AGDQ/Nintendo Awesome Games Done Quick is a fantastic annual charity streaming event that sees various speedrunners attempt to dash through a selection of classic games at top speed, all while raising money for various good causes.
This year saw the event reach new heights as the charity speedrunning stream hit the two million dollar mark for US charity Prevent Cancer Foundation during a run of Super Mario Odyssey in a magical moment that saw the assembled crowd lose their minds.
The event ran from Sunday, January 6 to Saturday, Jan 12, with speedruns from well over a hundred titles, including Halo:Reach, Super Metroid, Hollow Knight, and Super Ghouls and Ghosts. You can take a look at the full lineup of games over at GDQ’s website.
The Twitch chat began to bring into a flood of donations as speedrunner Bayleef dashed his way through Super Mario Odyssey. The commentators were busy encouraging viewers to donate for various hilariously trivial reasons, including donating $5 “if you love anime” or “if you think Bayleef is slowing down.”
Those who contributed during the event were able to bag a variety of prizes (in addition to the warm glow that giving to charity affords you). One particularly awesome prize was a replica of the helmet from DOOM, which I kind of want/need now.
The final total for Awesome Games Done Quick 2019 was an astounding $2,395,553, beating last year’s haul by over $100,000. Everyone involved should be immensely proud of themselves, of course.
The next Games Done Quick event will be Summer Games Done Quick. This is the second of the two annual events, and takes place in Bloomington, Minnesota from June 23 to June 30.
The full lineup of games, as well as participating speedrunners and prizes for Summer Games Done Quick will be announced closer to the start date.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.