Awesome Games Done Quick 2022 is over, but the online speedrunning charity event wrapped up its week-long run with a brand new, all-time record for any GDQ event, raising $3,422,122 across over 49,000 individual donations. It also reached a million dollars and two million dollars faster than any previous GDQ events.
Like last year, AGDQ 2022 was held online this year to keep everybody safe and healthy as the world struggles with the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. Participants streamed games from their own homes while viewers watched online and donated money to players for various reasons, including requesting character names and shoutouts. The event started Jan. 9 and ended earlier today.
And many, many people donated. According to stats shared by AGDQ staff, the average donation was $69 (nice) and the highest single donation was $236,656. All of this added up to $3.4 million. And like the folks speedrunning various games, the event reached this number very fast. It set records, reaching $1 million, $1.5 million, and $2 million faster than any previous GDQ event ever. For context: Last year’s event raised a still-impressive $2.7 million.
After doing this for over a decade, GDQ has now raised over $37 million for numerous charities, including Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders.
This year’s event saw some awesome runs over the past week. Someone beat Sekiro blindfolded and even beat some bosses without taking any damage. Another speedrunner set a new record in Sonic 4 dressed as the blue hedgehog himself. It should be noted that the outfit he wore was so cumbersome that if he set his controller down he would be unable to easily pick it up. Didn’t matter still set a new world record in the game.
AGDQ 2022 has uploaded all the speedruns onto its official YouTube channel, so you can easily watch any of these runs or countless other runs whenever you want. You can also still donate to the event.