Summer Games Done Quick raises $2.4M for charity, drops SNK sponsorship over Saudi Arabia ties

Summer Games Done Quick wrapped its 2025 event having raised $2.4 million for Doctors Without Borders — then briefly stumbled when it announced a sponsored speedrun showcase with SNK, only to cancel it three hours later after community backlash.

The SNK partnership drew immediate criticism because the Metal Slug developer, while Japanese, has been majority-owned since 2022 by the MiSK Foundation — a Saudi entity controlled by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Given Saudi Arabia's documented human rights record, the tie-in sat awkwardly against the mission of the charity GDQ had just spent a week raising money for. GDQ pulled the stream quickly and was direct about why: "We have canceled our sponsored stream with SNK. We have heard the concerns from our community regarding this partnership, specifically the company's majority ownership by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and the human rights concerns tied to the Saudi government." The organisation also confirmed it will not accept any funds from the sponsorship and won't work with SNK again.

GDQ has run charity speedrunning marathons twice a year for over a decade, with Awesome Games Done Quick in January and Summer Games Done Quick mid-year. The events have collectively raised tens of millions of dollars for various charities over the years. SNK's Saudi ownership is publicly documented — it's on the studio's Wikipedia page — so the lapse in due diligence was hard to miss, and GDQ acknowledged as much: "We failed to conduct the level of review our community should expect from us and that was an oversight we deeply regret and take full responsibility for."

The organisation says it will tighten its vetting process going forward, including closer scrutiny of companies' ownership structures before agreeing to partnerships. The $2.4 million total for Doctors Without Borders stands regardless, and the community response to the cancellation itself was broadly positive — the backlash was aimed at the initial decision, not the correction.