Games Done Quick speedrunners raised $400,000 for coronavirus relief

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Organizers said Corona Relief Done Quick was its most successful side event ever.

(Image credit: Games Done Quick)

The recently-concluded speedrunning extravaganza Corona Relief Done Quick was a big success, raising $400,000 to support Direct Relief, a charity organization working to provide personal protective equipment and other medical items to healthcare workers battling the COVID-19 outbreak. That figure is lower than the multi-million-dollar amounts raised by the long Awesome Games Done Quick and Summer Games Done Quick events—they each run for a week, while CRDQ was a 60-hour weekend fling—but the GDQ team said the total "marks a new high for our side event efforts."

Hitting that nice, round number was a "down to the wire" kind of thing:

"As always, 100% of the donations go directly to the charity. Direct Relief is coordinating with public health authorities, nonprofit organizations and businesses in the U.S. and globally to provide personal protective equipment and essential medical items to health workers responding to coronavirus (COVID-19)," GDQ said.

"We'd like to thank all the sponsors, donors, runners, and volunteers who helped make this event such a success! Although our event has ended, we hope that you continue to support the battle against COVID-19 in any way you can. Thank you for your support!"

If you've got a few days to kill, you can catch the whole show on GDQ's Twitch channel, and it appears that individual runs are also being uploaded to the GDQ YouTube channel. That'll take some time, but for now you can catch Halo: Combat Evolved in under an hour and a half, and a 34-minute Shovel Knight: King of Cards run—with explanations of why the speedrunners are doing what they do, which for me is the most interesting part of the process—down below.

The next big speedrunning festival, Summer Games Done Quick, is now scheduled to run August 16-23. Game submissions and on-site volunteer applications will be open April 29-May 9, and you can register to attend (passes are not sold on-site) from June 7-July 20. 

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Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.