Each year, speedrunners come together to celebrate the beauty of breaking games and taking them beyond their limits for charity at Games Done Quick events. The bi-annual event takes place during the winter, Awesome Games Done Quick and in the summer with Summer Games Done Quick. SGDQ, as it is abbreviated often, will begin at the end of this weekend.
The summer speedrunning event will be clocking in over 100 hours of awesome game speedruns in order to raise money for Doctors Without Borders, a non-profit organization that delivers emergency medical aid worldwide to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from health care. During the event, spectators will be able to donate any amount of money along with a small donation note, and those donations will be read live during the stream. In addition, donaters will also be able to put money towards voting for certain incentives, which range from character names, specific game choices, or even bonus speedrunning content.
To date, these Games Done Quick events have raised over $14 million for charity, which include donations for already mentioned Doctors Without Borders, the Prevent Cancer Foundation, the Organization for Autism Research, and CARE. There has been substantial amount of growth with both of the main Games Done Quick events, and Awesome Games Done Quick was able to break the $2 million barrier just last year. While Summer Games Done Quick has not reached this milestone yet, there is a very likely chance that this will be the year SGDQ raises over $2 million.
Summer Games Done Quick will kick off its week long speedrunning charity event at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Bloomington, MN. The opening ceremony will begin at 9:30am PT/12:30pm ET on June 24, and the event will last all of the way up to June 30. The full lineup of games for the week can be viewed on the official SGDQ 2018 schedule. You can check out quick highlight of some of the biggest games being run at SGDQ here, and you will be able to view the SGDQ event over on the official Games Done Quick Twitch page.