Awesome Games Done Quick, the annual speedrunning gaming marathon, concluded in the early hours of Sunday morning at the Wyndham Grand Hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh after a week of gameplay. It’s the second year the event has come to Pittsburgh.
The spectacle of speedrunning grips viewers all around the globe tuning in to the games according to Games Done Quick’s director of operations, Matt Merkle. Speedrunners attempt to beat their respective video games as quickly as possible either by exploiting game glitches or by executing games perfectly. Donations from viewers unlock further challenges and restrictions, increasing difficulty for competitors. The marathons have been raising money for charities for 15 years during the annual winter and summer events.
One featured speedrunner during this year’s Pittsburgh event known as Dr. Doot used a Roland Aerophone (an electric wind instrument) programmed to work as a game controller to help him amass an online following that earned him celebrity speedrunner status.
Doot explained that, aside from the small control stick on the back of his instrument, “Everything else in the game is controlled, I say, ‘one doot at a time,’ where I play one note that corresponds to a button press in game.”
He added that speedrunning showed him the importance of alternative controllers when it comes to accessibility in gaming.
“Finding out about alternative ways of playing these games — either a saxophone, some people play them on like a DDR [Dance Dance Revolution] dance pad, you can play on Guitar Hero controllers, that sort of thing — it actually opened up this world of like, people actually need alternate controllers to play some of these games and to enjoy these games.”
The weeklong event benefited the Prevent Cancer Foundation, with donations coming in from viewers all over the globe watching the 24/7 Twitch livestream.
The cancer foundation’s CEO Jody Hoyos said when Games Done Quick began working with Prevent Cancer 14 years ago, they received around $10,000 in donations. This year, Awesome Games Done Quick raised $2,556,305 to support the foundation’s research funding.
“The energy, the positivity, the support of this community is unlike anything I've ever experienced before,” Hoyos says. “It is truly a place where people lift each other up in all ways and so beyond their technical capabilities and what they're doing in video gaming — what they're doing to actually give back to the world and individually give back to each other is something that I look forward to every year.”
