When the second round of cuts was released, I decided to see how will look like AGDQ 2015 not simply in terms of games and estimates, but in “hidden” factors to analyze the final selection in depth and help to build more diversified line-ups in the future. You'll see that some results are obviously predictable, but I was surprised by other results coming from the final round of cuts.

Methodology:
- The list of games used for the analysis was taken on September 27. It will surely change slightly until the marathon starts (drops and additions from waitlist).
- LibreOffice 4.3 was used to create the tables and graphs.
- All times are based on estimates provided by the original document.
- All bonus games and runs are included because bonus games are basically guaranteed to get featured in the marathon.
- Games that will feature 2+ runs (like Ocarina of Time 100 % + Blindfold as bonus) have their times combined.
- When a game is played on a Virtual Console/re-release as a "classic compilation" (like Sonic), the original console is selected.
- The generation of games played on PC is determined from the console they are released on first. In case of a PC exclusive, the year of release is the decider.
- You will find the ODS file here.

Platform distribution: PC Master Race, Nintendo still massive, handhelds put aside



PC speedrunning has a great future ahead. Managing to secure a staggering amount of 55 spots, and getting nearly 2 days of screen time, computers and laptops will take a dominating place next January. Featuring great classics like both Portal games and one of their mods, a juiced up version of FF7, a strong indie presence with classics like VVVVVV and newcomers like Broforce and Rogue Legacy, and some fangames and obscure games, every PC gamer will find something interesting to watch at AGDQ 2015.

But the big N is here in full force and bring up nearly all of its consoles. Featuring home consoles from every generation, they will once again bring up their classics and obscure games, and of course a little bit of TASing. If the SNES takes the second place in terms of time spent, it's its older brother, the NES, that is second in terms of games played. Expect tons of Mario and Zelda, some F-Zero and Kirby. We'll talk about that later.

Let's not forget the Sega Genesis with 12 games, which is more spots than the N64 and the NGC, but these consoles benefit from much longer runs. The Xbox and PlayStation generations don't get that much love, having nearly 24 hours of airing time... Combined. And same goes for handheld consoles, with zero DS or 3DS games, and the Game Boy consoles are heavily underrepresented, even if Pokémon is present. But the Pocket Monsters won't get that much time on stream, due to very short runs. But they will be anticipated.

Manufacturers battle: Nintendoverdose again?



As the first table showed it, the Nintendo games will be everywhere. To put it simply, they'll get half the games and half the time (more than 3 days!). It's still less than SGDQ 2014 where they took a whopping 60% of the time including nearly two whole days of Mario and Zelda, but still: Nintendo is always the star of the show. Of course, its because the biggest speedrunning licenses are played on Nintendo platforms. And they bring a good chunk of donations. But there will be some people that will complain about the "Nintendoverdose", simply because their childhood wasn't spent on Nintendo consoles.

As the PC is itself a big chunk, due to its great advantages for speedrunning and its big licenses and indie games, it gets nearly 48 hours of streaming. I've added to the category the very few Xbox games, due to them being made by Microsoft, and nearly every PC game runs on Windows. Nearly a third of the marathon will be devoted to these PC and Xbox games. Halo makes its comeback in co-op, alongside some XBLA games.

BibleThump for Sony and Sega. The former, even though its popularity in the past two decades is undeniable, still doesn't get that much attention in GDQ marathons compared to Nintendo and PC/Microsoft. But even though the PlayStation Nation might think themselves swindled by the poor amount of games, the provided runs are still pretty long and feature some signature licenses: Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Silent Hill, Jak, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts and, surprisingly, Uncharted. So at least, the Sony players will already know the playing fields.

No Master System (except in TAS), no Saturn, only Genesis and one chunk of Dreamcast: Sega won't be really represented this edition. If Sonic manages to secure a good amount of spots, some of these games are on other platforms like the GameCube and PC simply because they were released after Sega dropped from making consoles. But except from Sonic, Rocket Knight, Streets of Rage and the cult classic Crazy Taxi will get featured this year. Kind of a bummer for the die-hard Sega fans, but not benefiting from any console after 2002 gives a bias to the results.

Speedrunning through generations: a surprising balance



This is probably one of the best aspects this AGDQ: games from every generation post-video game crash are distributed quite evenly both in terms of time and amount of games. From the NES to the latest PC games, every gamer will find a game from his childhood. The 3rd generation selection, composed exclusively of NES games, takes a fifth of the spots but the shorter games gives this generation less than a day of airing time. Rest assured, you'll have your dose of Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man. Oh, and Contra is back too.

The 4th generation, with some SNES and Genesis glory, has the biggest amount of games taking nearly a quarter of the spots. Considered as one of the best generations ever, it's the pinnacle of 2D gaming, before having to let some depth to the 3rd dimension. Classic Sonic games are there, with some Mario bonanza, and a bit of cartoon memories.

5th, 6th and 7th gens have the exact same number of spots, each generation taking exactly 30 games in the selection. Their average time are also quite similar, which brings a nicely crafted balance to the marathon. Continuation of classic series and newcomers are everywhere. Generation 6 is taking the most airing time with nearly a day and a half and has the best platform variety.

The 8th gen, composed mostly of indie games and some Wii U gems, is the least represented. But for a gen that just entered its second year of existence, having nearly half a day in the marathon is still a pretty good feat. Talented runners will show their speed skills on the most recent games, notably Mario Kart 8, which is only a few months old! Overall, this is undoubtedly the best balance in generations in every marathon so far (but probably because it wasn't really measured these past editions). And we can only hope this trend will continue.

Also notice that the average time/game in each generation which is remarkable, as the games tend to be longer up to Gen 6, then decrease in favor of shorter games after. This is the case for first playthroughs and for speedruns...

Who's new, who's returning, and who's a classic



This year, nearly half the games will be brand new additions to the GDQ marathon series. It's less than usual, the average being around 60%. But we can't deny that the choice still heavily favors new games with nearly a hundred spots to discover new runs. And surprisingly, some speedrunning classics only make their GDQ debut this year: the first episode of Spyro, Minesweeper (! - honestly, there are some people who love speedrunning Minesweeper), and episodes of Half-Life. In the newcomers list, a lot of indies: Broforce, Electronic Super Joy, Rogue Legacy and Transistor will be notably featured. And some AAA recent games like, as we said before, Mario Kart 8, Dark Souls 2, and Metal Gear Solid V : Ground Zeroes (which is, let's admit it, more a demo of The Phantom Pain).

There are also returners who are at their second or third GDQ appearance, and might become classics after time. Let's note Ristar and Gunstar Heroes who were showcased first… At Classic Games Done Quick, already 5 years ago (time really flies). F-Zero games hit it big with a lot of returns, with also some Sonic games, Halo 2, Final Fantasy VII, and we can definitely expect a $10k signature donation from Notch as, well, Minecraft is back. Die Hard stairs will be back too.

And there will be 40 games will make their fourth appearance in GDQ marathons. This year, there won't be any Super Mario 64 or Contra 3, but count on Goldeneye (for the fifth consecutive time!), Portal 2, Ocarina of Time, Donkey Kong Country 2, Yoshi's Island, Punch-Out and Blaster Master. Note that 75% of GDQ classics (4+ appearances) are on Nintendo platforms.

And a GDQ marathon wouldn't be a GDQ marathon without Symphony of the Night and Super Metroid. They are both in the party, for their 10th appearance, and expect them to be played (and destroyed) on the final day.

The Publisher Brawl: Nintendominates, obviously – Indies take some place



With a third of the time allocated toward games published by Iwatasan, the classics take a big place. No need to list them all, you probably know them already, or at least the big franchises. But we can definitely notice that the indie category is rivaling with Nintendo in terms of games, nailing 34 spots. They are much shorter for sure, but they'll bring a lot of variety and creativity to the marathon. Note that some games were already self-published way before the emergence of Indie development in the 2010s.

Big third parties are coming next: Sega, Konami and Capcom, alongside a big first party, Sony. The Japanese quality takes another good part of the marathon, totaling over a day and a half of streaming time and nearly 50 game spots. Sonic, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania, and PlayStation classics are in the place. Notice also Square and 2 long games (FF7 and Kingdom Hearts 1 or 2) which will also get a lot of attention and donations. (And for a lot of people, there should have been 3 Square games.)

And some big publishers are placed alongside very small publishers and defunct ones. Ubisoft, EA and Activision, who are the biggest three publishers nowadays, only have a fistful of games and less than an afternoon of screen time. And despite some propositions of very known games nowadays (Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Battlefield), they got rejected straight away. But you'll have some Mirror's Edge, Rayman Legends, and Trials Evolution, which all feature some built-in speedrunning leaderboards.

Sagas of speedrunning: Mario, Zelda, yadda, yadda, yadda



Well, there are some games that you can't miss. Mario and Zelda games alone will take over a day of screen time. Sonic however takes quite a bit of time, with many 2D and 3D games. Mega Man gets its usual load of games, and Metroid is always featured in some way. Half-Life, thanks to the Portal series, will also be present for some Valve time. And let's not forget Castlevania, and F-Zero which makes its biggest line-up since GDQ exist.

Other known franchises also get a couple of spots, most of them being, like the biggest ones, Nintendo-related. Donkey Kong, Kirby, Ninja Gaiden, Punch-Out, and Pokémon mostly. But there will be some Metal Gear, Doom, Commander Keen for people, like I said earlier, didn't spent their childhood on Nintendo consoles. Overall, these sagas will take over three days of the marathon, which is nearly half the event. But let's face it: the competition is becoming more fierce than ever to get a spot in a GDQ marathon. And having more than two games of a saga in one marathon will become a tricky feat if you're not part of the big classics. Most known sagas only got one game overall, like Spyro, Jak & Daxter, Prince of Persia, and Batman and Kingdom Hearts for a bid war.

A matter of time




Choices have to be made to fit a week-long schedule. It might be a lot of time, but to squeeze nearly 200 games (actually 189, which is a record for GDQ) in that time period can be very tricky. Games will be shorter overall, not leaving much room for long games: only 7% of the games will take more than 2 hours, but they will be on-screen 25% of the time. Half the games are estimated to be completed in under 35 minutes.

If Minesweeper will get the shortest amount of time with a mere estimate of 150 seconds, Ocarina of Time, on the other end, will get the pleasure to be on your screens for 6 hours! Counting of course ZFG's 100% run and the bonus blindfolded run. And note that Nintendo dominates nearly every single time class, both in terms of time and number of games (the only class where Nintendo doesn't dominate being the 2 to 3-hour estimate).



Conclusion and personal view of Round 2

I think I was one of the first people to complain about the fact that Nintendo was just cannibalizing GDQ marathons, taking half the time, half the game, and leaving only hours for some big classics on other consoles. But I've said it in my analysis: it's because my childhood was in another home. Being a PlayStation gamer since I'm 8, and never being attracted by the Nintendo sagas, I was quite disappointed to see that Nintendo just had all the lights on it and Sony, only a few games. But I really wanted to prove my point, and so I've made this analysis that just shows that Nintendo is dominating in nearly every aspect of a GDQ marathon.

But people told it: it's because speedrunners that are able to come and propose a game are much older than me, they had their childhood on Nintendo platforms, and therefore, there's a lot of Nintendo games in the lineup. Second, they bring a lot of donations, and I can't think of a game (except Final Fantasy) which brought up as many donations as the grand Nintendo classics like Ocarina of Time or Super Mario 64. These are part of the speedrunning culture, and I can't deny it. And I still enjoy watching runs of these games, even if I didn't play them myself. Just because it's impressive to see a game completely destroyed.

And even if I can't really compare the AGDQ 2015 line-up to previous editions due to a lack of time (because gathering all the information took quite a lot of time), I must admit that despite Nintendo getting the spotlight, other gamers are still pretty well served. As a Sony gamer, I'm really pleased of the diversity from the PlayStation games that are offered. Crash, Spyro, Jak, Uncharted, inFamous, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Rayman, Kingdom Hearts... These are games that are iconic from the PlayStation, and even if I didn't play all of them, I feel myself in a familiar territory. And I'm pretty sure that the PlayStation Nation, as it ages, will progressively get more spots and time in GDQ marathons,. I'd love to bring a Ratchet & Clank run to AGDQ. But it's still pretty far away for me.

Microsoft gamers might lack big speedrunning franchises but they have some Halo at least. And with tons of PC and indie games to compensate, they also have a home, a familiar field to watch. And same thing with Sega fans, who have of course Sonic, but also Super Monkey Ball, Streets of Rage, and Crazy Taxi. That might be a little low compared to other years, but they are definitely not forgotten. I'm a bit quick about other manufacturers and publishers simply because I'm primarily a PlayStation fan, but they also have their place with their iconic licenses.

I also really appreciated the balance between generations. Seeing them so evenly distributed was a real surprise for me, and I think in 5 years, the right balance have been found to represent every console generation. The pre-1983 era is still missing, but it's more due to technical issues and lack of speedrunning interest into these games. But I think you're managing, in one week, to resume perfectly 30 years of gaming history. And that gives to the event the power to attract nearly every type of gamer. I say nearly because there are some who'll probably won't be touched by the spread of the event.

I was kinda bummed to see the Call of Duty 4 run rejected straight away for example: the CoD franchise, which is 11 years old, has yet to appear in a GDQ marathon. If I remember correctly, last year, Modern Warfare 2 was rejected because “the target audience of this game isn't the one who watch GDQ marathons”. So that's kinda bad, simply because this game is probably too “modern” to get a spot (even if the run is quite interesting to watch). But the organizers shown that nothing is set in stone, and they can prove themselves to be more open-minded. I remember that, during the first GDQ marathons, that GTA games were out of the question due to their nature, which was contradicting the purpose of an event for a charity. And this year, GTA Vice City is making his third coming. So everything can happen.

Of course, we can talk for hours and days about which games could have been at the marathon, and which games rightfully deserved their place. But that isn't the point of this analysis. I'll just say, that choices have to be made, and there will be future marathons, there are also other marathons than GDQ to make your favourite games shine. But as an impatient guy, I feel the people who are really pissed when their favourite streamer is rejected for a GDQ marathon and have to wait several months, if not a year, to see his moment of glory on the red couch.

I'll just say, however, and Mike Uyama talked about it, the line-up is made with donation potential in mind. Even though that's a good thing for charity, I don't think this has to be the primary objective. The game variety must be the main focus, as it will bring even more people to the party. Of course, there's a fistful of games that can bring 5, even 6-digit figures in terms of donations: SM64, Super Metroid, and they really deserve a spot everytime a top runner proposes it. But these are only 2 games out of over 150. Filling all these spots is a tricky task, but we know that people will donate. And whatever if we don't shatter records – every penny counts. I think everybody will be happy if we “just” tie AGDQ 2014 – because it was such an impressive feat that nothing else will ever top the first time AGDQ broke the million dollar bar. Reaching $2 million won't have the same flavor, even though it will be very meaningful.

To finish, I'd say that this AGDQ line-up is probably one of the best ever. There are games for everyone, tons of donation potential, classics and newcomers, but still, a very strong presence of Nintendo franchises. I think you could, in future marathons, get rid of a dozen obscure games on Nintendo platforms to redistribute them to other “allegiances”. If it can bring more epicness, it will bring more donations, more viewers, but mostly more diversity, and more fun.



Obligatory TL;DR version:
Nintendo has half the games and time. Indie does what Nintendon't. SotN and Super Metroid are still there. Notch will donate $10k. You are all The Man. Save the animals.

I really like this analysis. I know this is out of scope for this thread, but I'd love to see similar analytics applied to runners performing at GDQs, e.g. how much new blood do we get, how much time do they represent, etc. Numbers are awesome!

You can use wayback machine on marathon.speedemosarchive.com and you'll find the schedules. However, older marathons had fewer runners, so it would show up as them doing way more games.

My bad, it's his second appearance (first being AGDQ13) - it was listed as "Binding of Isaac" in my GDQ full game list. So when I searched "The Binding of Isaac" no result was returned. Fixed.

Well technically, Mario Kart Wii is also mainstream, as it sold 35 million copies which is more than any Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto game. And it reached people who are not gamers in the first place, far from the "nerd" target audience of GDQ marathons. However, it's not in because the run is impressive to watch (because what run in a GDQ marathon isn't), but mostly because it's emblematic from Nintendo, and well, who knows Mario Kart? Everyone. So that's kind of a double standard, in my opinion.

Showing CoD4/MW2 would definitely not make the viewer count drop into the graveyard shift levels nor bring the donations to a screeching halt (unless it is proven). There will be some haters who'll leave, of course, but honestly, in a future marathon, it's worth a shot (no pun intended). The quality of the run should be the first criteria of selection, above anything else including the reputation of the franchise.

Also, CoD is mostly known for its multiplayer more than its single player campaign, but we could apply the same logic to Goldeneye or Halo. And well, if you communicate through the right channels, CoD could bring some donations like Halo or Starcraft. They have a LARGE fanbase, much bigger than all of the GDQ obscure games combines. If you can mobilize even 0.1% of it (over a base of 15 million people), that would be awesome.

And people watching "game" streams on Twitch might be tempted by seeing CoD4/MW2 at the top spot. They might expect a multiplayer event but they'll end up on GDQ, and they might get interested. Many will leave after discovering it's about speedrunning single player, but if you can catch the attention of a small fraction and get some additional donations alongside the runner's fans and the usual donations that are not game or runner-related, that will still be good.

I'm not Uyama, I'm not choosing the games, but in my opinion, some games suffer from their nature of being "mainstream" and that shouldn't prevent them to get a spot at AGDQ. Half the games at each marathon are new additions, so there's some room. But this is not the main subject of the analysis - the Call of Duty part was just my personal view on game choice and how some games could be rejected because of their pedigree.

Minecraft had a short run last year that did well. (length is important too)

Will it do the same for this year? (probably not tbh)

Also Starcraft 2 in 2013 was a bit of a perfect storm. Violet, a prominent SC2 player had passed away several months before due to cancer and there was a huge push to name one of the Final Fantasy characters in the finale after him. Coupled with the run and a lot of promotion from Team Liquid, it was a smash hit. 2014 had promotion, but it didn't have the waves of emotional attachment to outweigh the naysayers and those who actively disliked the run and were vocal about it.

Minecraft could be the same thing here. While I assume Notch will donate during it, since he's donated every year to the big charity marathons, there is certainly no guarantee of that continuing to happen, with Notch's comments about distancing himself from Minecraft. This seems to me to be a high risk, high reward run (for donations) This run could bomb really, really badly due to its length, or it could go over really well with the different audience that this run seems to be aimed towards (as lets be real here, the run has already bombed with a decent number of vocal people before the run has even happened, and that isn't going to change)

I do want to say this, there is nothing wrong with going after a different subsection of the twitch audience. After all, the business plan of the GDQ is to maximize donation potential after all. And without a plan in place, the million wouldn't have happened. And sometimes the risks don't pay off. But you can see just from the console data that this GDQ is taking a risk with a Dreamcast game. Will it pay off? Who knows, but that's the point of risks after all.

Sorry, I'm not trying to belittle your main point about risks, as I agree with it, but this isn't the best example. Dreamcast games have been in past marathons (Sonic Adventure 1/2, Jet Set Radio) just not on the original console because generally better (or similar quality) ports were made for them. Crazy Taxi is a rare exception in that most of it's ports gained flaws or are less favorable for speedrunning. The real risk is not about the console as you are implying, but rather will that particular game have as big of a draw as other Sega games. Of course I don't know, but seeing as it's been ported to practically every console since the Dreamcast with decent sales, it should.

It both bombed and did well. The run had a terrible reception, and yet it did great donations-wise. That being said, I don't want to repeat SC2 unless if maybe a new expansion comes out.

Call of Duty: I don't know, it could either bring in an audience we usually don't get at GDQs, or it could bomb really hard. The games are full of in-level cutscenes that break up the flow, but the actual gameplay in the levels can be pretty fast. Studio does have a point that it could get the COD community more involved in the GDQs. Maybe one could be tried in the future?

I think (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that part of the reason for fewer handheld games is lack of an easy way to capture and stream from them.  Really, the only handhelds that have an easy method of capture are the Gameboy Advance (and by extension Gameboy and Gameboy Color), thanks to the Gamecube's Gameboy Player, and the PSP.  As far as I can remember, the only game that got run in a marathon on PSP was Birth By Sleep.

Nintendo DS and 3DS, and until recently the PS Vita, need a hardware mod to capture A/V out. (PS Vita still needs one if you want to do anything that utilizes the touchscreen, i.e. Gravity Rush).  Generally it's easy enough to get the device needed (the runner usually has one) but at the same time, it seems there are fewer runners on handheld than there are for the "TV" consoles, as it were, and PC.

That said, it may be interesting to see what comes with the Vita with future marathons, with the Playstation Vita TV coming out in the US soon and a lot more games (hopefully) getting added to its "whitelist"

I think the main problem with putting a Call of Duty game in is that, while you can argue that it is a massive game with a humongous fan base, I don't actually think that speedruns of the campaign will appeal to that same audience. I say this because Call of Duty is known, and popular for its online multiplayer, not for its single player campaign. I think counting on the huge fan base of Call of Duty being interested in campaign speedruns, like they are in multiplayer (mlg/gamebattles) streams, is a massive risk, and its not one of them risks which I think would pay off. Of course people will have their own opinions on this though.

Personally, I would prefer to see a Call of Duty game in the marathon over quite a few other games which are in, but this is mainly because I am quite narrow minded when it comes to watching speedruns (games which I have never played I really struggle to enjoy watching).

Back a bit more on topic, I feel like PC games are way over-represented at marathons (and these stats reflect that), and I personally don't think they fit the atmosphere of a marathon very well.

Have to be careful with that, as some games may fall into multiple genres depending on how you define them.