Gaming with a purpose: Summer Games Done Quick 2015

Hey everyone! Time for another majestic Friday post flown in on the wings of eagles, or something. This week has been a fantastic one for me, filled with lots of content creation and fun. However, something that has really put my week over the top has been being able to watch Summer Games Done Quick 2015. What's that you say? Well, I'm glad you asked!


You see, a few years ago, a group of gamers got together and decided it would be fun to have a marathon gaming session where they completed games as fast as they could and took donations for a charity from the people who watched. Like most great things, it started small but has mushroomed into a huge bi-annual event attracting game players from around the world, but professional and novice. 100% of the money donated goes straight to the charity being supported (currently it's Doctors Without Borders) and it's just generally a great time if you enjoy seeing exactly how broken some games can be.

It's a week long event that happens twice a year in which games of every ilk will be on display. Some of my personal favorites are always seeing some of my favorite role playing games being destroyed in an expedient fashion. Remember Earthbound? Well, it got blasted in about an hour and a half. That's not a typo folks. Now of course, it was what we call a glitched any % run. Meaning, it doesn't matter how you complete the game, you can skip areas of the game, don't have to pick up all the items, and can abuse in game bugs. Other speed running categories can include 100%, where you must pick up all the in game items and hit all areas, Glitchless, where you can't abuse any in game glitches to advance, and other incentive based prerequisites. These can be some of the most fun types of runs, because they can put ridiculous restrictions on the player, such as a Swordless Legend of Zelda run. You can complete the whole game, minus Ganon, without the starting sword. Amazing! (and super difficult) Want to see someone beat Mike Tyson blindfolded? We've got you covered.

mmmm, swag

As the event has grown, quite a swell of support has grown from different corporate sponsors and as such, special products have been made available supporting the marathon that are only available during it. There are special t-shirts available, wall art, and game bundles, of which some or ALL of the proceeds of the sales go directly to the charity as well. When you add in all of the viewer donations along with these proceeds, most of the marathons usually raise above a million dollars during the week of the event. Donating also enters you into random drawings for certain gamer swag, some of which is quite expensive or rare. So, overall, it's just a great thing all around.

This iteration of SGDQ began last weekend and will culminate on Saturday, August 1st with runs of Super Metroid (save the animals!) and Chrono Trigger. (100%, please!) So, if you haven't already checked it out, you still have time! Even if you don't really care much about games, it's still amazing to see people who have near godlike reaction times flying through these beautiful games at an insane pace. So, where can you watch it? Well, you can navigate over to www.gamesdonequick.com and watch from there or you can also catch it on www.twitch.tv. A warning though, turn the twitch chat OFF! It's generally a fairly toxic environment full of negativity and trolls! Anyways, it's great to see something good coming of gaming and I hope you agree and check it out! #GameOn!