Any% for Everyone: How Speedrunning Went from Internet Curiosity to Gaming's Warmest Community

If you've never watched someone beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in under nine minutes, you're missing something genuinely wild. The runner skips entire dungeons, clips through walls, and manipulates the game's memory in ways that look like glitches but are actually the result of years of communal research. It's part athletic performance, part science experiment, part inside joke — and it has an audience of millions.

Speedrunning, the practice of completing video games as fast as possible, has had one of the stranger cultural trajectories in modern gaming. It began as a fringe pursuit documented on obscure forums and early YouTube uploads. Today it fills convention halls, anchors charity fundraising events that rake in millions of dollars, and attracts players ranging from hardcore competitive athletes to casual fans who just enjoy the vibe. And somehow, despite all that growth, it's held onto something rare: a reputation for being genuinely welcoming.

From Weird Basement Hobby to Mainstream Moment

The turning point for speedrunning's public profile came largely through Games Done Quick, a biannual charity marathon that's become one of the gaming calendar's most anticipated events. Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) and Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ) stream continuously for about a week, featuring runners from across the community tackling hundreds of games live, with donations flowing to causes like Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders.

The numbers are staggering. AGDQ 2024 raised over $2.6 million. Since its founding, the Games Done Quick series has collectively raised more than $50 million for various charities. For a community that operates almost entirely outside traditional esports infrastructure — no team sponsors, no league buyouts, no franchise fees — that's a remarkable demonstration of what grassroots gaming can actually accomplish.

"GDQ is where a lot of people have their first real exposure to speedrunning," says Jordan Hess, a community moderator for several game-specific speedrunning boards on Speedrun.com. "And the vibe of those events is really intentional. It's not cutthroat. It's celebratory. Runners are rooting for each other, commentators are explaining everything for newcomers, and the chat is (mostly) having a great time."

The Categories That Made It Democratic

One of speedrunning's quiet design successes is its category system. A game doesn't have just one speedrun — it has many. Any%, which requires reaching the end by any means necessary, sits alongside 100% runs, glitchless categories, low% challenges, and dozens of game-specific variations. This structure means there's almost always an entry point that matches what a player finds interesting or achievable.

Glitchless categories, for example, have become particularly popular with newer runners because they reward game knowledge and execution without requiring mastery of complex memory manipulation or frame-perfect tricks. Someone can start running a game they love at a comfortable level and gradually learn more advanced techniques over time — or not. Both paths are valid.

"You don't have to be the best," explains Camille Nguyen, who started running Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the pandemic and now helps onboard new runners in that game's community. "You just have to want to do it. Most people in this scene are competing against their own personal best, not trying to beat a world record. The world record people are incredible, but they're not who the community is built around."

This distinction matters a lot. Speedrunning communities, at their best, function less like competitive leagues and more like running clubs — places where the fastest person and the newest person can coexist comfortably, united by shared enthusiasm for a specific game.

Moderators as Community Architects

Behind the scenes of every healthy speedrunning community is a team of volunteer moderators doing unglamorous but essential work. On Speedrun.com, game moderators verify submitted runs, maintain rule clarity, and adjudicate disputes about what counts as a valid completion. It's a role that requires both technical knowledge and social skill in roughly equal measure.

"We spend a lot of time thinking about how the rules we write will affect who feels welcome," Jordan says. "If your rules are too strict or too gatekeeping, you push people away. If they're too loose, the leaderboard loses meaning. It's a constant balancing act."

Many communities have also developed explicit codes of conduct that go beyond just run verification — setting expectations for how runners treat each other in Discord servers, on stream, and at in-person events. The speedrunning community has had its share of controversies over the years, and the moderators who've put in the work to address toxic behavior openly deserve real credit for the culture that exists today.

Accessibility Innovations Changing the Game

Perhaps the most quietly radical thing happening in speedrunning right now is the growth of accessible categories and adaptive runner communities. Runners with physical disabilities have long participated in speedrunning, but in recent years, communities have begun formally recognizing categories and tools that make participation possible for a wider range of players.

One-handed categories, for instance, have established leaderboards in multiple games. Assistive technology, eye-tracking software, and adaptive controllers have allowed runners with limited mobility to compete and find community. Games Done Quick has featured accessible speedruns in its lineups, bringing visibility to these runners and their achievements.

This isn't charity — it's the community recognizing that the point was never to exclude people, and adjusting its structures accordingly.

What Esports Could Learn

It would be easy to write speedrunning off as a novelty, but the numbers and the culture tell a different story. This is a competitive gaming ecosystem that built itself without venture capital, without franchise models, and without the top-down structure that defines traditional esports. It grew through shared passion, volunteer labor, and a genuine commitment to keeping the doors open.

For the folks here at HH Targ, that's exactly the kind of story worth telling. Speedrunning proves that competitive gaming communities don't need corporate scaffolding to thrive — they need people who care enough to show up, set good rules, welcome strangers, and occasionally beat Super Mario 64 in under seven minutes while thousands of people watch and cheer.

Any%, indeed.