2018, Summer Games Done Quick began at the DoubleTree Hilton in Minnesota, and ran until July 1st. One of the most notable runs at the event was done by a program called TASbot. TAS, short for Tool Assisted Speedrun, allows developers to enter a frame-by-frame controller input to run a game to show a run that is theoretically possible but nearly impossible for a human to pull off. A TAS run of the platforming game Celeste generated headlines from publications covering the event, including IGN.^[8]

Celeste was also raced at the event for the first time, and the game's creators appeared to commentate the race (shown below, left). Super Mario Bros 3 also was raced, and the race was praised by arstechnica (shown below, right).^[9]

The tournament raised over $2.12 million for Doctors Without Borders.^[10]

Online Relevance

Controversies

As the event grew more popular, it has drawn criticism for the way it allocates donations and its vague rules and harsh punishments for streamers. On October 13th, 2016, prominent YouTuber covering Games Done Quick (GDQ) Apollo Legend released a video explaining why he does not support GDQ. Among his reasons, Apollo Legend notes that only about 60% of donations to Prevent Cancer Foundation go into research, while the heads of the organization take a hefty cut. He also notes that a large amount of the proceeds raised by GDQ goes into putting on the following GDQ event.

GDQ has also drawn criticism for banning speedrunners from attending for minor offenses. For example, In Apollo Legend's video, he discusses how a speedrunner was banned for waving a game in front of the camera he wanted to speedrun, allegedly circumventing GDQ's submission process. On the first day of GDQ's January event, commentator PvtCinnamonBun was seen allegedly wearing a Make America Great Again hat, which would violate GDQ's rules against streamers making political statements.^[2] After the run he commentated, GDQ banned him from attending future events, though after reviewing the footage, PvtCinnamonBun was unbanned.

Bonesaw577's Jak and Daxter Run

One of the most notable bannings in GDQ history was of Bonesaw577. During the Summer GDQ of 2016, Bonesaw577 streamed Jak and Daxter. While on the stream, he swore multiple times, made several Owen Wilson jokes, and told viewers to tweet at Air Canada after his keys were lost on a flight to the event (shown below, left). While many found his performance charming, he was banned until 2018. Apollo Legend thought this was silly and posted a response video on September 21st, 2016, which garnered over 488,000 views (shown below, right).

R. White Goose and Graviton Bans

On November 27th, 2018, Twitter user @Pizzaparty531 posted screenshots from a Discord chat between streamers R. White Goose and Graviton wherein they made sexist, transphobic, and anti-semitic comments, including some towards other GDQ streamers. She sent the messages to Games Done Quick, implying that it violated Games Done Quick's rules.^[11]

Initially, Games Done Quick said that while the comments violated the organization's rules, they could not verify that R White Goose and Graviton had made the comments so could not take action. Later, after some blowback from the GDQ fans,^[12] they reversed their decision, saying they were able to verify the comments were made by the speedrunners, and banned them from GDQ.

R White Goose said to Kotaku that he completely understood GDQ's decision and disavowed his comments.^[12] Graviton said on Twitter he gained more followers for his "wrongthink" than he would have doing a GDQ stream.^[13]

Notable Events

"I'd Really Prefer If You'd Be Quiet"

On June 25th, 2014, during the Summer Games Done Quick 2014 event, runner CavemanDCJ performed a speedrun of the 1999 video game Toomba 2. Along the commentators there was runner Chibi, who would make several jokes and comments during the run, until Caveman requested them to stop and be quiet. The same day, YouTuber CrowBat uploaded a supercut version of the run, gaining over 2.6 million views in the following three years.

"Crash 2 Is Essentially Domestic Abuse"

During the Summer GDQ of 2015, streamer gamerpro11 streamed Crash Bandicoot 2 in what would become one of the more notorious runs in the event's history. During the stream, he made repeated suicide jokes, said "Crash 2 is Essentially Domestic Abuse," and said that he would become a psychopath and mass murderer. After the last line, his mic was cut.^[3] He then purposefully crashed the game so he would not have to complete his run.

Search Interest

External References