Games Done Quick is popular charity event started in 2010 in which players can speedrun games in order to raise money. The format of this event involves speedrunners playing in front of an audience and commentating with humor as donations from those tuning into the stream come in. Previously, GDQ has hosted events for crises and disasters such as the 2011 tsunami in Japan or the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, managing to raise from thousands to millions of dollars towards such causes.
With the iconic retro-shooter Metal Slug approaching its 30th anniversary, GDQ announced on July 12th that they’d be hosting speedrunning showcase with Metal Slug developer SNK, a studio based in Japan founded as far back as 1973. However, such a decision was met with criticism from the speedrunning community, citing SNK’s majority owners being the Saudi Arabian-owned non-profit Misk Foundation, who acquired a 33.3% share of SNK back in 2020, now owning 96.18% of SNK’s shares. The Misk Foundation was founded by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman back in 2011, and since then has gone on to expand their presence in the gaming space by establishing the Electronic Gaming Development Company, a subsidiary of Misk which currently has 5% stake in Capcom, the popular Japanese game publisher.
The criticism was largely drawn towards Saudi Arabia’s record of human rights abuses, which includes the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an event which led to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who had previously invested $5 million in the organization in 2017, stepping away from work with Misk in 2018. GDQ would post on Bluesky on July 12th saying, “We will not accept the funds from this sponsorship or continue to work with this sponsor again. GDQ is committed to supporting human rights and inclusivity, and we recognize that this partnership conflicted with those values”.
We will not accept the funds from this sponsorship or continue to work with this sponsor again.
GDQ is committed to supporting human rights and inclusivity, and we recognize that this partnership conflicted with those values.
— Games Done Quick (@gamesdonequick.com) July 12, 2026 at 3:36 PM