Games Done Quick (GDQ) has been a cornerstone of speedrunning marathons for 14 years, raising an astonishing $50 million in charity funds. Despite this monumental total sum, the median donation to GDQ remains at just $25. The organization's success can be attributed to a vast and dedicated community of fans, volunteers, and staff members who come together to make each event a reality.

At its core, technology plays a crucial role in producing each event. Jason Deng, Director of Technology at GDQ, oversees almost every department and is responsible for the network stack and servers that enable the stream to run smoothly. "Redundancy" was a word that consistently came up during my conversation with him, emphasizing the importance of having multiple systems in place to ensure the stream remains live even in the event of technical issues.

GDQ's history dates back to 2010, when it started unofficially as a few friends getting together and streaming classic games at an incredible pace. The first event raised over $10,000 for human rights organization CARE, setting the stage for future events that have continued to break records. Today, GDQ hosts two main events each year: Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) in the winter and Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) in the summer.

Both AGDQ and SGDQ focus on raising money for specific charities: AGDQ supports the Prevent Cancer Foundation, while SGDQ raises funds for Doctors Without Borders. However, GDQ also hosts other events throughout the year, such as Frame Fatales, which showcases all-women speedrunners, and Unapologetically Black and Fast, an event focused on all-black speedrunners.

One of the most popular smaller streamed events is Speedruns from the Crypt, but that's just one example of the many initiatives that GDQ has undertaken to improve its operations. Behind the scenes, the organization's technical team works tirelessly to ensure that each event runs smoothly. Jason Deng and his team are responsible for managing the network stack and servers, ensuring that the stream remains live even in the event of technical issues.

GDQ needs to rely on the hotel's internet connection, which is why redundancy is such an essential aspect of their operations. The organization has a cellular backup system in place to keep the stream alive, as well as uninterruptible power supplies to ensure that everything continues running for as long as possible if electricity fails. This has been put to the test on several occasions, but GDQ's technical team remains vigilant and proactive in preventing any issues from arising.

Despite the many challenges of hosting a 7-day, 24-hour-a-day stream, problems are relatively few and far between. As Jason Deng notes, "it's clear that the format works," and it's this dedication to delivering an exceptional experience for both viewers and participants that has made GDQ a beloved institution in the speedrunning community.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en$50 million. That is an unimaginable amount of money, but in the 14 years that Games Done Quick,  or GDQ, has been holding speedrunning marathons, that's how much money it's raised for charity.  Despite such a monumental total sum, GDQ says its median donation is just $25. It's millions of  people, from eager fans to devoted volunteers and tight-knit staff, that make the biannual marathon  stream happen. It certainly doesn't happen on its own. Twice a year, GDQ holds an event that  runs for 7 days, 24 hours per day, which is not only shown live to an audience sometimes in the  thousands but also streamed live on Twitch for millions more. I talked with Jason Deng,  Director of Technology at GDQ, to understand just how much goes into producing each event. As the  Director of Technology at GDQ, he oversees almost every department. Although runners,  fans, and volunteers make up the soul of GDQ, technology is at the core of the operation,  and it has been since GDQ's inception. Let me back up for a minute, though. Games Done Quick  started unofficially in 2010, organized by Mike Uyama. At the time, it wasn't much more  than a few friends getting together and streaming them playing classic games really fast. Despite  some technical problems and 2010-era streaming sensibility, it was clear that the format worked.  At that first event, GDQ raised over $10,000 for humanitarian organization CARE, and it hasn't  stopped since. GDQ now hosts two main events each year: Awesome Games Done Quick, or AGDQ, that  raises money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation in the winter, and SGDQ, or Summer Games Done Quick,  that raises money for Doctors Without Borders in the summer. Although these main events are the  star of the show, GDQ hosts events throughout the year, including Frame Fatales, which is  an event focused on all-women speedrunners, and Unapologetically Black and Fast, which is an event  focused on all-black speedrunners. There's also a revolving door of smaller streamed events live  on the Games Done Quick Twitch channel each week. For recommendations, my favorite is Speedruns from  the Crypt, but there's been a clear focus since the first event to make GDQ better, improving the  in-person event and the stream to turn it into the behemoth it is today. And behind the scenes, it  is quite the operation. Now, Deng oversees a lot of the tech at each GDQ event, but he's directly  responsible for the network stack and the servers. GDQ needs to use the hotel's internet, but one  word consistently came up during my conversation with him: redundancy. Although problems are few  and far between, hopefully there's a full system in place to keep the stream running if needed.  That includes a cellular backup to keep the stream live, as well as a string of uninterruptible power  supplies that can keep everything running for a while if electricity fails. That has been put to  the test, too. Still, problems are bound to come up with a stream that's running around the clock  for a week. Thankfully, there is a minimum setup that's required to keep the stream live, which  will display GDQ's technical difficulty screen that reads, \"This has never happened before.\" If  everything goes wrong, there is a live view that GDQ can feed directly into the stream. Now, there  is an in-person component of GDQ, but keeping the stream live is the first priority. After all,  GDQ is a fundraising event for charity, and the majority of donations come through the stream,  those donations being made directly to the charity that GDQ is supporting. The in-person component  does complicate the tech a bit more, though. In person, GDQ is dealing with decades worth  of consoles, dozens of runners with their own needs and input methods, live and streamed audio,  and tight turnaround times to get one runner off the stage and get the next one set up. In previous  years, GDQ only had a single stage. When a runner was finished, the stream would cut to an overlay,  and 12 to 15 minutes would pass before the next run would start. The tech team also  maintains a stock of consoles, particularly retro consoles, that have been modded for  modern display systems. GDQ takes RGB colors out through SCART, an old analog video connection,  runs them through a RetroTINK converter, and then feeds an HDMI matrix. The matrix is able to output  signals to the stream and to the various monitors that GDQ has set up, both for runners and for the  in-person audience. It's an elaborate setup, but GDQ isn't able to just take a video feed  and call it a day. It needs computing power to run its complex overlays and encode the stream  without any downtime. There are three computers that GDQ is using, all running AMD's Threadripper  CPUs. There's a compositing computer that handles the different elements on screen,  an encoding computer that keeps the stream looking clean, and a recording computer that  keeps archives of the marathon. Today, GDQ has moved toward enterprise-grade hardware to keep  everything running smoothly 24 hours a day, but it wasn't always that way. In more recent events,  GDQ has actually combined some of its PCs and put them into server racks to reduce the space they  take up. Although GDQ has plenty of redundancy, modded consoles, and all the server hardware you  could want now, it still has tech challenges to face. The most recent hurdle has been,  of all things, gaming monitors. You see, runners have been calling for higher refresh rates.  That's not only due to the smoothness but also because certain tricks in speedruns in the game,  like \"A Link to the Past,\" for example. There is a trick that allows you to zip across the map,  and it works best at 120 frames per second. You need to be able to see all that if you're running  the game. Now, GDQ can't just buy a bunch of high refresh rate monitors and throw them at the  problem. There's a lot more that goes into it when you're thinking specifically about speedrunning.  TheOmniGamer, author of the excellent book \"Speedrun Science\"—if you're interested in this,  definitely check out that book—actually ran a series of pretty intense tests to determine  what the best monitors to use would be, and the organization settled on some combination of some  older BenQ displays and newer ViewSonic monitors. Deng says that these higher refresh rates have  even replaced the need for heavy, super-expensive, and super-hard-to-repair CRT televisions for retro  games in many cases. Now, make no mistake, an event like GDQ truly takes an army. You have  different departments of tech from the stream to the stage, stage managers and producers, a list of  hosts and interviewers, and all of the volunteers that come together to get the work done. Still,  there's a lot of pressure with a rat's nest of cables, dozens of staff and volunteers,  endless racks of equipment, and a stream that holds millions of dollars for charity  on its back. There's pressure to keep everything running. Despite that pressure, Deng says that the  community surrounding GDQ is what really keeps it going. Now, at the time this video was going live,  Summer Games Done Quick has just wrapped up, but you can watch all the archives on the GDQ  YouTube channel and catch its weekly streams on Twitch. The next major GDQ event isn't far off,  though we don't have exact dates, but it should take place in the winter. But in the meantime,  thank you so much for watching. Make sure to leave a like on this video and get subscribed.  This isn't our typical content, but this was a ton of fun to do as someone who's been  watching GDQ for years. So, thank you guys so much. I will see you in the next video.\n"