A Guide To AGDQ 2023 — Which Speedruns To Watch, And When

Another year is here, and with it comes another Awesome Games Done Quick — the annual speedrunning charity marathon that raises millions of dollars for worthwhile causes each year.

With speedrunning as the theme, let’s get stuck into our guide to the event ASAP:

A Guide To AGDQ 2023

Where and when to watch AGDQ 2023

AGDQ ’23 runs from 12:30pm on Sunday, January 8th through to the finale at 2:49am on Sunday, January 15th.

You can watch AGDQ live in the following places:

You can also find the VODs on YouTube.

What is AGDQ?

Here’s how their website describes the event:

Games Done Quick (GDQ) is a series of charity video game fundraising events featuring high-level gameplay. To date, GDQ has raised over 37 million dollars for charity.

AGDQ is run at the start of the year, and SGDQ (Summer Games Done Quick) is held in… you guessed it… the Summer. Each one features hundreds of speedruns from some of the best speedrunners in the business, and while there aren’t usually any world record-breaking runs during the streams, you still get to see some incredible talent on show, usually accompanied by a knowledgeable commentator.

Alongside the speedruns, there are also competitions for viewers, skits, and prizes to be won.

Which speedruns should I watch?

Well, we tend to be biased towards Nintendo games, but Nintendo games also tend to make the most exciting speedruns anyway, so here’s our list (all times in ET, but the schedule will automatically detect your timezone):

Anything bold and underlined indicates our ultimate picks — if you watch nothing else, watch these!

Sunday January 8th

Monday January 9th

• Superliminal All Collectables — 9:36am
• Portal Airboat% — 7:11pm
• Fable Anniversary Any% — 11:11am

You can check the schedule for yourself here on the GDQ site.

How can I watch speedruns that I missed?

AGDQ keeps all the VODs (the recordings) of each speedrun on its YouTube channel. It takes a while to edit and process these videos, so you can expect the YouTube uploads to be at least a day behind the live schedule.

Here’s the Breath of the Wild speedrun from the first day of AGDQ 2023:

What charity is AGDQ in support of this year?

The Prevent Cancer Foundation, which you can read more about here.

How do I donate to PCF/support AGDQ?

There are plenty of ways to donate to the chosen charity and/or support AGDQ. Here they are:

Donate to charity

Support GDQ

What do I get for donating?

Based on how much you donate, you can be entered into sweepstakes to win prizes, with each prize requiring a threshold amount to enter — this could be as low as $5 or $10, or as high as hundreds of dollars. The pirzes are often either handmade or donated by viewers, and some of them are really gorgeous collector’s items. The full list of prizes and entry thresholds can be found here.

You can also put your donation towards an incentive. These are usually “votes” for something in a game on the schedule — like voting to kill or spare a particular character, wear a particular costume, or putting your support in for a bonus game that will be played if the goal is met in time. Some incentive votes are write-ins, which means anyone can vote for anything (with their money). Right now, there’s a bunch of people bidding on character names, language choices, and Pokémon names. You can see all the incentives, bids, and votes right here.

If you subscribe to the GDQ Twitch channel, you’ll get 64 custom emotes, sub badges, and all the other usual Twitch perks like channel points and ad-free watching.

Which speedruns are in your diary for this year’s GDQ? Tell us in the comments! Happy watching, and may the RNG be ever in your favour.