AGDQ 2025: Over $2.5M Raised for Charity

Summary

• Awesome Games Done Quick 2025 raised over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, surpassing the 2024 total by $100,000.
• The organization's mission is focused on early cancer detection and prevention, along with funding research and outreach programs.
• The 18-minute Crazy Taxi run stole the show, raising over $24,000 in donations.

From January 5 to January 13, the Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) 2025 event raised over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, exceeding the 2024 event's total by over $100,000. The annual Games Done Quick (GDQ) winter event was highlighted by speedruns from games such as Crazy Taxi, Super Metroid, and other titles across multiple genres.

Held each January, Awesome Games Done Quick is one of two mainline events GDQ hosts throughout the year, with Summer Games Done Quick being its July marathon. GDQ also regularly hosts smaller events such as Frame Fatales and GDQ Express to fill the gaps between marathons. In October 2024, GDQ hosted an impromptu Disaster Relief Done Quick event in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene across the Southeastern US. In just over two days, Disaster Relief Done Quick raised over $45,000 in donations to Direct Relief, a charity that specializes in providing emergency supplies, transportation, and medical response to areas affected by natural disasters and disease.

With the new year underway, Awesome Games Done Quick raised a remarkable amount of money for cancer research. From January 5 to January 13, AGDQ 2025 raised over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. The $2.5 million total was over $100,000 more than the previous AGDQ 2024 event. According to the Prevent Cancer Foundation, the organization's mission is focused on early cancer detection and prevention, along with funding research and outreach programs. AGDQ 2025 was far from the first time that Games Done Quick and PCF had teamed up, as the speedrunning event has helped raise over $26 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation across multiple GDQ runs. AGDQ 2025 took place in Pittsburgh and was kicked off by a run of the Switch version of Pikmin by speedrunner Ray0ken, which was completed within an hour.

Awesome Games Done Quick 2025 Raises Over $2.5 Million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation

One of the unique highlights of AGDQ 2025 was a run of Crazy Taxi, one of the Dreamcast's top titles. Although Crazy Taxi's gameplay lends itself towards quick runs, its use of copyrighted music makes streaming the game nearly impossible without either muting the game or risking a takedown by Twitch. At AGDQ, speedrunner Chuckles825 was accompanied by a live band that covered music from Crazy Taxi in tandem with the gameplay. The 18-minute Crazy Taxi run raised over $24,000 in donations.

AGDQ 2025's final event was a randomized, four-player race of the SNES classic Super Metroid, which saw two of the runners, Eddie and Andy, finish within one second of each other. GDQ will return on July 6, as the organization will host Summer Games Done Quick 2025 in Minneapolis for Doctors Without Borders.