Get a look at the event in the gallery
As I made my way to my second Awesome Games Done Quick speedrun marathon, I couldn’t help but smile. This is a collective of some of the most passionate participants in gaming, engrossed in a week-long 24/7 celebration of the hobby.
This event (AGDQ, hosted in the DC area) is a relatively small shindig on location, and if you can get in, you’ll probably find it to be a nice respite from the 20,000+ conventions as of late. There’s a casual gaming area, an arcade, the iconic main room (pictured above), and a tabletop section. But my favorite place to chill is probably the prep room, where all of the runners get ready for their streams on the floor. It’s crazy, as you can just waltz right in and see some of the best players in the world at any given game (I thought I was the only person who did speedruns for Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers on the NES).
Digitally GDQ keeps growing year over year, and they’ve hit well over 100,000 concurrent viewers, consistently, since the start of the event on their Twitch channel. They also intend to clear over a million dollars in donations for the Prevent Cancer Foundation…again. According to a rep for GDQ, they want to keep the DC event capped at a reasonable number and have no plans to move to another venue in the immediate future. Right now that cap is 1,600 people — last year it was 1,500.
Feel free to watch the stream below or check out the schedule here. AGDQ will be running throughout the weekend, ending late Saturday night/Sunday morning.
