Speedrun enthusiasts will have spent much of the last week watching Summer Games Done Quick, one of two high-profile GDQ events per year that typically raises a huge amount for charity. Doctors Without Borders was the beneficiary again this time, and the event raised a record-breaking total for the cause.
As you can see in the tweet below it passed $1.7 million, making the week of 24-hour rolling speedruns more than worthwhile.
The event covered a broad range of retro and more recent games, with runs still to be uploaded to the official YouTube channel (including an EarthBound finale). Below is a recent upload in the form of a run through The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
A huge congratulations to all involved.
Comments 14
That's absolutely wonderful! Good work guys.
I think I heard that Notch donated like, 10 grand and everyone cheered until they heard who donated.
Great news! If only mainstream media reported on great things like this, but regardless congrats!
I didn't know this was on. That's an incredible amount of money they've raised.
Could you tell us a bit about who Doctors Without Borders are, what they do, and why they were chosen? Just feels like a few key details are missing in this report. Cheers!
Kind of bothers me that GDQ still never gets the tiniest mention in the mainstream media.
I mean okay, speedrunning video games isn't exactly a mainstream interest but this thing is making seven figures for medical charities twice a year as it is. Imagine what it could do if anyone had actually heard of it.
@HappyMaskedGuy Doctors Without Borders is a major charitable organization that provides medical care free of charge to people in third world countries, war zones, and the aftermath of Natural Disasters. They are often time the only medical care many of these people will ever get. Almost all the doctors volunteer to travel and funds donated would most likely go to operating expenses and paying for needed medicines. They are a wonderful organization.
@HappyMaskedGuy Also, its an organization thats been longstanding. They even earned a Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
@GracefulGazelle @N1ntendodo Thanks guys, good to know
I highly recommend watching the Link To The Past Swordless run. If not for the way it has to be done (which is all sorts of eh you what), but for the interplay between the runner, the couch and the announcer - it is utterly hilarious at times.
That's a great amount of money raised, congrats to all involved! Didn't know they were uploading the runs to their YouTube channel, thanks for the information, definitely going to give the Link to the Past run a watch!
I completely missed this. In previous years NintendoLife has done a good job in raising awareness of this before the event. I must have missed it among all the adverts for Amazon cluttering up the "news".
Glad it was successful... I watched very little of this year's marathon due to its timing, my schedule, and the lack of games I was personally interested in watching.
My favorite thing about GDQ's is when I end up watching an entire run that I had absolutely no prior interest in... usually due to a very informative/entertaining runner and/or commentator.
This year's surprises were Marathon Infinity and Prince of Persia Sands of Time.
@r1chard
It's only twice a year, so it's very easy to know when it's going to occur... but I agree that it would be nice if gaming site generated more preview articles before the event and called attention to particularly interesting runs.
$1.7 million was only the cash total. Counting other sources like sponsors and such, they raised about $2.1 million I think. I love GDQ, it totally dominates my week whenever it's on
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