Speedrunning marathon event organizer GamesDoneQuick reached a huge milestone earlier today, surpassing $15 million raised throughout its history for charitable causes.
The announcement was made during day three of Summer Games Done Quick 2018 during the Sonic block by one of the announcers for the marathon. The $15 million is the total raised from the biannual events that have been running since 2010.
Games Done Quick is a speedrunning event that happens twice a year, hitting peaks of around 100,000 concurrent viewers. Those viewers donate to charity during the stream to trigger special runs and win prizes. The runners come from all corners of the globe, and it’s easily the world’s biggest speed-running event.
The events began back in 2010 at MAGFest 8 when a bunch of speedrunners came together to speedrun classic games from the 8-bit and 16-bit era. The speedrunners managed to raise $10,000 at the time for CARE.
Following its success, the first AGDQ marathon was held in 2011, expanding from the two day format to five, bringing in new games at the same such as Halo and Portal. The event raised $50,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, an organization that GDQ still support to this day.
Since then, the GDQ events have been a staple, ballooning in popularity over the years to earn more money over time. SGDQ 2018 has passed $500,000 in total donations four days into the marathon, with the community hoping to raise $2 million by the end of the week.
