Latest news with #speedrunning
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Summer Games Done Quick 2025 raises $2.4 million for Doctors Without Borders
Another weeklong round-the-clock spree of speedrunning video games has come to a close, with Summer Games Done Quick raising $2,436,614 for Doctors Without Borders. Held in Minneapolis, the event saw 37,776 donations, with the highest contribution being a solo $61,200 donation. This year, 2,600 in-person attendees got to experience a hectic relay race pitting two teams of four against each other to complete a Super Mario Maker 2 level and a full playthrough of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat in less than an hour while using one of the most unique controllers ever made, the DK Bongos. The crowd is just as important during these speedruns, and that proved true with a particularly electric crowd during the AEW Fight Night Forever run that finished in around 40 minutes. If you didn't happen to catch it live, GamesDoneQuick's Twitch channel has every run archived so you can relive the fun. The organization's next event, Flame Fatales, will feature an all-women and femmes speedrunning showcase from September 7 to 14. After that, GamesDoneQuick will launch its brand new Games Done Queer event from October 31 to November 2.
The Verge
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Foldables are in and suddenly really thin
Hi! Welcome to Installer No. 89, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. My name is Jay Peters, and I will be taking care of Installer while David is on parental leave. All of us here at The Verge are very excited for him and his family, and he'll be back later this year. It's a huge honor to be writing this. I look forward to Installer every week to see what awesome things David is obsessed with and what you all are into. (Thanks to everyone who sent over their favorite non-famous apps to get me started. Keep reading for some of those!) I'm really excited to keep the party going. (If you're new here, welcome, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, as I am at around this time every year, I've been obsessed with the annual Summer Games Done Quick speedrunning marathon. If you've never watched, the event is an annual, weeklong, always-on livestream of people playing video games at an extremely high level to raise money for charity. Throughout the week, I'll tune in when I have a moment and then find myself watching somebody obliterate a beloved classic or a game that I've never heard of. The show, which you can watch for free on Twitch, typically ends very early in the morning on Sunday, and you can watch replays on the Games Done Quick YouTube channel. My two favorite runs so far have been a Beat Saber showcase and a nail-biter Cuphead race. (If you have any suggested runs I should watch, let me know — maybe I'll feature them in a future Installer!) Anyway, let's dive in. This week, I have for you some new Samsung foldable phones, a check-in with the developer of one of the great Reddit apps, and more. (As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@ And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here. It's free, and you get it a full day early!) If you followed the Reddit protests in 2023, then you probably recognize the name Christian Selig. He was the developer of the beloved Apollo for Reddit iOS app, but he became a central figure of the protests because Reddit's API changes were going to be so cost-prohibitive that they forced him to shut Apollo down. I've gotten to know Selig, and nowadays, he works on an app called Pixel Pals, is an advisor to the new Digg, and recently posted a great PC build video that has more than 2.5 million views. (Yes, he does poke fun at another, let's say, infamous PC build video.) I got to catch up with him to learn about his homescreen and what he's into. The phone: iPhone 15 Pro Blue Titanium 128 GB The wallpaper: I'm pretty sure it's just something random someone posted on Twitter ages ago that I saved. But I love how simple it is, and I love how it looks on the home screen with the default iOS blur applied. The apps: I try to keep things simple and positioned in an easy-to-reach area. I don't keep social media apps on my phone in an attempt to be healthier, so it's mostly things that are useful: vehicle apps (still a bit cold in Canada, so gotta love being able to preheat your vehicle), with Overcast for podcasts, Microsoft To Do (née Wunderlist) for my to-dos, ChatGPT because it's 2025, YouTube because I spend way too much time there, Pixel Pals because it's an app I build so I like to have it nice and handy, the app for passing some time, and the alpha for Digg, which has been a ton of fun to use. I also asked Christian to share a few things he's into right now: And about his role at Digg: Here's what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you're into right now as well! Email installer@ with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we'll feature some of our favorites here every week. For even more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on The Verge, this post on Threads, and this post on Bluesky. This week's section is a mix of everyone's favorite non-famous apps and some more typical recommendations. 'I want to give a shoutout to my favorite mobile game designer who's based here in Germany: Arnold Rauers and his little studio Tiny Touchtales develop some beautiful, addictive light strategy games. My favorites are Card Thief, Geo Gods, and Miracle Merchant.' — Nick 'I use Panic's Nova to make websites and truly love it. Probably my favorite app. Mimestream is also fantastic! Can't wait for the iPhone version.' — Jeanne 'My favorite non-famous app is Live Soccer TV. Shows you the complete worldwide soccer schedule, and the list of broadcast networks/platforms in each county airing the game. Been on my home screen for ages now. It simply does what it says it does. No fluff and for 5 dollars a year, I pay for the ad free upgrade. Perfect app. Hope it never changes.' — Dustin 'Obsidian and Anybox.' — Peter 'I'm constantly shocked whenever recommendations come up for recipe apps that Crouton is not mentioned. To me, if Apple were to have made a recipe app themselves, this would be it. Even better, it's cheap — only $14.99/yr and has some incredibly cool features like 'hands free' mode that allows you to simply blink your eyes to move to the next step of a recipe for those times when you have chicken juice all over your fingers.' — Justin 'All of Claire North's books are fantastic! Her stuff is super original: sci-fi-ish but more about big ideas like time, memory, and identity. She does a really good job of bringing out the nuances and real-life feelings and consequences of the roles her characters have. It's smart and emotional without being heavy, and her characters always stick with me. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August or Touch are great places to start.' — Dave 'I know it's been out for a while, but my whole family is addicted to Marvel Snap. The new season with The Fantastic Four is really fun so far and this gives my kids things that help them tickle their brain with logic. Also, all the different variants for the cards are really cool to see.' — WALL-E 'Been using Folio as my Pocket replacement and have been quite happy.' — Carter 'All four The Trip movies are streaming on Criterion Channel. Very funny, very mean comedies — and the longer BBC episodic cuts are also available too, if you want the extended play version (which you will).' — Kevin 'Despite my backlog, I'm checking out A Solitaire Mystery, as I have no choice but to play anything from the Baba Is You developer.' — Tristan 'Just made the switch to the Pixel line from iOS, and I'm really digging trying a new OS. Outside of that, I've been taking a slight tech break and going back to physically painting, reading paperbacks, and being present.' — EmpireStrikesBacktotheFuture All week, I have been mourning the recent end of the latest series of Taskmaster, a British comedy show where five comedians must all complete absurd tasks and be graded on them by the show's mercurial host. This batch of episodes, series 19, was my favorite set yet: the cast of comedians (the first to feature an American, Jason Mantzoukas) were all hilarious, and the tasks were ridiculous. If you're looking for something new and funny to watch, I can't recommend series 19 enough. Best of all, you can watch every series of the show for free on YouTube. Your time starts now. See you next week!
Yahoo
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Big Mo, the new voice of boxing, wants you to listen – no, really listen
I wanna say this without sounding like a d***,' Kody Mommaerts starts. His job, after all, involves selecting the right words. And though the stakes are lower on a Zoom call with The Independent than when a billion-dollar company entrusts him with a live microphone, the ring announcer still considers his words – and delivery – carefully. In this case, it is all to do with humility, and his concern that an analogy for his career might be misinterpreted as arrogance. 'I used to play video games as a kid,' says Mommaerts, widely known as 'Big Mo'. 'I don't play much anymore, but there was a phrase called 'speedrunning'. 'How quickly can I beat this game?' In a way... I've kind of speedrun announcing. I don't want that to come across as d***ish!' Advertisement It's okay, he's allowed to say it. Firstly, he is just over six months removed from announcing one of the most-watched fights of all time, in Jake Paul's boxing match with Mike Tyson – a bout that played out in front of more than 72,000 fans in Dallas, and more than 60 million households live on Netflix. Secondly, Mommaerts has already ticked off boxing, MMA, bare-knuckle fighting events and more, at an elite level. Thirdly, at 29 years old, he is the youngest MC at the top end of combat sports. And finally (on this taster of a list, at least), he is about to fulfil his dream: announcing at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Although, in a way, Mommaerts has already done it. He can explain that contradiction. 'I've talked about affirmation and visualisation a lot,' says the Denver native. 'I learned it when I was playing college football, but I perfected it while announcing. I would spend so much time on the road with my own thoughts, I would play videos in my mind: 'This is what I'll be wearing, this is what it'll feel like, this is how I'm gonna say Madison Square Garden.' 'I've already lived this in my brain, now I just get to experience it in real life. It's like when I get asked about the Mike Tyson introduction; I've already announced him in my brain. It's reality, so in theory it's more important, but I've already done this.' Still, 'I think [MSG] is gonna be the first moment in my career where I really lean back in my chair, like: 'Holy s***.' I did it a little bit at Paul vs Tyson, but there I almost blacked out because of the adrenaline...' Mommaerts (holding mic) moments before Jake Paul's seismic bout with Mike Tyson (Getty/Netflix) The rest of the world will get to hear Mommaerts's rendition of 'Madisoooon Squuuaaaare Gaaaaaaaaaardeeeeen' on 11 July, when Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano top an all-female card and end the most important rivalry in the history of women's boxing. Their trilogy began at MSG in 2022, when Taylor narrowly beat the Puerto Rican, before the Irish icon did the same when they clashed on the Paul-Tyson undercard. Taylor and Serrano, the first women's boxers to earn seven-figure paydays, will return to the scene of their first fight and the platform of their second: Netflix, which is showing its belief in Mommaerts again. Advertisement 'I came into this industry with zero broadcast, TV, boxing, or professional speaking experience,' he reflects. 'I'd publicly spoken, but at a collegiate level, because I was young. So [a few years ago], this 25-year-old kid with no background was holding a live microphone for billion-dollar corporations, who had sunk millions of dollars into an event. I understood the apprehension of using me. When I cold-called all the various promoters and networks, I understood them saying: 'Yeah, we're not gonna use you, we're gonna use the guy we've been using for 40 years.' Mommaerts introducing two-weight boxing world champion Natasha Jonas (Lawrence Lustig / BOXXER) 'There was a vast difference between me and every other MC, so I had to be perfect, polished, professional. They might have been looking for any reason to say: 'This is why we didn't hire the kid, I told you this was a bad idea.'' Mommaerts credits his professionalism with arguably being more important than his voice, but what of that voice? Trying to describe it is a punishing endeavour for a writer. There is a deepness to it, but also a clarity and crispness – a precision. To hear Mommaerts speak is to feel like you're trying on the most expensive set of headphones on the shelves, with the bass and treble dialled to perfection. Advertisement But to hear Mommaerts speak is one thing; to really listen to what he has to say is another. And listening to him now, a few years into an electric run atop the business, are there questions over where Big Mo starts and Kody Mommaerts ends? 'I don't want it to sound like Big Mo is this character – that's not it,' Mommaerts says, but: 'I have to dial things up. My job is very charisma-driven, it's very extraversion. It's camera, flash, smile, announcing, crowd, media, press conference. It's so much, and I'm in front of it all. And I don't mean that in a boastful way, as if I'm the star of the show, but I do have to be almost this character in a sense. I have to be this larger-than-life person to present in the way I want. I have to dial things up. 'I've never actually shared this before: this job has changed my social battery. What a lot of people don't understand is: beyond just being an MC, and the whole point of being an MC is establishing authority and being vocal, I'm also 6ft 7in. I'm a big guy, I stand out already, and a large component of my job is very visual. Networks like Sky and Netflix like putting me on camera, which is great, but it's weird: it's just changed how I look at being in front of people. Now, when I'm outside of my job, I don't always love being in front of a lot of people. I try to keep it more low-key. Mommaerts is quickly becoming the voice of boxing, while also working on other combat sports (Lawrence Lustig / BOXXER) 'Before the job, when I would go out, I would be this real social person, life of the party, blah blah blah. Now, when I go out, I'm kind of more of the guy on the wall. I'm a little bit more reserved. I still like to have fun, but I like to kind of keep to myself. So, the job has changed me a little bit – not in a bad way, but I've noticed it.' Advertisement There is little that the man with the mic doesn't notice; while his God-given voice took him a long way, his attention to detail has been a key part of his success, too. So, if anyone can channel change into something unequivocally advantageous, it is Mommaerts.
The Independent
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Big Mo, the new voice of boxing, wants you to listen – no, really listen
I wanna say this without sounding like a d***,' Kody Mommaerts starts. His job, after all, involves selecting the right words. And though the stakes are lower on a Zoom call with The Independent than when a billion-dollar company entrusts him with a live microphone, the ring announcer still considers his words – and delivery – carefully. In this case, it is all to do with humility, and his concern that an analogy for his career might be misinterpreted as arrogance. 'I used to play video games as a kid,' says Mommaerts, widely known as 'Big Mo'. 'I don't play much anymore, but there was a phrase called 'speedrunning'. 'How quickly can I beat this game?' In a way... I've kind of speedrun announcing. I don't want that to come across as d***ish!' It's okay, he's allowed to say it. Firstly, he is just over six months removed from announcing one of the most-watched fights of all time, in Jake Paul 's boxing match with Mike Tyson – a bout that played out in front of more than 72,000 fans in Dallas, and more than 60 million households live on Netflix. Secondly, Mommaerts has already ticked off boxing, MMA, bare-knuckle fighting events and more, at an elite level. Thirdly, at 29 years old, he is the youngest MC at the top end of combat sports. And finally (on this taster of a list, at least), he is about to fulfil his dream: announcing at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Although, in a way, Mommaerts has already done it. He can explain that contradiction. 'I've talked about affirmation and visualisation a lot,' says the Denver native. 'I learned it when I was playing college football, but I perfected it while announcing. I would spend so much time on the road with my own thoughts, I would play videos in my mind: 'This is what I'll be wearing, this is what it'll feel like, this is how I'm gonna say Madison Square Garden.' 'I've already lived this in my brain, now I just get to experience it in real life. It's like when I get asked about the Mike Tyson introduction; I've already announced him in my brain. It's reality, so in theory it's more important, but I've already done this.' Still, 'I think [MSG] is gonna be the first moment in my career where I really lean back in my chair, like: 'Holy s***.' I did it a little bit at Paul vs Tyson, but there I almost blacked out because of the adrenaline...' The rest of the world will get to hear Mommaerts's rendition of 'Madisoooon Squuuaaaare Gaaaaaaaaaardeeeeen' on 11 July, when Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano top an all-female card and end the most important rivalry in the history of women's boxing. Their trilogy began at MSG in 2022, when Taylor narrowly beat the Puerto Rican, before the Irish icon did the same when they clashed on the Paul-Tyson undercard. Taylor and Serrano, the first women's boxers to earn seven-figure paydays, will return to the scene of their first fight and the platform of their second: Netflix, which is showing its belief in Mommaerts again. 'I came into this industry with zero broadcast, TV, boxing, or professional speaking experience,' he reflects. 'I'd publicly spoken, but at a collegiate level, because I was young. So [a few years ago], this 25-year-old kid with no background was holding a live microphone for billion-dollar corporations, who had sunk millions of dollars into an event. I understood the apprehension of using me. When I cold-called all the various promoters and networks, I understood them saying: 'Yeah, we're not gonna use you, we're gonna use the guy we've been using for 40 years.' 'There was a vast difference between me and every other MC, so I had to be perfect, polished, professional. They might have been looking for any reason to say: 'This is why we didn't hire the kid, I told you this was a bad idea.'' Mommaerts credits his professionalism with arguably being more important than his voice, but what of that voice? Trying to describe it is a punishing endeavour for a writer. There is a deepness to it, but also a clarity and crispness – a precision. To hear Mommaerts speak is to feel like you're trying on the most expensive set of headphones on the shelves, with the bass and treble dialled to perfection. But to hear Mommaerts speak is one thing; to really listen to what he has to say is another. And listening to him now, a few years into an electric run atop the business, are there questions over where Big Mo starts and Kody Mommaerts ends? 'I don't want it to sound like Big Mo is this character – that's not it,' Mommaerts says, but: 'I have to dial things up. My job is very charisma-driven, it's very extraversion. It's camera, flash, smile, announcing, crowd, media, press conference. It's so much, and I'm in front of it all. And I don't mean that in a boastful way, as if I'm the star of the show, but I do have to be almost this character in a sense. I have to be this larger-than-life person to present in the way I want. I have to dial things up. 'I've never actually shared this before: this job has changed my social battery. What a lot of people don't understand is: beyond just being an MC, and the whole point of being an MC is establishing authority and being vocal, I'm also 6ft 7in. I'm a big guy, I stand out already, and a large component of my job is very visual. Networks like Sky and Netflix like putting me on camera, which is great, but it's weird: it's just changed how I look at being in front of people. Now, when I'm outside of my job, I don't always love being in front of a lot of people. I try to keep it more low-key. 'Before the job, when I would go out, I would be this real social person, life of the party, blah blah blah. Now, when I go out, I'm kind of more of the guy on the wall. I'm a little bit more reserved. I still like to have fun, but I like to kind of keep to myself. So, the job has changed me a little bit – not in a bad way, but I've noticed it.' There is little that the man with the mic doesn't notice; while his God-given voice took him a long way, his attention to detail has been a key part of his success, too. So, if anyone can channel change into something unequivocally advantageous, it is Mommaerts.
The Verge
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
How to watch Summer Games Done Quick 2025
Grab your grill, your hot dogs, and your sparklers because it's time to celebrate… Summer Games Done Quick 2025. The annual speedrunning charity marathon benefitting Doctors without Borders is back starting July 6th and finishes July 12th. Here's how and most importantly what to watch as you enjoy the reason for the speedrunning season. Summer Games Done Quick 2025 starts on Sunday July 6th at 1:30 PM ET on Twitch. Games Done Quick's YouTube channel will have VODs up typically within a few short hours after the run completes so don't worry if you miss anything live. There's interesting runs every day during primetime so always check the schedule for what's going on. You should also check in during off-hours and in the middle of the day because that's how you find the hidden gems like LRock617's run of Batman Forever: The Arcade Game at AGDQ 2025. As for runs I'm excited about, there's a Blue Prince race late Monday night July 7th, a Titanfall 2 race on Wednesday July 9th, and a Balatro run I will be seated for on Friday July 11th. For this year's finale on Saturday, there will be a bonus run of Mario Kart World Knockout races and Deltarune Chapter 1 and 2. With the way I know GDQ works, I have a sneaking suspicion there will be a bonus incentive to donate towards that, if met, will unlock a run of Deltarune Chapter 3 and 4 as well. I hope I'm right. With all the tumult going on in the video game industry right now it's helpful to have something positive to turn to. That's what Summer Games Done Quick is for. And this year, it's needed more than ever as something to remind us that despite everything, video games, the people who make them, and the community, are pretty dang cool.
