An Assessment of Games Done Quick, LLC

- work in progress -

This Pastebin is meant to be a full evaluation, complete with an assessment, problem identification, and proposed realistic solutions for Games Done Quick, LLC (Hereafter referred to as GDQ)

Alpha: What is GDQ?
Beta: Where does GDQ get its money?
Gamma: Who is a part of GDQ?
Delta: What problems does GDQ face at the moment?
Epsilon: How do we go about fixing these problems?
Zeta: Community Ideas/Problems

Alpha: What is GDQ?

Games Done Quick, LLC is a non profit organization that is responsible for the organization and formation of Awesome Games Done Quick and Summer Games Done Quick. Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) is held in January in the Washington, DC area. Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) is held in July. SGDQ has been held in multiple locations with the intent of it being a West Coast event, but for the 2015 and 2016 events has been held in Minneapolis/Saint Paul Minnesota.

GDQ Events raise money for various charities and at present, has broken the 1 million dollar mark in four of its past five events. Historically, AGDQ has supported the Prevent Cancer Foundation, and since 2013, SGDQ has supported Doctors Without Borders. These events are hosted on Twitch at www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick .

Beta: Where does GDQ get its money?


Gamma: Who is a part of GDQ?
Involved Event Personnel for AGDQ consisted of:
- 19 Declared, Paid Staff
- 125 Event Volunteers (Working 4+ Hours in a variety of capacities)
- Approximately 210* Runners

Note that there is some overlap between volunteers, staff, and runners. There is not total overlap however; the true number of involved individuals is approximately 275-300 individuals. As the event has grown, the capacity is 1,500 individuals who will attend the event. Based on this math, this means over 75% of the attendees of GDQ are in the capacity of a guest, and do not directly contribute to the event.

* - This number is likely inaccurate and invariably has missed runners who were counted multiple times. I have tried to weed them out but did not use a complete, thorough method to do this and as such I am certain some individuals were counted twice if they had two runs in, although I did catch several instances of this.

The Event Volunteers and Runners were unpaid for their labor for the event, while the staff were paid in varying quantities. Specific compensation packages have never been disclosed, but payment structure appears to be varied from a small number of salaried employees who were responsible for the bulk of the behind-the-scenes work, to a larger number of individuals who were paid hourly for their contributions and prep work prior to the marathon.

Not included in the above numbers are groups such as Tokyo Attack and MAGFest who provided support. While GDQ considers classifies these individuals as staff, they are not amongst the above, paid staff members.

Event Volunteer Roles encompassed Tech Desk work (Keeping the stream running), processing of donations, hosting the event (Donation reading), and working registration set up.

Delta: What Problems does GDQ Face currently?

In my opinion, the current problems faced by GDQ stem from its transition from a loose organization of individuals putting together an event, to a business entity.

INSUFFICIENT TRAINING FOR VOLUNTEER POSITIONS FOR IDEAL OPERATION
	- It appears, based on my experience, that the amount of information provided to everyone in volunteer positions is uneven which leads to certain individuals having more information to provide a quality experience than others. This extends to the runner/host dynamic as well. Speaking specifically about the hosting position, there is no singular source of information and what is provided, is provided the day of the marathon. Asking some of the veterans at various tasks (Donations/Hosting) to create a small manual for best practices that could be emailed out ahead of time would go a long way in improving the skill and knowledge of the volunteers. On site orientations should still be in place, since some of the information CAN'T be explained in an email, but it wouldn't be hard for hosts a month ahead of time to get an email regarding ideas such as reaching out to the runners ahead of time, what to do in the event of dead time during a run, etc." In return, the runners should be communicated with, so they can expect their hosts to reach out to them.

A few individuals should be designated as individuals people can communicate with if they have questions prior they are available for questions. These individuals would be experienced hosts/donation staffers who can help improve the experience for everyone.

Zeta: Community Ideas/Problems

NOTE: All these are from me asking others about how to improve GDQ, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author.

1. GDQ Attendance should be capped to only runners, staff, and couch commentary
	- Incidents such as Gamepro011 from SGDQ2015 were caused by a large live audience, and his inability to properly react when he realized that he was unable to carry a game on his own and his couch was largely silent. Limiting attendance would also lower the costs for the event. Those who aren't directly contributing to the event through gameplay would be allowed to be at a different hotel that would be a convention-style arrangement that's nearby. (Dan's Note: This would by definition necessitate a much stricter couch commentary set up, where people declare to be on the couch well in advance of the marathon)

2. The addition of the Arcade Room was great, but does not merit additional fees.
	- Since it's just a luxury that seems to be a response to the increased attendance levels to maintain their attention, the arcade room does not merit an increase in registration fees to accommodate it. Additionally, if the cost for attendance could be lowered by not having them involved, it would be better for the marathon to make it a bit easier financially for individuals attending.

3. Time should be made in every run for donation commentary.
	- This is a charity marathon, and as such, the emphasis should be on the donations coming in.

4. If someone is running a game, they need to make sure that either they can provide commentary or there is someone on the couch who is capable of providing commentary during their run.
	- Since the bread and butter of the marathon is quality gameplay and quality explanations of what exactly is going on for laymen, which describes the overwhelming majority of the audience, either the runner of the game needs to be able to provide solid commentary or there needs to be someone with them who can do this.

5. Better preparation needs to be done to coordinate donation readers and commentary.
	- Several runs have had issues with a lack of timing between the commentators and hosts, leading to instances when the commentators are dragging out commentary to fill dead air (And simultaneously the hosts aren't aware that it's an ok time for donations), or the hosts and the commentators are talking over each other. The best solution to fix this would be the runners and hosts being asked to meet up ahead of time to plan out when good times will be for donations, so runners can expect to be interrupted and yield the floor ot the host at certain spots.

6. Save/Kill the Animals being overemphasized
	- SM's Save/Kill the Animals donation incentive occupies a gargantuan portion of the marathon's donations, which means other worthy donation incentives aren't met, or require intervention from TheYetee or other large sponsors to assist. A potential solution for this, which would require some reprogramming of the donation trackers, would be to make Save/Kill the Animals a secondary donation where people could donate to save/kill along with something else (That is, spending their money on a donation incentive doesn't reduce what they have for save/kill)