Quick tip: if you’re supposed to be a charity organization, maybe try not to take all the attention away from the charity and put it on yourself. “Games Done Quick” is a video game speedrun marathon that holds a number of events throughout the year for charity. Speedrunning is like a race against the clock, who can finish the game the fastest.
It’s a hugely popular hobby, and people have tuned into “Games Done Quick” since its inception in 2010 to watch speedrunners beat games from “The Legend of Zelda” to “The Lion King: Simba’s Mighty Adventure” and raise money for charities like St. Jude’s and Doctors Without Borders.
What could be better? Watching video games for a good cause!
But like most hobbies these days, it didn’t take long for the radical left to infiltrate the “Games Done Quick” speedrunning community and twist it to their own ends.
The most recent example of the leftist rot comes from the list of banned games at 2023’s events. Fans looking to watch the newest Harry Potter game “Hogwarts Legacy” get the speedrun treatment were disappointed to learn that not only was that game banned, so was every single game from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!
“Hogwarts Legacy” has attracted a mountain of negative attention due to the supposed radical views of Harry Potter author and creator J.K. Rowling. Those radical views by the way are that men are men and women are women and you can’t just claim to be a woman because you feel like. Totally crazy stuff, I know. Other games on the banned games list include anything from the massively popular “Five Nights at Freddy’s” Series.
Scott Cawthon, the series creator, committed the mortal sin of donating to Republican candidates during the 2020 election cycle, including the big mean orange man himself, Donald Trump. Side note, Cawthon also donated to then-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, but to the radical leftists, anything to the right of Lenin is basically a Republican anyway.
So we have two video game series that are banned from a charity event based only on the politics of their creators and not on the games themselves. J.K. Rowling doesn’t show up in “Hogwarts Legacy” to tell wizards not to go to the witch’s bathroom.
Hilariously, there’s a “Games Done Quick” event called Femme Fatales that tries to spotlight female speedrunners, a demographic that is underrepresented in the community. There’s a bunch of dudes pretending to be girls participating, so it kinda just proves Rowling’s point. But that’s where “Games Done Quick” has really gone downhill: the politics is more important than the charity.
Take another example from “Games Done Quick’s” past.
The most recent “Amazing Games Done Quick” was supposed to be in person in Florida, but due to the event organizers whining about Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Covid-19 policies and Parental Rights Legislation, the event had to be moved online at cost to the organizers.
“Given [Florida]’s continued disregard for Covid-19’s dangers (including anti-mandate vaccination policies) and an increased aggression towards LGBTQ+ individuals, including the law colloquially known as ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ we do not believe it is a safe place for our community at this time,” they whined. “While the move to online will allow us to save some on expenses, we still have considerable costs to recover, we are looking to recover that money where possible, including with community support.”
What does this have to do with charity, again? It doesn’t. It’s another example to throw on the pile of things leftists ruin with their identity politics-obsessed nonsense.
And it’s starting to affect the bottom line, that is, actually making money for kids with cancer.
Following the announcement they were banning Harry Potter and “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “Games Done Quick” has had to do massive damage control on their social media pages by deleting comments critical of the decision. They’re also hemorrhaging followers, followers one might assume were planning on donating money to the event and the charity but who now might not.
That’s the big shame here. When “Games Done Quick” decides they want to be political, it isn’t the speedrunners or the gamers who suffer. It’s the charities!
The group was making plenty of money before they decided to become leftist propagandists, too. Each event ran up at least a million dollars for the kids with cancer, or the humanitarian missions. Now they’re losing support as people decide it’s just not worth it. What a shame.
To be fair to “Games Done Quick,” they have made a lot of money for charity. “Amazing Games Done Quick” 2023 made almost $2.7 million for charity. But that’s nearly $800,000 less than the year before. Combine that with the negative reception to the blatantly political move to ban Harry Potter games and it seems like we may be looking at even less money this year.
“Games Done Quick” started as a way to combine two positive things: gaming and charity. As the years have gone by, the gaming has taken a sideline to the politics, and the organization is now yet another mouthpiece for LGBT leftist ideology.
Can we have just one thing, one thing — that isn’t taken over by the radical left? I just want to game and help kids with cancer, man. I don’t need someone telling me I’m a bad guy for wanting to watch someone play a wizard game really really fast.
Douglas Blair is a producer and special correspondent with “O’Connor Tonight” on the Salem News Channel.
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