Can someone explain to me why people speed run games?

Play the same game over and over for a silly record? Sounds like a complete waste of time to me. Don't those gamers have anything better to do, like play games for fun?

Well, you see my dear lad. Way back then these games cost a lot of what some people would call money. And, there was also this thing called poor people. Don't forget about the little thing called really good games.

So when you combine all of these factors, the poor guy that got his one game for probably the next 6 months if not the year, will have to play the fuck out of his really good game. Speed runs of Mario, Metriod, etc are the most common games. You never really see speed run of say Army of two and Kane and lynch.

I can understand a certain sense of satisfaction from knowing a game so well that you can beat it in 20 minutes. However, I do not have the patience to ever do a proper speed run. It's not my thing at all.

Do you not understand why anyone plays any competitive or racing game? Hint: They find it fun..

I think the argument "Sounds like a complete waste of time to me" could be applied to anything from climbing mountains, running marathons, swimmming across the English Channel to bungee jumping or racing on a circuit.

Sooo... people do it because they can, and want to? Also, why do you assume it isn't (at least when they are successful) fun for them?

It's enjoyable to watch people who are the very best at what they do.

Uh, because it's fun?

Time, Lots of time.

Well, speedrunning can vastly add to the replayability of a game. I've S-ranked Dark Souls and I still go back to it to try to pul off crazy tricks I see in speedruns.

This, too. I love seeing people completely break how a game is designed to be played.

For fun.

Why would anyone play games for fun? What are you, crazy or something?

I think it's super fun watching someone either play a game incredibly skillfully or break it in the most insane ways possible, and I bet the people doing such things find it fun. I certainly enjoy trying to unlock the infinite rocket launcher in any given Resident Evil game.

Fun. Challenge. A sense of accomplishment.

@driveuplife: Because racing is a thing.

the challenge and fun of it.

I beat Fallout 1 in like 15 minutes.

@driveuplife: Most modern speed runs you see utilise bugs/exploits to complete a game in a ridiculously short time. I think there are videos of finishing Morrowind (a potentially 80+ hour game) in like 15 minutes. A crazy feat, but they're of course missing all of the actual game, so I absolutely understand the feeling that subverting "how the game was meant to be played" could seem unfun, but consider this...

Understanding a game intimately enough to break it is discovering a weird depth that almost everyone else who's played the game is ignorant of. It makes you the person that has knowledge of something that potentially no one else out of millions of gamers has. A lot of the bugs are things that the developers were aware of and just figured no one would discover, so in a way, it's bringing the gamer closer to the developers and the real hidden quirks of a beloved title. Also, I'm sure almost every speed runner has played a game "normally" before attempting a speed run, so they've had that intended fun already. It's just another way of getting that much more entertainment out of something you love.

Achievements. Trophies. High scores. Speed run records.

Why do people do anything in life?

Because people enjoy it? The records are one thing, but these people enjoy mastering stuff.

First, explain why people are so concerned about other people's hobbies. Sounds like a complete waste of time to me.

I think some have mental health problems and others do it for competition.

@slashdance: That was pretty crazy. I wonder how people find this stuff out.

As someone who is seriously into high score games, I think the idea of effectively turning any game into a high score chase is pretty swell, not to mention how compelling it is to watch people execute tricky sections of runs and shave seconds off split times.

@slashdance: Gotta love Cosmo. He makes some pretty handy money every time he starts streaming on twitch. The financial rewards that a few speed runners have found might well be part of the reason so many others try their hand at it too.

Just to spite you

It's the same reason Michael Phelps trains incessantly to be able to swim back and forth in a pool over and over again 1.8 seconds faster than someone else: to do it, to be the guy on top.

Competition is fun and rewarding. The stakes are obviously higher with pro sports and the such, but the idea's the same: people trying to execute a task better and faster than someone else. That can be fun no matter what it is; speedruns are certainly no exception.

They've never been my thing, they obviously aren't the OPs. But I can certainly see how it would be fun and challenging.

This.

And besides, if you really break it down what is the point in entertainment of any kind other than to, you know, entertain. Don't be so judgmental of what makes other people happy.

Probably the same reason anyone plays video games, to have fun.

Yep. And also, routing a speed run and picking apart the little eccentricities of any given game is really satisfying. That stuff is fun for me. Sort of in the same way I really enjoy dismantling a perfectly functional bicycle and putting it back together again with different parts from another bicycle that I have also dismantled. :)

Who says the only way to play video games is to blow through single player once and never touch it again?

Mastering a game/optimising something as far as possible is enjoyable and satisfying to a lot of people. Also, if you want to play a game for a second (third, fourth, etc...) time then challenging yourself to play it in a different way is fun.

Not very interested in watching speed runs if exploits or bugs are used. Somebody beat Oblivion by falling through the floor the Imperial Temple of some such.. I just don't find that kind of thing interesting, but a non-exploit speed run of something like Ninja Gaiden (NES) would be more interesting to watch, just b/c of the massive amount of skill it takes to burn through that game.

"People like something I don't like. They are dumb! Why are they wasting their time with being dumb?"

I'm not trying to be asshole but you sound like a 5 year old.

A lot of the people who speed run games do so because that's the only way they find that game fun anymore. They've put so much time into playing it normally that they're bored, but they still really like the game so they've moved on to trying to play it perfectly.

The only game I could really speed run was Shadow Complex. There's just something appealing about it.

Oh man! i should replay that!

Once you've played a game so many times that the normal rules are too easy, you have to make up your own rules to increase the challenge.

@colorbrandon said:

This is literally the only post required in this thread.

"Why do people stack cups competitively?"

Because racing is a thing.

"Why do people solve Rubik's cubes competitively?"

Because racing is a thing.

Because they are stuck in the past and dont want to play newer and better games. Instead they are playing the same games over and over again.

Guys, guys. I think we all go trolled by @driveuplife...

Hint: speedrunners also play modern games. So I have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

It's human nature to actively seek out to improve ones skills.

It's also really fun to sequence break the hell out of a game, on purpose. Out of bounds glitching in The Last of Us is wicked.

the skillful speedruns can be genuinely awesome at times; the ones who glitch it up are nothing but cockwhisks.

For the kicks

Raising money for charities sure sounds like a complete waste of time... http://marathon.speeddemosarchive.com/

Just because something doesn't sound fun to you, doesn't mean other people won't find it fun.

For fun. I remember that I liked playing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time a lot that it got to a point that I could beat the entire game in four hours. Usually, it would be because that's the only game you played a lot for an extended period of time, it's similar to how one gets better at competitive games.

Why does anyone do anything, really?

They probably like the challenge of it. First you need to learn the routine, then you need to execute it flawlessly. Not the way I play games, but I don't have the discipline for it.