Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 Will Be Online-Only, But Not For The Reason You Think
Today Games Done Quick announced the next incarnation of their popular charity marathon stream will NOT be held in a ballroom, but take place entirely online from the speedrunners’ homes. If you’ve been paying attention, you know GDQ has been mostly held this way since the summer of 2020 and the start of the pandemic. It was only THIS year that the event switched back to its traditional live ballroom location.
So why go back? Are they worried about a new severe COVID wave? Or were they hit with budget cuts and switched to an online event for that reason? Neither of those. The reason AGDQ 2023 will not be held in-person this time is because they booked the live event in Florida and can’t get out of it any other way.
A significant portion of the speedrunning community happens to be LGBTQ, and many of the runners that have been featured repeatedly on GDQ are trans. Florida, as of late, has been increasingly unfriendly to that portion of the human population. Also, there IS a bit of COVID in this, but it has to do with anti-mask policies put into place by Florida’s dark emperor DeSantis. Basically GDQ can no longer guarantee the safety of its players if it does things in Florida.
“While we would love to return in-person, we’ve determined that to provide a safe and welcoming event to all it was best that we move away from our originally planned location in Florida,” a GDQ representative said. “Given the state’s continued disregard for COVID-19’s dangers (including anti-mandate 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.”
GDQ signed a contract with a Florida venue in 2021 and cannot legally hold the event in a different place — if it’s a real place. Online-only is the loophole, and though they’ll lose money this way, it’s far less than they’d have to pay to break that contract. Awesome Games Done Quick 2023 will be held from January 8 to January 15.
Angie4214go
September 8, 2022 @ 12:44 am
How did an anti-masker like Desantis got into power? Its a good call to make this online.