Summer Games Done Quick, an annual fundraiser that is held by the greater Games Done Quick label and organization, has raised a record $2.12 million in support of the efforts of Doctors without Borders, PC Gamer reports. Doctors without Borders is an international NGO that seeks to provide health care solutions to individuals suffering distress in developing nations. This includes people threatened by disasters, climate change, and economic poverty.
$2,122,529.20, that’s a new SGDQ record! Thank you so so much to all of you for your support in helping us reach a new record for #SGDQ2018
— Games Done Quick ? #SGDQ2023 (@GamesDoneQuick) July 1, 2018
The week-long charity event sees volunteers, in the form of avid gamers with a great deal of genre experience, tackling their favorite titles in order to draw attention and donations from viewers across the world. While this is the largest sum ever amassed by speed runners representing SGDQ, it is not the record amount under the larger organizational umbrella as VentureBeat points out. Taking place earlier this year in January, Awesome Games Done Quick or AGDQ managed to garner more than $2.29 million dollars in support of the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
Donations haven’t closed quite yet – although the streaming marathon and the speedruns have run their course – and a bit more is expected to be added to the total before the closing call for pledges is made.
Popular speedruns that drew the most audience attention this year include a play-through of hard as nails vintage platformer Cuphead by “TheMexicanRunner” in a tad over 50 minutes, a completion of first-person horror shooter Prey in just under three quarters of an hour by “LifeL1ke”, and a full exploration of the classic survival horror icon Resident Evil 4 in 1 hour, 36 minutes, 28 seconds by joystick slinger “JTB”
Full runs of each individual game can easily be located on the official YouTube channel for Games Done Quick, with the current playlist showing a staggering 113 distinct videos for latecomers to catch up on. This does not include some stragglers that haven’t been uploaded to the service yet and are yet to be included.
World records are not the focus of the event, though some do take place on occasion. The focus is squarely on community building, raising awareness of the charitable cause in question, and showing the world that gamers have more to offer than the often negative stereotype can imply.
Kefka is going down, and we hit 2 million! A great finale, lets keep the train going! #SGDQ2018 pic.twitter.com/mDEGUlxQ2W
— Games Done Quick ? #SGDQ2023 (@GamesDoneQuick) July 1, 2018
Polygon reports that the next Games Done Quick event is slated for October 26 to October 28 at Twitchcon in San Jose, California.
The event will be run under the banner of Games Done Quick Express, and early speculation seems to indicate that smaller, independent titles will be a focal point in addition to the fan favorites that often crowd out the competition in these public fundraisers.
