Cheating in Speedrunning - How easy is it? A brief history and assessment

Intro was taken (and super professionally modified) from: https://www.youtube.com/user/NewRetroWave.
LOTS OF INFO IN DESCRIPTION! Please read before commenting. Includes info on how these methods could easily be done on live stream.

Thanks for the great overall response to this video. As this is my first real video, I did not expect it to get anywhere near this many views so I probably didn't take it as seriously as I should have (there are a number of dumb inside jokes and whatnot). Nevertheless, looking back months later, it's clear that this video did spark a discussion about cheating in speedrunning and had a lasting impact!

𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒:

The spliced run that I made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taDLGQGkDPQ

RWhiteGoose cheating info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpaXr5HvKOU&t=2262s

Werster cheating info: https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/6ci50v/cheating_in_speedrunning_how_easy_is_it_a_brief/dhusurh/

Downtimedeath cheating explanation (pastebin by BluntBunny, google doc by Screevo): https://pastebin.com/XNkDxi2L + https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Uwbuq8Xm6fw5XuA6Pg6WoHhotKN2U39D4s0XRHcU0k/pub

The spectrogram shown at 11:14 is from mtnumbers here: https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/2g0tue/sm64_16star_akikan_and_whitearis_times_removed/ckf1zmp/ (Sorry, I accidentally said "spectograph" in the video. It's a spectrogram.)

Check out the r/speedrun thread! It has a lot of interesting discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/6ci50v/cheating_in_speedrunning_how_easy_is_it_a_brief/

Interesting discussion about the use of a hand cam: https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/6ci50v/cheating_in_speedrunning_how_easy_is_it_a_brief/dhvn4li/ (I recommend reading comments from poor_little_pinkus)

Info on the causes of mains hum: https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/6ci50v/cheating_in_speedrunning_how_easy_is_it_a_brief/dhvnd5c/

Thank you Polygon for featuring this video:
https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/22/15675028/speedrunning-cheats

𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍:

There are many more instances and methods of cheating that were not discussed in this video. This includes more methods that, if done cleverly, are impossible to detect and could even be done right in front of an audience. For instance, here is another interesting method used in Terraria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a1XyLKgwak.

I'd also like to point out that just because a run is live streamed does not mean we can disregard cheating. In fact, a lot of the runs featured in this video were live streamed. In the case of splicing, it's as simple as just playing back the prerecorded spliced video on a stream whilst pretending to play live. Multiple people have played back prerecorded runs on stream as if they were live, even with a webcam and microphone. Here is an example of EnNopp112 pulling it off pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvTlKS9_MFQ
In this case, EnNopp did not play back a prerecorded run to cheat, but just to play a joke on his audience. However, it demonstrates how the same process could be used to convincingly cheat by playing back a prerecorded splice/TAS.

Another point is that tool-assisted runs can be replayed on console with the use of special hardware. Such hardware is not readily available and also a big pain to get working, so I don't think this would be the go-to method for many people, but maybe this could become more common in the future if the process becomes more streamlined and speedrunning becomes more competitive.

You can also hook up your computer to a TV and replay a spliced run on your TV. If you record the TV with a webcam, it would make it appear like the run is being played from console rather than a recording, so the run may seem even more legitimate and the video would be difficult to analyse.

There are methods to get around mains hum inconsistencies. For instance, you could quite easily remove mains hum audio from a run with an equaliser or band-stop filter. You could then edit in your own consistent mains hum sound, potentially making a splice undetectable.

Thanks for reading!

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