Awesome Games Done Quick speedrunning charity raises over $2.2 million, setting new record

Whoever said video games were a waste of time has obviously never heard of Games Done Quick. The organization, which is focused on speedrunning classic and modern video games, holds two events every year to raise money for a specific charity. This year, they set another record: the Awesome Games Done Quick event raised a little over USD $2.26 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

For the uninitiated, speedrunning is essentially playing a game as fast as possible. There are several categories of speedrunning like Any% (getting to the end of a game as fast as possible by any means possible), 100% (accomplishing every possible goal in a video game as fast as possible), and glitchless (speedrunning the game without exploiting any bugs or glitches). The speedrunning community has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, and Games Done Quick is usually at the center of it.

The organization hosts Speed Demoes Archive (a website that allows speedrunners to post videos of their latest speedruns) and hosts two events every year that aim to raise as much money for a specific charity as possible. Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ), which usually takes place in January, is the larger of the two (the other is Summer Games Done Quick, which typically occurs in July or August). For the past few years, Awesome Games Done Quick has supported the Prevent Cancer Foundation (PCF), a charity focused on raising cancer awareness, funding researching, and spreading education about the deadly disease.

Last year's AGDQ event broke a record by raising over USD $2 million for PCF, and this year saw that record shattered. Over the 7-day event during which gamers finished games as fast as possible around the clock, AGDQ raised over $2.26 million for PCF. The event was broadcast live on Twitch TV to allow gamers all over the world to watch and participate, and donations rolled in from viewers and sponsors continuously.

There are other speedrunning events for charity that happen throughout the year, such as RPG Limit Break, that focus on more niche gaming genres, but AGDQ is undoubtedly the biggest. There were a few world records set during the event and hundreds of thousands of Twitch viewers for some games. Any way you cut it, AGDQ is a charitable force to be reckoned with. It's good to see what some call a useless hobby be put to such good use.

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