All-female gaming event raises $215k for charity

Flame Fatales, a subevent of Games Done Quick, raised the money for the Malala Fund, a girls education advocacy organisation.

Frame Fatales, an all-female video game speedrunning event, held its yearly summer event and raised more than $215,000 for the charity “Malala Fund.”

Frame Fatales is a ‘speedrunning’ event, that is, an event where games are completed as fast as humanly possible, using a combination of technique, glitches, and game knowledge to do so.

Many older games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, can be beaten using all of the above in as little as four minutes.

While players may use glitches found in the official release of games, they may not use actual cheats of any kind, such as enabling invincibility or faster movement speed via cheat codes. Glitches often require very precise sequential inputs to activate properly and are considered difficult to pull off.

The sub-event of Games Done Quick, a twice-a-year event that regularly raises millions of dollars for charity, lasted a week starting August 21st and ending on August 27th. Some of the games featured included Elden Ring, Mirror’s Edge, Pokemon Omega Ruby/Sapphire, Shadow of the Colossus, and more.

Women of any background are invited if they wish to participate. According to the website, “Frame Fatales is an all women community for those who participate in and are interested in speedrunning, charity events, and gaming.

All women are welcome regardless of if you are cis, trans, non-binary, or gender nonconforming.”

Speedrunning events like these raise big dollars for charity events. Summer Games Done Quick, a yearly summer speedrunning event held in June, raised $4.5 million for Doctors Without Borders, a humanitarian aid collective that provides care to people located in areas “affected by conflict, disease outbreaks, natural and human-made disasters, and exclusion from health care.”

In addition to this summer event, there is a winter Frame Fatales event called Frost Fatales, starting February 26.

All proceeds from Flame Fatales were donated to the Malala Fund, an organisation that advocates giving girls a better education. You can learn more about the Malala Fund here.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF