The Summer Games Done Quick 2023, an online charity marathon, ended yesterday after raising $2.2M for Doctors Without Borders, an international non-profit organization. The live audience for this event saw a fall in viewership after almost remaining unchanged over the past three editions due to the absence of a few crucial regular channels.
Games Done Quick events see gamers from the world over demonstrate their skills in speedrunning popular games while aiming to raise money for charity. This year, speedruns were done in video game series like Sonic, Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda, and X-Men. However, speedruns for some titles (marked as Bonus Game) were only available if a certain amount of donations were raised.
The Summer Games Done Quick 2023 recorded 78K Peak Viewers, 8.7M Hours Watched, and 53K Average Viewers over an airtime of 164 hours. Readers must remember that it was broadcast not only on the main English channel but also on the secondary channels of other languages, and these stats are from all the streams of the event put together.
The most popular game was Super Mario Maker 2, which beat out fellow classics like Elden Ring and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but not by much. These are some of the most legendary names in the video games industry and consistently bring in fans and viewers during events and exhibitions, so it is not surprising to find them atop such a list.
The entire top five was registered over the last two days of this charity showcase, with the top three happening on the final day, i.e., June 4. Another Mario game, Super Mario Bros., was fourth, while the top five was rounded out by Fire Emblem Engage, Nintendo's tactical role-playing game released earlier this year.
The Summer Games Done Quick 2023’s official English Twitch handle was the biggest one in terms of viewership stats, with most fans catching the action here. As a result, the audience left around 340K messages in its chat, while the active chatters number was 11K viewers, which meant a daily engagement rate of 1.5% from all viewers of the broadcasts.
All the most popular emotes used by watchers during the exhibition were from the host’s channel. GdqClap, which received 157K mentions, was the most used one, signaling it was popular among fans to celebrate or cheer an achievement or happening. It was so highly sought after that it almost beat the other four emotes in the top five list put together.
The Summer Games Done Quick 2023 did not match up to its previous editions in terms of viewership numbers. The organizers streamed it 24/7 on the Games Done Quick Twitch channel, with replays of all gaming sessions available on the official YouTube channel, but that did not help bring in more online watchers.
This was in keeping with a general trend where the numbers have more or less plateaued over the past few years, especially the post-pandemic period. Also, unlike the last few events, the official Spanish and Portuguese channels, which have helped pull in a lot of watchers from their respective regions, did not live broadcast the walkthroughs, which contributed to the dip in numbers for 2023.
The online marathon may have returned to the offline format, but it has not done better in terms of viewership stats. This usually happens with such series marathons, as audience interest remains high enough, as seen from the amount collected for charity. If any fan missed a broadcast or speedrun of their favorite game, they can find its replay here.
