Games Done Quick breaks another record with $3.13 million raised for AGDQ 2020

What a way to celebrate a 10-year anniversary. On Saturday, Games Done Quick broke another donation record, bringing in more than $3.13 million USD for charity. It surpassed the organization’s previous record of $3.03 million, set during Summer Games Done Quick 2019. Indeed, AGDQ 2020 certainly met and surpassed all expectations.

Over the course of the week, speedrunners and speed freaks from around the world gathered in Orlando, Florida for the event. Running from January 5-11, AGDQ hit a maximum of 237,523 viewers on its Twitch channel — according to its stats page. Through more than 54,000 donations, it earned a total of $3,133,062.78 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

I managed to catch some of the event over the course of the week. Sadly, work and sleep prevented me from watching a good deal of the runs. I regret missing out on the infamous Awful Games Done Quick block, where runners speed through some of the best of the worst games around. Luckily, that’s what Twitch VODs are for. And if you want to catch the runs, GDQ is uploading all its runs at its YouTube page. Or you can watch the whole shebang by heading to the videos section of its Twitch channel.

Runner TomatoAngus using a prop to explain a trick during his run of Fallout Anthology.

Memerun

There were quite a few runs well worth watching, or rewatching. During his run of Fallout Anthology, runner TomatoAngus (who changed his name to this before the event) blasted through the main Fallout campaigns in just over two hours. He entertained the crowd with humor while explaining some of his tricks using props. Of course, we also can’t forget about the debut run of Untitled Goose Game.

But even before we saw that darn goose take the bell in record time, “Honk!” became the celebrated meme of the event. Dozens of donations with the message “honk” spurned the crowd into yelling the word during multiple runs. And of course, during the final curtain call on Saturday, GDQ marathon director Mike Uyama gave the world one final “Honk.”

All in all, it was a great show. It celebrated 10 years of AGDQ, while breaking a new donation record. The next show will be Summer Games Done Quick 2020, which will occur in June later this year.