Activision/Games Done QuickSince 2010, the semiannual Games Done Quick events have rapidly become an institution in the gaming industry, streaming some incredible speedruns with some talented gamers, all while raising money for various worthy causes.
This year’s Summer Games Done Quick offered more of the same high speed thrills and good vibes, and was, all around, a massive success. It’s now been announced that the event raised an incredible $3,003,889 for Doctors Without Borders, smashing last year’s total of $2.1 million, as well as Awesome Games Done Quick 2019’s $2,425,790 setting an impressive new total record.
Games Done Quick shared the good news over Twitter, announcing that they’d blown past their largest ever donation total for a single event.
The final #SGDQ2019 total: $3,003,889! We just BLEW past our largest ever donation total for a single event! THANK YOU EVERYONE! pic.twitter.com/ObGCOwZNQb
— Games Done Quick (@GamesDoneQuick) June 30, 2019
Things were clearly off to a strong start when the event hit the $1 million mark quicker than any GDQ marathon in history, in just two days. The milestone came on Thursday night, during a run of N64 classic Banjo Kazooie.
Kotaku reports that Summer Games Done Quick 2019 received around 50,000 individual donations over the weekend, at an average of $60 per donation. There were some fantastic streams on show this year, and you can catch up with all them over on the Games Done Quick YouTube channel.
One of my personal favourite runs was a tear through Titanfall 2 from speedrunner Bryonato, who combined slick parkour, advanced techniques, and a incredible knowledge of the game to smash an any% run in under an hour and half.
There was also a fantastic race through Super Mario World between Seathorne, truman, and TNT which is worth your attention, and a wonderful run through The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by Wolhaiksong in just over half an hour, which left me questioning my ability as a Zelda player.
Games Done Quick will return in September to support the Able Gamers charity at TwitchCon. After that, we’ll be getting another event in January 2020. Until then, well done to everyone involved in making Summer Games Done Quick 2019 the behemoth that it was.
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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.