Did I just hear a thousand dollar donation from Linkigi?
Maaaaaaaaaaybe. 
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So, final take for SGDQ was a bit under 1.8m. It didn’t match up to the absurd earnings for last AGDQ, but I think even next AGDQ will have a hard time matching up to that.
Now I’ve got some VODs to watch. Recommendations from things I watched live or know should be good:
Nier: Automata by Halfcoordinated, of course
Super Monkey Ball Deluxe
DK64: didn’t watch, but it’s a hilariously broken game
Pokemon Puzzle League is really impressive
Half-Life 2, for nutty Source Engine shenanigans
Prince of Persia: watch Hennejoe deal amazingly with the worst luck ever
Bionic Commando: Rearmed
Tetris block
A Link to the Past (swordless!)
the Super Mario relay race
Super Metroid (duh)
Super Panga World
and Portal 2 Solo Co-op.
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I think the hosts may have talked about this already but I tend to only donate to SGDQ every year, mainly because I value MSF more than the PCF.
I caught the second half of that Super Panga World run live, that was thoroughly entertaining. I’ll definitely be checking out a bunch of these VODs, thanks for the recommendations. 
Edit: Apparently the SotN run set a new world record.
Are you ready to rando?
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[quote=“geoff, post:86, topic:321”]
Apparently the SotN run set a new world record.
[/quote]Is that confirmed? Apparently the timer was running slow for several runs. You had one job!
Super Metroid spoilers:
Summary
After the two runners wiped out on the first boss, I was surprised they didn’t keep going. If that boss is so dangerous, why don’t they make a safety save?
Safety save is too slow. If you don’t beat Phantoon on the first shot, your time will be so shit as to be a worthless run. This isn’t the first time he’s killed runners at GDQ, and it won’t be the last. That’s why they tend to do races for Super Metroid.
I wanna see a four great beasts speedrun of BotW.
Apparently not.
Due to an issue with SGDQ’s timer, Dr4gonBlitz’s run of Castlevania was not a new world record. Matt Merkle, Games Done Quick’s director of operations, told Polygon via e-mail that they recalculated Dr4gonBlitz’s time to compensate, which “resulted in a time of 33:27, which would not qualify as a WR. This time is still timed by hand so it isn’t perfect but should be within a second or two.”
That’ll teach me to trust things I read on Twitter…
Isn’t the timer the most important thing at GDQ? Shouldn’t it be super precise like the ones they use for Formula 1?
Nah, AGDQ is like an exhibition event. Nobody really expects new world records to be set in fun demonstrations like this.
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What luke said.
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Have you watched a GDQ? The timing process is literally a guy starting the clock, and when the run is complete the runner says “time” out loud and the guy on the clock stops it. It isn’t exactly precise.
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I know they suck at the clock. But it wouldn’t take much effort to make it more precise. Why not go for it? Could be lucrative with a sponsorship from a watchmaker.
It’d take a non trivial amount of effort. You’d have to bind whatever button is both the first and last input of every game shown to the timer start and stop buttons.
For PC games start shouldn’t be a problem just have some kinda program with a listener that uses any input made by mouse or keyboard start the timer (I’m thinking an autohotkey solution) final input will be a problem because you need to know in advance what input will be the last input. That’s challenging.
For non pc games you have all the same issues at the pc games but now you don’t have easy access to the input mechanism. So solve the access to the input mechanism problem THEN deal with the above.
For each game. it’s tricky.
It just doesn’t need to be so precise. The more the timing is kept informal, the less stress for everyone.
For example, if you start timing things down to the millisecond, you’d also have to do equipment scrutinising, like they do in motorsport, to make sure everything is at the same level. In Formula 1 there have been drivers disqualified from races due to tire pressure not being in the right range, stuff like that.
Some similar in speed running could be questions raised about power supplies to consoles. If an NTSC console was fed power at 60.5hz instead of 60hz, that tiny difference could add up over the course of a long game and soon be significant.
Well, actual speedrun world records are often submitted by video. We talked about people doing extreme cheating on GeekNights before in the form of video editing. But what if someone intentionally provided a different frequency of power to their console for a speedrun? Legit or not?
Two answers. Is it legit? (yes*) should it be? (no)
*There’s no way to prove it and since the video is currently an acceptable method of submission it’d be accepted and therefore legit.
GeekNights: where we care too much about clocks.
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