Speedrunning is very simple in nature: you take a video game and try to beat it as quickly as you can. Some may attempt to speedrun their favorite game casually, just to see how fast they can go without any kind of preparation, while others may funnel countless hours into practicing a game until they get world record times. No matter the goals or reasons behind why one might speedrun, speedrunning doesn’t seem like it should be a group oriented activity at face value; the majority of the most popular games to speedrun are single player, and at its core, you’re always trying to lower your best time, so the biggest competition you have at any point is yourself. And yet, there is a thriving and expanding culture behind speedrunning that goes beyond a mere collective of individuals gaming without any interactions with each other.
For example, many speedrunners will livestream their attempts at getting personal best times on Twitch. Since Twitch has a live chat feature, the streamer and viewers can actively interact with each other over the course of the stream. This provides ample opportunity for other speedrun enthusiasts to hop in and be part of the ride. Discounting individual streamers, there are also plenty of speedrunning marathons which bring runners of all sorts of various games together to partake in a giant event based on the hobby. The standout marathon of this sort is Games Done Quick, which has raised over $18 million for charity since its inception. With donation totals that high, clearly speedrunning has a sizeable following. But where does this considerable sense of community come from?
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It’s entirely possible that the shared enjoyment of the hobby is enough to boost this group cohesiveness. While there are thousands of people who regularly partake in speedrunning, the pastime is still rather niche compared to gaming as a whole. It’s always nice to be able to discuss and share your passion with others, so a general sense of solidarity would certainly help. Even if two speedrunners don’t run any of the same games, they can still observe and appreciate each other’s efforts, at the very least. While this factor would apply to groups despite what games they run, there’s another principle that may contribute more strongly to the rapport of communities of specific games, known as the collective effort model.
According to Fein, Kassin, and Markus, the collective effort model “asserts that individuals will try hard on a collective task when they think their efforts will help them achieve outcomes they personally value.” (2017) To explain this concept, I’ll be using the Super Mario Odyssey (SMO) community as an example. As I type this, one of the biggest goals throughout all of speedrunning is reaching a time of less than an hour in SMO. The current world record stands at one hour exactly, so the much anticipated sub-hour time could potentially happen any day now. People have wanted to see the game beaten this quickly for quite some time, and it’s precisely that desire to see the goal be attained that made the possibility exactly that -- possible.
Top-level SMO speedrunners are obviously a big reason this sub-hour time is on the horizon; they’re the ones who are willing to expend so much of their time practicing, executing, and improving run after run on a grand scale. But credit is also due to those who discover the tricks utilized in the more optimized speedruns in the first place, even if they’re not as skillful in their gameplay as other runners. They want to see the sub-hour mark reached as well, and ascertaining the methods needed to accomplish it is just as important to the overall process of getting to that point. One significant instance of an individual in the community exhibiting the collective effort model involves the discovery of a glitch known as “moon clipping.”
During a SMO speedrun, a runner by the name of RobinCirex executed his movement in such a way that allowed Mario to essentially travel right through a wall. This was not only unintentional on his account, but at the time, no one even realized that it was possible to do what he had done. Instead of holding onto this newly found glitch for himself, RobinCirex made sure SMO’s speedrunning community was well aware of it, and wanted to find out exactly what conditions had to be met in order for the glitch to be pulled off. Once the community figured out how to consistently execute this glitch and runners began adding it to their runs, it was determined that using the glitch was approximately thirty seconds faster over the old strategies. At a time when the world record was a little slower than one hour and two minutes, this was a huge step towards getting to the sub-hour point. Hypothetically, RobinCirex could’ve practiced this technique in secret until he was a world record contender, but instead, the collaborative nature of the SMO community led him to sharing it as soon as he could, abiding by the collective effort model. That said, this was one of a limited number of examples of this process in action, and not all speedrunners can leave quite the same impact on a community.
Despite the fact that SMO has been out for less than a year and a half, it has already accumulated over 1,500 individual runners. With so many runners, it makes sense that most of them would believe that even cracking the top ten fastest times would be too far out of reach to be reasonable. As such, most runners get lost in the ocean of everyone else’s personal best times, adding a layer of discouragement when trying to improve one’s time. After all, I just covered how badly people want to see the sub-hour mark get hit; with such a large leaderboard, how many people are going to notice if you improved your ranking from 350th place to 320th place? This mindset can be a driving component of process loss in speedrunning.
Process loss is the decrease in performance of a group when faced with challenges that contest the workings or dynamics within the group. (Fein, Kassin, & Markus, 2017) When it comes to speedrunning, this isn’t necessarily a noticeable ordeal. For many who follow speedrunning, world records matter more than any other part of a game’s leaderboards. While it’s typical to have a favorite speedrunner you want to see improve, new world records just leave a greater impression on the whole. Regarding SMO, even though the majority of runners have stopped trying to improve their times, the runners with the five best recorded times are still actively making attempts. For those who care mostly about where a game’s record lies, they see speedrunning as more of a disjunctive task, where the individual with the best performance is what dictates the success of a group. (Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2017) Looking at it that way, people won’t care as much how many people stop running a particular game, as long as the best players keep pushing the record further. But what if process loss occurred in a manner that shook even the best players of a game?
That’s exactly what happened to the GoldenEye (GE) community in 2002. In this year, a man named John Kaleta joined the GE community, claiming he had tied three world records in GoldenEye 007. As this was a bold claim to make when first entering a speedrunning group, he was quickly met with scrutiny. When asked to explain how he managed to attain his personal best times, he cooperatively elaborated, revealing a strategy that somehow went unnoticed by the rest of the community before that point; by looking at the ground (rather than the surroundings) while walking, your character would receive a slight boost in speed that would save approximately one second for every minute spent walking. Naturally, since this helped complete the game faster, runners immediately tried to employ this tactic in their own attempts.
Unfortunately, performing run upon run in this way would prove to be a massive turnoff to the community, as many felt as though looking at the ground throughout each run sucked out all the fun and enjoyment they used to have. Not only would you have to memorize exactly where to maneuver yourself (since you wouldn’t really be able to see where you’re going), but looking at the ground for huge chunks of time doesn’t provide any sort of visual stimulation. Attempting to get a world record felt more like a chore than ever before, and all to eliminate a paltry amount of time from the equation. By 2003, nearly all the best GE players threw the game aside, as looking down, while fast, was simply too frustrating for them to justify applying. Now that the best players had quit the game, there was practically no one left who both was capable of breaking new records and wanted to put in the effort. It’s in part because of this departure of players that it took years before anyone would break more records with the look-down technique, even though the best players still had the potential to do so. Critelli et al. put it best: “Where individual team members [fail] to recognize the uniqueness and necessity of their contribution, groups are likely to function inefficiently and ineffectively.” (1998) As the greatest GE 007 runners decreased in performance, so did the GE community as a whole. Process loss had left one of its biggest marks in speedrunning history.
If you’re interested in getting a more in-depth analysis about the shift in dynamics of the GoldenEye 007 community, consider watching the following video:
Though these principles don’t appear in every single group in the realm of speedrunning, it’s worthwhile pointing out that they’re just as relevant within speedrunning as they are with any group. It doesn’t matter if the group is focused on something as popular as basketball or as niche as coin collecting; we’re all human, so we’re all going to experience group dynamics to some degree. Even if it didn’t pertain to speedrunning, have you ever found yourself in a group that’s gone through a period of process loss? If not, has the collective effort model helped you reach a goal that benefited both you and one of your groups or communities?
Works cited:
Critelli, J.; Johnson, L.; Kumar, K.; Watson, W. E. (1998). Process gain and process loss: comparing interpersonal processes and performance of culturally diverse and non-diverse teams across time. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 22(4), 409-430.
Fein, S.; Kassin, S.; Markus, H. R. (2017). Social Psychology. Cengage Learning.
Karl Jobst. (2019, March 13). This Discovery Almost Killed Goldeneye Speedrunning! [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKkhzioZVD0
This is a very interesting article, I really enjoyed how in-depth you went with your analysis of speed running. I had no idea so many social psychology concepts could be applied to something like speed running video games. I really enjoyed how you tied in the concept of process loss to speed running in GoldenEye 007. I also thought it was interesting how some new speedrunning glitches can be a boon to a games speedrunning community, but others can suck the fun out of it. The difference in outcomes between the contributions “moon clipping” for SMO and the ground-looking glitch for GoldenEye 007 illustrates that not all improvements are a good thing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I really appreciate it!
DeleteI agree with how interesting it is that certain glitches can go one way or another with how they affect the community; the mere scale of the glitch can often be enough to cause significant ripples. One thing I didn't touch on was how games will typically have multiple categories, and one of the most common category splits is glitchless vs. glitched. That can lead to even more circumstances, such as runners switching to one of these "sub-communities," of sorts, depending on what tricks get discovered. Even when you stay within the same game, you might end up talking with completely different people just based on what category you want to focus on at any given time.
I've heard of the GoldenEye speedruns before, particularly how some of the runs' had footage that was faked or edited, but I hadn't actually heard about the "looking down" trick. It's surprising to see that that harmed the community that much. If the way forward isn't enjoyable.... why bother when other tactics aren't as effective?
ReplyDeleteI suppose it just goes to show: "it's not about the destination, it's about the journey" applies even to speedrunning.
You hit the nail right on the head, Jon! While it's always a great feeling when you best your own time, a lot of that enjoyment is lost if too much frustration sets in. The sense of community does help a lot though -- in the sense of spedrunning, it usually shows that you're not the only one attempting to reach the same goal. With the GoldenEye case however, the severe drop in appeal for running the game took quite the toll on people's motivation. If a normally tight-knit community begins to disperse, it makes sense that the drive to stay in what's left of that community will lessen with the more people who leave. Combined with the reasons runners started to leave initially, it's practically a miracle that the GE community is as thriving as it is today!
DeleteThis was definitely an article with many more layers than I had imagined. It was amazing to me the unity that exists between people even in single player games, to better the entire community with a beneficial discovery. It was interesting to me how changes can completely immobilize growth and progress in the community. There is a lot of pushing and pulling while trying to better each other, and is something that I think we could all use more of.
ReplyDeletePosting an article about speed running is very intriguing to non-gamers. The astounding impact speed running has on groups is eye opening. Who knew that by playing a video game as fast as possible could draw a crowd? The impact of cohesiveness in response to these top gamers speed running is under the radar. Yes the gaming community is much larger than the ordinary person thinks. However, drawing 18 million dollars from viewers towards charity is not a small contribution. It is exciting to see the growth of gamer viewership and how it can impact the world in a positive way.
ReplyDeleteI think Marcus and I are in the same boat. I had no idea that this genre of videos would draw such an impressive crowd. Marcus, you also made a good point about seeing how this can impact the world in a positive way. I hope that this genre can do just that for the simple fact that before gaming was cool they were the "nerds" and the "introverts" who may "not amount to anything". But it seems as they can do a lot of good in the world.
DeleteBeing a non gamer myself, I found your blog Adam to be very well written for someone with my background to understand it. I am curious to what other categories, like speedrunning or mutliplayer games, do these psychological principles apply? Do they apply to single player games for example? Why or why not?
This article was great, I do enjoy playing video games for sure but I never thought of speed running as being part of a group or team. When I think of a group or team video games, I think of the most common ones with Halo, COD, Fortnite etc. Then you look at Fortnite which is mainly a battle royale game with a creative mode to be able to make and speed run obstacle courses. After reading this article, looking back at the time I have put in to not necessarily speed running but just completing an obstacle course, I rely a lot on my friends who are doing the same course as me to give me tips or tricks or even support before I rage quit if they complete the level before I do. Also it is amazing like others have stated the crowd and money that these competitions and games create. Speed running and video games in general have brought together an entire community in a way no one thought would be possible. Great article!
ReplyDeleteI remember watching portal speed runs when i was younger. They had different names on different sections of footage because each runner would master a small part of the game, and in the end they grouped all these small pieces together to result in one complete speed run. I was really interested in this idea, of a bunch of people coming together to complete a game faster than any individual could. I guess the speed running community is just that on a larger scale. It kinda reminds me of the AI class I'm taking right now. We run programs with random variations and try and find one that best fits. Then we tweak that best fit to get a better fit. But sometimes a random variation comes along that is just better than any old ones. I wounder how many strategies have come and gone as products from groups of speed runners. It's cool that, even after years, somebody will just come up with a better strategy nobody has ever seen before.
ReplyDeleteSegmented runs like that are another great way to show how cooperative these communities can be. They show the potential of what's humanly possible, which builds the motivation of people who are actually capable of doing all (or at least most of) these more difficult tricks. As long as there's time to save, runners will continue to improve their times, and the best way to see just how much time you can save is to compare your runs with the best runs. It might also involve asking the runners of better segments about the strategies they use, to see if you can use those tactics yourself to save even a fraction of a second. Ultimately, it's a socially constructive process.
DeleteI have spent some time watching speed runs in my free time. I do believe that I watched RobinCirex also playing SMO as well. It's honestly crazy how accurate some plays have to be in order to move on to the next stage or even drop a second off of your time. I can't imagine the time some players put into a single game trying to lower their time again, again, and again.
ReplyDeleteIt is entertaining though, from the skills of the player to the game played and the speed that the game is completed. The creativity is pretty sweet to say the least.
You often hear the word toxic thrown around when it comes to gaming communities. I found it very interesting that the way collectivist concepts work in social psychology led to the least socially interactive gaming experience in general, to create the most positive community. Whereas gaming's multiplayer counterparts can be extremely off-putting and antagonistic. It's interesting how different direct competition and a more collected approach makes people interact towards one another.
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