Awesome Games Done Quick: Speedrun Marathon Raises $1.2 Million For Cancer Charity

By Steve Pak, | January 12, 2016

StepMania Screenshot

StepMania Screenshot

Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) 2016 has raised $1.2 million in its speedrun marathon for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The near record-breaking figure was reached by almost 24,000 donors giving an average charitable gift of about $40, and is the third year in a row that the event has raised at least a million dollars.

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AGDQ was streamed on Twitch from January 3 to 10. It was watched by 220,000 viewers at one time as the team sped through Super Mario Maker. Players darted through games such as StepMania, Pokemon Blue, Bloodborne, Half Life 2, and Super Metroid, according to IGN.  

A Games Done Quick YouTube channel is available. This allows people to catch up on the gaming event's highlights from 156 lightning-fast speedruns.

One of the biggest highlights of the AGDQ 2016 was a StepMania player from Staiain. He hit 30 notes per second, according to PC Gamer.

StepMania is an open source rhythm video game. It supports keyboard input and dance pads, and has a lot of customization.

StepMania was one of the best games for speedrunning at AGDQ. That is due to its show of speed and accuracy.

The second Staiain player made the arrows on the screen spin around. They also went in two different directions.

AGDQ's speedrunners created so much interest in StepMania that the website crashed due to a boost in Web traffic from the speedrun event and being mentioned on PC Gamer. However, the game's developers reported that the official site is up and running again.   

Speedrun fans just have to wait half a year for Summer Games Quick (SGDQ) 2016. It will start on July 3 and take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota.    

AGDQ and SQDQ events have been held by the communities at Speedruns Live and Speed Demos Archives since 2010. The most common charities supported by the events are Doctors Without Borders and the Prevent Cancer Foundation.   

The first Speed Demos Archive speedrun marathon charity took place in January 2010. It raised more than $10,000.

Speedruns have historically been done by members of online communities. When it was popular enough to form a subculture speedrunning sites started to appear, and some have existed since then.

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