Sarah Ford
Video-Game Marathon Raises $1.5-Million for Prevent Cancer Foundation
By Rebecca Koenig
For six days in early January, hundreds of young men and women in comfortable clothes gathered around television screens in a hotel outside of Washington, D.C. They had two objectives: to complete entire video games as quickly as possible and raise as much money as possible for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
The small nonprofit collected $1.5-million in donations during the 165-hour event, the sixth annual Awesome Games Done Quick video-game marathon.
The gathering draws gamers from around the world to play favorites like the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Tetris: the Grand Master. Rather than simply progress through levels, gamers competed in “speedrunning,” a style of play that requires advance planning and intimate knowledge of the details of each game.
Nearly 1,000 video-game fans took turns playing and watching in person, while 9.4 million viewers followed along via liveÂstream on twitch.tv, a site that makes video gaming a spectator event and made donations through the Games Done Quick website.
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