Summer Games Done Quick Online 2021 will kick off tomorrow, July 4 and speedrun through the week till July 11. The highly anticipated yearly event brings together some of the best speedrunners to raise money for charity. Viewers can pledge their desired amount, of which one hundred percent will go to Doctors Without Borders this year.
This year’s show will feature a speedrun Ghosts ‘N Goblins Resurrection by TheMexicanRunner, a perfect-score GeoGuessr playthrough by havrd, a four-way Ristar race between chronoon, Lizstar, ShimeGabriel, and Haram_Scaram, a blindfolded run of Super Mario 64 by Bubzia, and a Super Metroid race between Oatsngoats, Behemoth87, and ShinyZeni.
RELATED: AGDQ Online Was A Huge Success, But Its Return To Onsite Events Will Be Bigger Than Ever
As with all on-ground events since the start of the pandemic, Summer Games Done Quick will be a fully online event. In the past, the show featured a live audience along with the speedrunners as well as the presenters. The online event might lack the charm of watching the speedrunners break the games in person, but the precaution is understandable and appreciated.
Last year, Games Done Quick managed to raise $2.3 million for charity and the team will be hoping to top that amount this year. The event has partnered with organisations such as AbleGamers, Organization for Autism Research, and Prevent Cancer Foundation in the past.
Last year’s event was postponed as a result of the pandemic, but a new event called Corona Relief Done Quick was scheduled for July 2020. The event brought speedrunners together for an online-only show, taking contributions for Direct Relief, an organization that provides assistance to health workers and authorities during such times.
SGDQ 2020 was one of the first major video gaming events to be postponed due to the pandemic. The year saw almost every event either skip the year, get postponed, or go all-digital. While these events were forced to go online, we did miss the charm of attending them physically. However, this has made a lot of organizers take a second look at how to set up these events.
For instance, Stanley Pierre-Louis, CEO and President of the Entertainment Software Association, said that future E3 shows will probably be a hybrid of physical and digital events.
