Though there were only a handful of Super Mario games showcased during Awesome Games Done Quick 2025, his brother Luigi was everywhere — and it’s pretty clear why.
In the gaming community, Mario’s taller, greener brother is beloved in his own right, celebrated for his goofiness or memed because his genial nature apparently conceals something a bit darker. However, in light of the actions of Luigi Mangione, the man charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the gaming community’s love for Luigi has taken on a different significance. That significance was on full display during AGDQ 2025 where his name popped up early and often.
During the charity speedrunning marathon, there were frequent opportunities for viewers to have their donations fund bidding wars for things like the player completing a specific task during the run or for naming rights to a character. For example, during the Pokémon: Let’s Go Eevee run, viewers could donate for the privilege of naming the trainer, and they picked Luigi. Throughout the marathon viewers submitted Luigi for almost every naming-based bid war, and it won quite often.
Luigi was the character name in Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim. He was the name for the warrior in Guantlet IV and it was the file name in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. And of the four named characters in Final Fantasy Legend 2, “Lugi” was three of them (as the game only supports four-letter names). Overall, all of the bids for Luigi — not just those that ultimately won — earned over $18,000.
Games Done Quick has a reputation for its inclusiveness and social consciousness — once cancelling a live event in Florida in 2023 over the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and lax COVID-19 policies. So while it’s impossible to know for sure whether or not the preponderance of Luigi was due to typical gamer memeing or if it represented some kind of tacit statement of support for Luigi Mangione’s actions, it’s probably easy to say it was a little bit of both.
