The significance of those higher-than-expected figures is not lost on the team, as director of marketing and business development Kasumi Yogi explains. “While we did have a target of $2 million we’re super grateful for everyone’s support no matter where we hit,” Yogi says. “In times like these, when the job market and local economies are unstable, we understand the value of every dollar that was donated during the event.”

When the marathon moved online, the concern of increased technical issues crossed the team’s minds, but the week saw few such issues. The major issue, streaming platform Twitch going down in the beginning of the week, was out of GDQ’s hands.

“When that happens we’re simply in a waiting game,” Merkle explains. “Obviously Twitch prioritizes getting back online so we just have to wait. There’s nothing we can do that’ll improve the situation more than what they already are doing.”

In order to control what is at GDQ’s disposal, the process of making sure players are ready to go is a rigorous one. “We do a lot of prep ahead of the week to reduce the number of surprises during the event,” Merkle says. “We tech check every runner, we check the commentators, and we check the hosts before the event to make sure they’re set up correctly and they have a stable connection. That prep goes a long way to making sure the event runs smoothly.”

"We’ve actually had worse tech issues at some in-person events than we did during the online event," Merkle says.

Though Merkle and Yogi are helping make the GDQ machine run, they still make a point to watch the marathon. Yogi puts it simply: “If we’re awake, we’re watching.”

She attributes this to working remotely, which the majority of the GDQ team does even during normal in-person events. Working from home gives her a lot of time to focus on each run in real time, and there were a few that stuck out to her.

Bubzia’s blindfolded Super Mario 64 run was a favorite for Yogi, partly because she’s done it herself, albeit with her eyes open. “I actually know how to do that run," she says. “I love Super Mario 64 and that run, but I could never imagine doing it blindfolded.”

Another run that stuck out to her was a Japanese horror game called Pien by a runner named Swordfish. While short, at just under five minutes, the run for her is a shining example of how prepared these runners are to perform.

“When the run was over Swordfish tweeted out his script,” Yogi explains. “English isn’t Swordfish’s first language, so he wrote out an entire script in Japanese katakana so that he could give some English commentary. That kind of preparation for a run is very much appreciated. It’s a shorter run, no longer than five minutes, but the commentary is amazing and the game is wacky.”

Merkle’s favorite was the Shovel Knight: Spector of Torment run, a New Game+ run by a player called MooMooAkai. ”Watching it was absolutely mindblowing, the stuff he’s able to do is unbelievable,” Merkle says. “He maximizes every ability he has, each one taking some health bar with every use so there’s a lot more danger in that run than other Shovel Knight runs, and everything was a nailbiter from start to finish.”

Now that they have a few online marathons in the books, with Summer Games Done Quick in August 2020 also all online, the team faces an interesting decision in regards to a return to live events. Yogi insists the team will not be making any rash decisions. "We really want to be cautious moving forward," she says. "We want to continue monitoring the situation in case any new breakthroughs or extenuating circumstances happen.”

That’s not for lack of desire, however, as she adds, “We obviously would love to have an on-site event, but we will only do it if it’s safe and responsible to do so.”

"Everything is on the table,” Merkle adds.

As far as online marathons go, 2020 saw a few new GDQ events, the all-female Frame Fatales being a notable example. However, the team is careful not to move too quickly in adding events to the schedule. Yogi says an idea for a new event “has to make sense” and come with necessary additions to the team, while Merkle has his eye on the finances.

“Obviously COVID hurt everyone but in our case we’re budget constrained and keeping the norm at the moment, making sure everyone gets paid and things like that,” Merkle says. “We won’t probably think about expanding until things get back to normal again, but we always want to have the option open to organize an event when certain situations arise.”

There’s another wrinkle in scheduling the next marathon event that was never an issue in previous years: Overlapping with other events.

With PAX East moving its weekend convention to the first weekend of June and E3 2021 currently scheduled two weeks later, the latter half of the year could become inundated with gaming industry events and the team does not want to get in anyone’s way.

“We always actively try to avoid overlapping with conventions and other things going on because we want to make sure we have a good share of the audience while not competing with anybody else,” Yogi says. “Everybody deserves time in the spotlight, so we’re being very cautious with it.” That caution also comes from the concern of having to make schedule changes publicly, rather than just picking dates and sticking with them. “We don’t have any plan to announce days right now simply because we want to be careful and we want to be considerate of everyone’s schedules,” Yogi says. “We don’t want to find ourselves announcing dates only to have to delay it for any reason, pandemic or otherwise.”

One thing that’s never a concern is the charities GDQ works with, as both Yogi and Merkle had only positive things to say about them. “They’ve been superstars,” Yogi says. “The charities have been fantastic given the worldwide pandemic we’re living in, they’ve been very supportive of us and they understand that there are some things that we just can’t do right now. They even assisted us moving the event online, helping to coordinate and move things along. We’re super grateful to be able to work with them.”

Photo courtesy of Games Done Quick