The week-long event has managed to gain over 2.6 million dollars in donations. All of this money will be given to the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
What is speedrunning?
The speedrunning world has been around for some time, alongside E-sports and other forms of competitive gaming. Even though it has a tight-knit community, in recent years, speedrunning is starting to break out into the mainstream. More and more popular Twitch streamers are giving speedrunning a shot in various games, such as Xqc with his Minecraft runs or Mizkif with his Super Mario 64 runs.
To put it simply, speedrunning is all about finishing a game as fast as possible. There are also various types of speedrunning, with the most popular being the following:
- Any% – this means getting to the end of the game as fast as possible, without having to finish all stages or other completionist goals
- 100% – this is one of the most extended forms of speed runs. Depending on the game, players might have to finish all the side quests or gather various collections of items.
- Low% – sort of the opposite of 100%, players have to finish the game while ignoring as many side objectives as possible. While this may sound easy, certain games require glitching to avoid finishing specific parts.
- Glitchless – finishing a game without the usage of any glitches, which are generally a big part of many speedruns
The leading site where you can follow the scene is Speedrun.com, where you can find leaderboards for more than 20,000 games.
This year’s AGDQ
According to their official website, this year’s event featured 150 speedruns. The event raised a total of $2,644,770 from almost 40,000 donations. The biggest donation was worth $100,000, with the median donation being $25.
While this year’s event didn’t break any records (last year’s raised a record-breaking $3.4 million) it is still an impressive feat that will bring plenty of good into the world. Top speedruns that ran on Twitch between January 8-15 showed off the prowess and skills of some of the greatest speedrunners around. One of the greatest moments was @NotImJhay setting a new world record for Super Mario Galaxy 2. You can watch the entire run right here on Youtube.
The next big event will be Summer Games Done Quick, which will take place between May 28 and June 4 of 2023. SGDQ gained a total of $3.01 million in their 2022 event, all donated to Doctors without Borders.
If you want to see more of this event, you can check out all the speedruns on their Games Done Quick Youtube Channel. Since many recent gaming events were plagued with various scandals, it’s good to see that AGDQ is still churning along, and all of it is for a good cause.
