• News

Summer Games Done Quick 2022 raises over $3M in on-site return

Summer Games Done Quick 2022 has raised over $3 million for Doctors Without Borders in its first live marathon since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ozzie Mejia

July 3, 2022 1:07 AM

Image: @GamesDoneQuick

4

Summer Games Done Quick 2022 was a special event for many reasons. First and foremost, it was the first one since 2020 since GDQ returned to a live week-long fundraiser. SGDQ 2022 did indeed spend the last week in its old stomping grounds in Bloomington, Minnesota raising money for charity. The week just wrapped up and SGDQ 2022 finished with a total of $3,016,687 raised for Doctors Without Borders.

This year's total surpassed the $2.9 million raised during SGDQ 2021, though it's slightly less than the record-breaking $3.41 million raised during Awesome Games Done Quick earlier this year. Getting to the $3 million milestone took some work. In fact, the GDQ crew offered one final Any% run of Elden Ring if they could pass the $3 million mark. Even with the addition of proceeds from Twitch Bits donated throughout the week, GDQ Twitch channel subscriptions, and purchases from GDQ partners, such as The Yetee and Fangamer, viewers weren't able to unlock that last Elden Ring run until the very end of the marathon. It took one final push, nearly 15 minutes following the end of the initial Elden Ring run, for donors to make up the final $100,000.

Summer Games Done Quick took some time to find its footing, but was able to raise a substantial portion of its final total during the last two days of the event. The event also started to gradually fall behind schedule over the course of the week, but was able to recover in time for the event's biggest runs like Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Metroid Dread, Super Mario Maker 2, and the aforementioned Elden Ring.

Summer Games Done Quick as an in-person event wasn't always a certainty, as the GDQ team cited uncertainty due to the continuing spread of the COVID-19 omicron variant. The decision to go live wasn't made until early March with the event featuring both live and virtual runners. COVID-19 vaccinations and masks were required to attend the event.

The end of Summer Games Done Quick also marks the end of an era. After serving as GDQ Director of Marketing and Business Development (as well as various other roles) for the past eight years, this is the final Games Done Quick event for Kasumi "Sumichu" Yogi, who said her goodbyes both during Saturday's event recap and the SGDQ finale at the end of the broadcast. She also helped lead the crowd in the final march to $3 million. GDQ has grown substantially during Sumichu's time with the team, having expanded into regularly-scheduled content through GDQ Hotfix and side events like the all-woman Frame Fatales. The next Frame Fatales event, Flame Fatales is set to run from August 21-27 and will raise money for Malala Fund.

As for what else is next for GDQ, there is no date for Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 just yet. Look for more information on that in the weeks ahead. Likewise, whether GDQ will return to TwitchCon, which itself is returning to live events, remains to be seen. For more, you can visit Games Done Quick on YouTube and the Games Done Quick website.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?