Via an official statement published on theGames Done Quickwebsite, the organization revealed its intention to make the upcoming AGDQ 2023 (Awesome Games Done Quick) speedrunning event an online-only endeavor. The plan had been to finally hold the event in person, after two consecutive years of having speedrunners participate remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The other of the two major annual events, SGDQ (Summer Games Done Quick), which occurred a few months ago in June, wereheld in person within a venue in Minnesota.
AGDQ 2023 was planned to take place in Florida; this was cited as the main reason why the live component was canceled. The organization stated that to provide a safe and welcoming environment for its participants, it needed to change its reserved location, however, due to the high cancelation fees incurred, GDQ could not afford another venue, and thus the event would have to be held online-only for the third year in a row.
RELATED:Amazon’s LOTR MMO Was Cancelled Due To Tencent Complications
Regarding why the organizers deemed Florida unsafe, COVID-19 was again a major factor. The organizers described the state as having a “disregard” for the disease’s dangers, specifically mentioning its anti-mandate vaccination policies. Furthermore, GDQ expressed that Florida wasn’t a safe place for its community because of “an increased aggression towards LGBTQ+ individuals, including the law colloquially known as ‘Don’t Say Gay’.”
Games Done Quick, an entity originally formed by Quake speedrunners, is the largest video game speedrunning organization in the world. The group hosts two annual events, SGDQ and AGDQ, holds a multitude of speedrunning competitions for a surprisingly wide variety of games. Though the players do it partly for the love of the game, the event’s main purpose is to raise money for charity. Each event often raises over 1 million USD, which is donated to organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
AGDQ being held online yet again is unlikely to have a very detrimental effect as the organizers and its attendees have been doing this for two years straight already. However, there may be a heightened level of skepticism due towhat happened this past June. Though SGDQ 2022 was held in person, foreign speedrunners could participate by streaming themselves online, and a user by the name of Mekazarium faked their speedrun by playing a video and pretending to play. A GDQ organizer expressed their concerns that remote runs would now be “tainted” for many.
