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Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 raises $2.5 million for cancer research
Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) 2024 has wrapped after a nonstop weeklong speedrunning marathon. This year’s charity raised over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation and featured the event’s first canine-assisted speedrun.
How to watch the Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 speedrun marathon
This year's Awesome Games Done Quick charity speedrun marathon starts on Sunday, January 14. Here's how to watch it and how to donate to Prevent Cancer Foundation.
The next Awesome Games Done Quick will feature a speedrun by a Shiba Inu
A Shiba Inu called Peanut Butter will be the first dog to take part in a Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon. The pooch will play through the NES game Gyromite.
How to watch the Summer Games Done Quick 2023 speedrun marathon
Watch someone blaze through 'Breath of the Wild' while blindfolded and check out skilled gamers tearing through dozens of other games in the name of charity.
Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 raises $2.6 million for charity
In its first event of the year, Games Done Quick raised more than $2.6 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
How to watch the Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 speedrun marathon
Awesome Games Done Quick will kick off on Sunday to once again raise funds for Prevent Cancer Foundation. 'Splatoon 3,' 'Stray,' 'Cult of the Lamb' and 'Neon White' will make their first appearances at AGDQ.
Games Done Quick bans speedrunning cheater from future events
A player admitted to faking an apparent 'Metal Gear Solid' world record during SGDQ.
Awesome Games Done Quick 2022 raised a record $3.4 million for charity
Viewers enjoyed runs like a blindfolded 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' playthrough.
How to watch the Awesome Games Done Quick 2022 speedrunning marathon
Highlights include a blindfolded run of 'Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice' and the debut of 'Deathloop' at the event.
Summer Games Done Quick will be an online-only event this year
SGDQ 2020 will still take place from August 16th-23rd.
Bit Brigade, the rock band that plays classic NES games on-stage
Bit Brigade could be more famous if they wanted to be. They're a five-man rock band, but one of their members doesn't play an instrument -- instead, he speedruns through a classic NES game while the remaining four bandmates play its soundtrack, live and completely attuned to the pixelated action projected above the stage. Bit Brigade has a built-in audience of nerds and nostalgia fiends, especially in an era dominated by live streaming, but they don't even have a Twitch channel. There is a YouTube page named "bitbrigade," but it has just four videos, all of which are more than 10 years old.
The life of an elite 'Super Mario 64' speedrunner
Allan Alvarez can complete the game Super Mario 64 faster than anyone in the world, which means that most days he gets out of bed around 4 PM. Afternoons consist of errands -- lately, finding a new apartment and office space with reliable internet for streaming -- and training with his volleyball team. After dinner, he does a few rounds of arm and finger stretches, makes sure he's hydrated, then turns on the Nintendo 64 to practice. At around midnight in Spain -- 6 PM on the US East Coast and thus peak viewing hours -- he starts streaming on Twitch under his alias cheese05. His shift often wraps up close to 7 AM. Alvarez is a full-time speedrunner; he competes with others around the world to beat a game in the fastest time possible. His primary game, the classic platformer Super Mario 64, is the most popular for speedrunners. Alvarez holds the world record for beating it: 120 stars, which essentially means conquering every goal in the game. It takes the average gamer about 24 hours to do this, according to HowLongToBeat.com, an online database of game lengths. Alvarez has done it in 1 hour, 39 minutes and 28 seconds, including cutscenes.
Watch favorite games finished quickly in the name of charity
It's a long July holiday weekend, and that means something big for gamers: it's the start of Summer Games Done Quick, the second of two annual livestreams for charity. As of 1PM Eastern on July 2nd, you'll witness a slew of top players rushing through games for nearly a full week to raise donations for Doctors Without Borders. It starts with a one-handed (!) speedrun of the recent hit NieR: Automata, and wraps up the night of July 9th with a glitch-free blitz through the classic title Earthbound.
Speedrunners have already torn 'Prey' apart
Bethesda's Prey reboot has been out for less than a week and already players are posting some truly insane speedruns. Arguably the best is a 19:34 dash posted by "DraQu" on YouTube. It's a mesmerizing playthrough that uses the GLOO Cannon -- an early weapon that can slow down enemies and create small platforming blocks -- to access areas that would normally take hours to unlock. There's some trickery involved, carefully placing foam boulders to clip through the environment and scale parts of the spaceship developer Arkane Studios never intended people to see. Still, it's all within the confines of the game -- technically DraQu isn't cheating.
How to get banned from Disney's Club Penguin in under 30 seconds
How do you get banned from Disney's tween-focused Club Penguin social network in under 30 seconds? Hacking. Tool-assisted speedruns have been around since the late '90s, showing off inhuman feats in games like Doom and Super Mario Bros. 3. Folks in the speedrunning community are pretty okay with it too, so long as your runs are clearly labeled as such. YouTube user Kevin Y found a way to capitalize on the zeitgeist and has employed a few scripts to get an account banned from Club Penguin (for swearing in chat) in under 30 seconds -- nine seconds faster than the current unassisted speedrun.
'Donkey Kong 64' player finds rare collectible 17 years later
The 3D platformer Donkey Kong 64 was lauded for its expansive worlds and multitude of well-hidden collectibles when it launched on the Nintendo 64 in 1999. Like many games of the era, it has enjoyed a peculiar afterlife as speedrunners blitz through it in record time under various conditions, like picking up each of the 976 banana coins found within. Unfortunately, all those completionist runs now seem to be invalid: 17 years after the game came out, streamer Isotarge has found a 977th coin.
Awesome Games Done Quick's charity video game marathon starts Sunday
Looking for a fun, exciting and altruistic way to kick off the new year? Try watching people beat a ton of classic video games at record speed for charity. Awesome Games Done Quick 2017 kick off on January 8th -- a week long speedrunning marathon that raises funds for charities like Doctors Without Borders and the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
How to beat 'Super Mario Bros. 3' in two seconds flat
We're actually pretty okay with AI winning at "Go," but when it's beating Super Mario Bros. 3 in mere seconds, it's time to be worried. ais523, an expert on game "speedruns," noticed that pressing a Nintendo NES's controller rapidly could allow him to insert new code. With help from the "tool-assisted speedrun (TAS)" community, he used a Nintendo robot called "TASBot" to virtually mash the button up to 6,000 times a second. With just the right pattern, he got through Super Mario 3 in seconds, to the delight of Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) 2016 speedrun fans.
Watch your favorite games quickly conquered for charity here!
It's the long holiday weekend, we're smack dab in the middle of the summer drought for big game releases and you want to make it to Tuesday with all your fingers intact. That basically rules out lighting fireworks or playing a new game. And, let's face it, the chances of you actually playing anything you bought during the Steam summer sale are slim, at best. What's there to do? How about plopping down and watching a ton of video games beaten in record time, for charity?
Watch Stephen Colbert challenge a 'Super Mario' speedrunner
You've probably seen video game speed runs before, but on a major TV channel? Not likely... until now. In what appears to be a first for nationwide US TV, The Late Show's Stephen Colbert ran a segment that pitted a speedrunner (Super Mario Bros. 3 expert Mitch Fowler) against Colbert and the Columbia University men's relay team to see who could complete their respective goals the fastest. We won't spoil the results here, but it's surreal to see talk of warp whistles on a show that normally revolves around celebrity chats and musical guests. And while the challenge was ultimately a promo for Summer Games Done Quick's 2016 launch on July 3rd, we won't knock it -- it's pretty rare for TV to introduce a longstanding game subculture to such a wide audience.
