Summer Games Done Quick kicks off another year of speedrunning video games

The Games Done Quick group are ready to put on another show with Summer Games Done Quick. The 24-hour week long charity event features gamers speedrunning in both classic and new titles. From July 2 to July 9, Twitch will be the home of all the week’s action, where games will be streamed with various goals in place to encourage donations from viewers.

The world’s largest speedrunning event

Speedrunning has grown in popularity almost simultaneously with the rise of streaming. Originally organized by the Speed Demos Archive and Speedruns Live communities, the Games Done Quick, LLC came to be the lead organizer in 2015. The first event, dubbed Classic Games Done Quick, debuted in January 2010 and raised $10,000 for CARE. That event was followed up by Awesome Games Done Quick in January 2011 which raised more than $50,000 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The Summer Games Done Quick came in August 2011. The group recently reached a milestone in January of this year as they reached over 2 million dollars in donations in a single event.

They will be making their donations to Doctors Without Borders.

More than just playing games quickly

Games Done Quick is more than just playing games quickly. At the core, there are usually specific goals and restrictions that gamers will place on themselves. This can range from the game's difficulty to playing games blindfolded. Another big part of speedrunning is the determination of how one will consider the run is completed. Players can opt to do 'Any%, Low% or 100%' runs of games which range from doing whatever it takes to see the end credits as fast as possible, to finishing the game with all collectibles, side quests of the game before the game's credits roll. Finding different ways to break through the design of the game is a big tool that speedrunners use to accomplish their goals, but even playing the game without enacting any glitches or bugs, can be put into play.

Competition and Community

Games Done Quick does have a competitive aspect to it in that speedrunners try their best to have world record times at events. There are also runs that center around races where players compete to finish the game first in real time and team relay races that have teams of players running through series of games. Competition, however, takes a back seat at events and instead the focus is on the community. Speedrunners are constantly making reference to others, telling stories about learning as a community to overcome the game itself.