When you can beat Ocarina of Time in less than 30 minutes, what’s cancer?
Awesome Games Done Quick is an event where speedrunners — players who try to beat games as quickly as possible — stream their playthroughs live via Twitch while taking donations for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. As you can see in the chart above, they pulled in an incredible $1.58 million in January.
The event also nearly doubled the amount of impressions (which counts every time someone opens the stream) from last year. It reached 29.2 million impressions from 9.4 million unique viewers.
This is just one example of gamers coming together to raise money for charity. Child’s Play, another gaming-centric charity, sends video games to patients in children’s hospitals. It has raised $40,319,801 since it started in 2003.
AGDQ started in 2012 and has grown every year since. It was an annual streaming event, but an additional speedrunning marathon is planned for this year. AGDQ’s next charity drive takes place this summer, although a firm date isn’t yet in place. Its proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders.