That time of the year has come again. AGDQ started and ended with style by managing to orgnaise such a huge event. For anyone who doesn’t know already what AGDQ is, I’m going to explain.
The Meaning
The letters are an abbreviation that comes from Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ). Many people come to this event in order to support it. People give up some of their free time in order to be there and watch the whole event, but also to speedrun games. People can also watch the event online and they can donate for the supported charity organisation at the time (this year was the Prevent Cancer Foundation).
Speedrunning
Normally you play games in order to beat them and find out how the story will finish. But when you’re speedrunning, you have to finish the game as fast as possible. Speedrunners even use glitches in order to finish games faster. If you want to get intro speedrunning, there is a big community out there called Speed Demos Archive which is very friendly. If you want to find out more details, check their site out.
Basically the community decides how speedruns should be run, which speedruns are legit (no cheating allowed) and the rules of a speedrun (no glitches, all bosses, etc.).
Money Raised
Last year they have managed to raise $2,222,791 and this year they have managed to top that up with the amount of $2,263,093. This event grows very quickly and it will continue to grow in my opinion. The average donation is of about $45, but it’s so cool to hear that people are willing to donate even over $30,000 in one donation. Just amazing. If you want to check the official AGDQ site, then you should definitely do that. They also have another event called Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ), which is very similar, but it happens in the summer.
Final Thoughts
I’m just amazed by the power of communities like the gaming community coming together for a greater cause. In peak hours you could have seen over 200,000 people watching the stream at the same time, which is a really big number. I really hope that this event will be able to keep the pace and give even more money to charity.