People watching, not playing, video games is more significant than you think

What gamers are talking about, boiled down, in 1:24 minutes.

What’s being boiled down today?

Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ), an organization that has raised over $25 million for cancer research over the past 11 years, has kicked off.

Yes dad, people actually like watching others play video games

What’s the fuss?

AGDQ has officially begun, with speedrunners all over the world broadcasting their talents from home to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, an organization solely dedicated to the early detection and prevention of cancer.

The situation

Simply, speedrunning is when a player tries to beat the game as fast as possible. Realistically, it’s a beautiful art form where speedrunners one up each other using strategies and glitches that shave off milliseconds in order to beat their peers. Imagine Super Mario 64 that usually takes 20.5 hours to complete beaten in 1 hour and 38 minutes, or an entire Pokémon game that takes on average 27 hours beaten in 1 hour and 45 minutes. It’s not just speedruns, these gamers are performing other extremely impressive feats like beating games blindfolded.

Similar to a live musician or a late show host — any mess ups that occur can’t be taken back. Thus, this high risk high reward gameplay gets spectators hooked, which is why AGDQ is such a big event every year. Last year, more than 2,750 people attended in person and more than 236,000 viewers watched concurrently on Twitch. This year, with the event happening entirely from home, already $372,611 has been raised by viewers in just 2 days!

Boiling it down

Ever since the advent of live-streaming video platforms such as Twitch, video games have exploded not just as an interactive sport but as a spectator sport. Compounded by the rapid rise of esports, Twitch enjoys an average concurrent viewer base of over 1.4 million, which apexes MSNBC and CNN. Streamers on these platforms have been regarded as full out celebrities in their own right, even appearing on magazine covers.

Video game spectating has truly become a large industry vertical and it’s not going anywhere. Next time you see someone watching a video game instead of playing it, it’s absolutely normal behavior.

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