Games Done Quick, the semiannual speedrun charity event, returned for its Summer edition on June 30 of this year. It lasted until July 7, during which time SGDQ 2024 held over 150+ speedruns, received over $2.57M USD in donations, and collected over 8.2M Hours Watched. This edition was not GDQ’s most-watched nor its most donated to, but it ended an unfortunate trend of falling viewership for the charity event series.
Games Done Quick has been a staple of livestreaming since 2010, building up a reputation through its two yearly livestreamed marathons: Awesome Games Done Quick and Summer Games Done Quick. The event rapidly gained popularity through the 2010s, but the series had a complicated relationship with the pandemic. GDQ were forced to host virtual events for more than two years, which had a serious effect on its viewership.
The last GDQ iteration before the pandemic, AGDQ 2020, was their most popular event ever, reaching 263K Peak Viewers. Throughout their run of virtual events, viewership consistently fell for GDQ, but viewership isn’t the most important metric for the GDQ crew. While viewership fell, donations were not hindered during the pandemic. The current record for total donated during a GDQ event is held by GDQ 2022, which raised more than $3.44M for charity.
Summer Games Done Quick 2024 was home to stable but not record-breaking donations and a positive viewership dynamic compared to last year’s SGDQ. SGDQ 2023 was the least popular ADQ event on record according to Esports Charts, who have been tracking viewership for the series since Summer 2017, but now GDQ are finding their footing again in a post-pandemic livestreaming industry.
Summer Games Done Quick 2024 Viewership Statistics
Summer Games Done Quick 2024 reached 88.6K Peak Viewers during the tail-end of its Super Metroid Any% race. The race featured four of the top speedrunners for this category: Zeni, ARealCutie, Imyt, and Oats, the current world record holder with a time of 40 minutes and 36 seconds. The event made Super Metroid the most popular game of SGDQ 2024 by peak viewership.
Across a massive 159 hours of total broadcasting time, which was collected almost non-stop throughout the week, the Summer Games Done Quick 2024 event generated 8.21M Hours Watched. Although the 2024 charity video games marathon recorded a slightly more peak concurrent viewers than the previous year, 8.21M HW makes the Summer 2024 iteration the least-watched SGDQ and GDQ event in general, excluding special short events.
Although a grim tag line, things are not completely dire for GDQ. The event raised more than $2.57M for charity, which surpassed all the milestones set by the GDQ crew. Summer Games Done Quick 2024 generated more donations for charity than both Awesome Games Done Quick 2024, and last year’s SGDQ.
The pandemic had a serious effect on GDQ’s viewership, and they are only now starting to recover from this. Viewership stabilising is a step forward from falling viewership on a yearly basis, and the event series is now placed to continue to grow again and decide its future in the post-pandemic industry.
The SGDQ event was broadcast on several channels. The main English-language broadcast GamesDoneQuick is the most popular, but the GDQ team also organised Japanese, French, German, Spanish, and Russian-language restreams of the event. For these most-watched games statistics, we have included the viewership of only the main English-language broadcast.
In terms of hours of watch time, Super Mario World was the most-watched game at the event. Nintendo games in general were extremely beloved by viewers, but the retro classic stood out above the rest with 316K Hours Watched. The run was a Super Mario World Kaizo Relay Race, an extra difficult modded version of the game which featured many of the most popular speedrunners of the title. It was followed by Super Mario RPG, which received 214K Hours Watched for its run.
Pokémon Black/White Version 2 received 208K Hours Watched for the White 2 Any% run by TTS4life, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was close behind with 207K HW for its hectic co-op randomizer run. Lufia II: Rise of Sinistrals, Kingdom Hearts II, and Elden Ring all received sizeable viewership for their respective any% runs, followed by Wacca Reverse and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.
Metroid Fusion took the final place on our rankings with 104K Hours Watched. Not to be confused with Super Metroid, which was the most popular game by peak viewership, Metroid Fusion managed to snag the last spot thanks to a lengthy 100% completion run. Many of the games in this top 10 benefited from lengthier runs compared to other games, and Super Mario World stood at the top, with GamesDoneQuick broadcasting it for over 5 hours total on Twitch.
GamesDoneQuick are finding their place in a post-pandemic livestreaming sphere, and their viewership may have been adjusted as part of this process. After more than 14 years of history, the charity speedrunning event is going strong, and still capturing the attention of millions of viewers with their biannual events.
