The Australian Speedrun Marathon (ASM) is paving the way for charity raising through video games, and will return to Adelaide July 16 – 21 with the aim of supporting cancer research.
ASM follows Games Done Quick (GDC), the world’s premiere video game charity event that airs on the streaming platform Twitch, which recently concluded this year’s marathon with over US$2.5 million raised for Doctors Without Borders.
GDC has been running since 2010 and has inaugurated “speedrunning” as the de facto format for charity raising through video games.
Though the concept of completing a video game as fast as possible has been around since video games have existed, the speedrunning subculture gained traction in the 1990s with gamers trying to set records for the lowest completion time for a given video game.
For example, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a game that takes almost forty hours on average to complete, but speedrunner “CountLG” was able to complete it in under four minutes using shortcuts, player movement techniques, and exploits.
The classic game Minesweeper has its expert level currently sitting at a world record of 26 seconds set by player “JZE”, who used accurate mouse-clicks and a deep knowledge of how the game functions to set the remarkable time.
The upcoming ASM will include a variety of games, including The Legend of Zelda, Mario Kart, and Undertale, with participants vying to reach the lowest completion time.
Hosted by AusSpeedruns, ASM has operated since 2015 and is Australia’s biggest speedrun marathon.
“[ASM2024 is] our tenth annual event and the biggest celebration of the Australian speedrunning community to date,” said AusSpeedruns representative Stephen Philp in a press release.
AusSpeedruns has a presence at several prominent Australian gaming events such as The Game Expo 2024, where they raised A$6,000, DreamHack 2024, where they raised A$10,000, and PAX Aus, which last year raised A$18,000.
ASM will be donating this year’s proceeds to the initiative group Game on Cancer, a branch of the charity organisation Cure Cancer.
Cure Cancer has given out over 560 grants to scientists in their pursuits of cancer research, while AusSpeedruns has put together over $160,000 for different Australian charities, including Beyond Blue and the Australian Red Cross.
“Last year at ASM2023, the incredible AusSpeedruns community raised more than $35,000,” said Cure Cancer’s Head of Gaming and Streaming Adam Renardson in a press release.
“We are absolutely delighted to be working with the AusSpeedruns team, once again, for another Australian Speedrun Marathon.”
You can follow the AusSpeedrunsTwitch account, where they will stream this year’s ASM:
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