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 successfully raised over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, exceeding the previous year's total by over $100,000. This annual winter event, organized by Games Done Quick (GDQ), featured an exciting lineup of speedruns from games such as Crazy Taxi, Super Metroid, and various other titles across multiple genres.

Awesome Games Done Quick, held each January, is one of two major GDQ events each year, with the other being Summer Games Done Quick in July. GDQ also hosts smaller events like Frame Fatales and GDQ Express to keep the momentum going between marathons. In October 2024, GDQ organized an impromptu Disaster Relief Done Quick event in response to Hurricane Helene's impact across the Southeastern US. This quick-response event raised over $45,000 in just over two days for Direct Relief, a charity focused on providing emergency supplies, transportation, and medical aid to disaster-stricken areas.

As the new year kicked off, Awesome Games Done Quick 2025 made a significant impact by raising over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. This total was more than $100,000 higher than the funds raised at AGDQ 2024. The Prevent Cancer Foundation's mission centers on early cancer detection and prevention, as well as funding research and outreach programs. AGDQ has a long-standing partnership with the foundation, having raised over $26 million across multiple GDQ events. The 2025 event, held in Pittsburgh, began with a swift run of the Switch version of Pikmin by speedrunner Ray0ken, completed within an hour.

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

One of the standout moments of AGDQ 2025 was the run of Crazy Taxi, a beloved Dreamcast game. Typically, streaming Crazy Taxi is challenging due to its copyrighted music, which could lead to muting or Twitch takedowns. However, at AGDQ, speedrunner Chuckles825 was joined by a live band that performed the game's music in sync with the gameplay. This innovative approach to the 18-minute Crazy Taxi run resulted in an impressive $24,000 in donations.

The final event of AGDQ 2025 was a thrilling randomized, four-player race of the SNES classic, Super Metroid. The race concluded with an intense finish, as two of the runners, Eddie and Andy, completed the game within one second of each other. GDQ is set to return on July 6 with Summer Games Done Quick 2025 in Minneapolis, where they will raise funds for Doctors Without Borders.