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Awesome Games Done Quick 2018 Finishes with Record $2.2M Raised for Charity

Awesome Games Done Quick 2018 is over and the final donation total for the Prevent Cancer Foundation is a new record for the event.

Ozzie Mejia

January 14, 2018 11:00 AM

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Awesome Games Done Quick 2018 has wrapped up. The final speed run of the weekend was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which concluded at roughly 2AM PT early Sunday morning. And the event finished with more money raised than ever for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

The current donation total stands at $2,263,965.41, which is a new record for all Games Done Quick events. These factor in donations sent in via the Games Done Quick website. They do not, however, include donations via Twitch channel subscription, T-shirt sales from The Yetee, or other methods.

Initially, there was some concern from long-time Games Done Quick viewers following the news that Super Metroid would miss its first GDQ event. There was some thought that without the "Save/Kill the Animals" incentive, the event would lose a chunk of donations. This did not turn out to be the case, as donors turned out in droves for other donation incentives, like the single-controller simultaneous Punch-Out!!/Super Punch-Out!! run, the Dark Souls III Any% No Teardrop run, and the Super Dram World 2 ROM hack run.

Also, there was this TASBot run of Super Dram World 2, where it made Mario go full Cappy.

The $2.2M+ total raised by AGDQ 2018 surpasses Games Done Quick's previous record, set during Awesome Games Done Quick 2017. There, the organization raised $2,222,790.52. This year also marks the second consecutive year that Awesome Games Done Quick amassed over $1 million in donations on the final day of the event, largely behind the strength of the Blizzard Games block, the From Software block, the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past randomizer race, and Super Mario World Cape-less race.

The final moments of the event were bittersweet, as it was announced that this would be the final Awesome Games Done Quick from the Holiday Inn Dulles Airport Hotel in Sterling, VA. Awesome Games Done Quick had been held in this venue since its inception, but will now move to a new, currently unknown home for 2019.

Games Done Quick will return on June 24 with Summer Games Done Quick 2018 set to take place in Bloomington, MN.

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?