The Summer Games Done Quick 2017 has officially wrapped up its speedrunning events, treating us to some of the quickest, most rapid-fire rounds of gameplay we've ever seen for the past week.
Summer Games Done Quick: Speedrun Bonanza Raises Huge Donations
The event was a wild success, setting quite a huge impact. The series of speedrun marathons raised $1,776,510.79 from 30,068 people in total, benefitting Doctors Without Borders.
According to the event's stats page, the biggest donation made was $20,300, with $59.14 as the average donation per user. This year's total donations exceed last year's $1.29 million, which is a pretty impressive achievement for the entire speedrunning community.
Summer Games Done Quick 2017 shook things up by letting viewers tell what streamers should do. For instance, people donated $2,740 if a player held an Emil plushie in one hand and played Nier: Automata with the other. This paved for some pretty interesting and creative playthroughs, which became all the more inspiring because of the charitable purpose behind the events.
Awesome Games Done Quick
For the uninitiated, Summer Games Done Quick is the second leg of the annual streaming events, preceded by Awesome Games Done Quick earlier this year, which raked in $2.2 million — over a million dollars higher than last year's numbers. Of course, this year's riotous achievements will only drive Games Done Quick to try and do better during next year's speedrunning marathons. We'll certainly keep our eyes peeled for 2018, in case any interesting mid-stream weirdness occurs.
Summer Games Done Quick involves streamers playing video games in a speedrun marathon. For the uninitiated, speedrunning is the process by which players try to complete a game in the fastest way possible: beating difficult bosses, completing collectibles, playing all levels, and more — in just mere hours, sometimes even minutes. This year's lineup of titles includes EarthBound, Nier: Automata, Super Mario 64, Halo: Combat Evolved, and more. You can head over to the official Games Done Quick YouTube channel to watch gameplay streams.
Held since 2010, Games Done Quick events have helped raise money for several charities, including Doctors Without Borders and the Prevent Cancer Foundation. All events are broadcast live via Twitch. It seems an ingenious way to make speedrunning productive, charitable, and, best of all — fun and wacky.
Thoughts about this year's Summer Games Done Quick speedrunning marathons? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
