Speedrunners Don't Know How To Enjoy Video Games 

Don't disrespect your video games. Please, play them slowly. Get 20% Off + Free International Shipping by visiting manscaped.com/karljobst !

“How can you enjoy a game if you beat it in 4 minutes” The person that beat it in 4 minutes has played the game for thousands of hours to do that, I think they got a fair bit of enjoyment out of it

"Which is why every theme park ride *I've* ever been on lasted for many hours." If you count the queue as part of the ride, some rides *do* last for many hours.

As a former collegiate 100m sprinter, that analogy hit. We’d train 15-20 hours every single week year round to be over in 9-10 seconds. Training on its own was utter hell. The race devastates your nerves. But the outcome was worth it. Being able to consistently be quicker and more precise than anyone else is objectively fun as is reaching higher & trying to improve. You know I don’t speed run but I imagine that’s very similar to how you feel about it. Much like formula 1, too.

"speedrunning is disrespectful" to who 99% of game devs and companies dont give a shit about what people do in their games after release, who is it disrespecting

it seems like an insecure mindset, like they think a speedrunner is simply launching the game that they love, beating it in a hacky way as their first playthrough, and then rating the game poorly based on that experience. all it ends up being is an oppressive opinion on how one SHOULD behave whilst inside a single-player video game, which is absolutely infuriating. the amount of people who tell me to play the game normally in my comments over the years is genuinely surprising. I do not understand what they think I am, some kind of robot that just boots the game up for the first time and begins flying to the finish instantly and then uninstalls the game? and I'm not even a speedrunner!

As soon as I heard “Twitter has spoken” I was immediately like “Oh no. Not Twitter.”

The sprinting analogy was great, I think golf works particularly well here too. The whole point of the game is to play it as little as possible. When somebody hits a hole in one, it'd be silly to call him out for not enjoying the course properly.

I usually prefer my speedruns glitchless, feels a lot more like "beating the game" quickly, same for enjoying 100% over any%. That doesn't mean I can't respect people who try to break the game over beating it, two different skillsets, both impressive and way better than me lol.

To expand on the 100m sprint analogy, it's not just about the seconds it takes to complete that one race, but about the months of practice, training, hard work and dedication of the athletes that led them to this point.

Twitter users when someone beats a game in a way other than exactly what the developers intended

The same people who go "speedrunners are not playing the game the fun way" or whatever way they want to play it are the same people who scream "just let people enjoy things" when their favorite game series are criticized.

“How can you have fun when you beat a game in only 4 minutes?” Well, by beating the game in 4 minutes.

Of course we all know, nothing that last 4 minutes can be fun… thought you were going somewhere else with that

Moral of the story: Twitter will find a reason to be angry about anything, *especially* if they know absolutely nothing about the topic at hand.

I got pushback from people I knew when I started experimenting with games I had. Looking for glitches, testing AI behavior, and yes eventually finding ways to beat levels faster just as a natural progression of playing the game for years. It confused me so much because it's not like they didn't know I loved and played the hell out of those games, they just couldn't wrap their heads around getting enjoyment out of breaking the rules. They were looking at it in the same way as sports or board games, where notable cheating is either downright wrong or completely removed the challenge. I explained it to them by saying "It's not cheating if it's a new set of rules your following. Same pieces, different game mode. How many different rule sets exist in uno to spice things up?"

Man, if these people don't understand the concept of speed running imagine how they would react to a TAS. Or more fittingly, react to the process of MAKING a TAS. Their head would explode.

It was eye-opening to read that twitter thread and realize how many people are stuck in an early 2000's mindset on games

"Even something as simple as learning about speedrunning strategies allows anyone to enjoy a game just that little bit more. As new things are discovered, it allows us to spend more time with the games we love." That's the purest essence of the message behind this video, and a great narrative shortcut I WILL use as a reply to all the comments who can't quite understand the fun factor behind speedrunning.

"How can you have fun when you beat the game this quickly?" Doesn't matter because the person did, in fact, have fun. How they could have enjoyed it doesn't matter, all that matters is that they did, and if someone is upset that a complete stranger had fun with a video game in a way they personally wouldn't enjoy, then they really need to reassess their priorities.

I’ve always causally enjoyed playing the Hitman franchise so when Hitman 3 released I played it and I really enjoyed myself! However I quickly tired of most of the levels after playing through them a few times each and experiencing most of the different ways I could eliminate my targets. During my time with the game I noticed that the final mission was extremely linear for a Hitman game and could be completed in around 10-20 minutes on a very casual play through for a very casual player. I decided that I wanted to see how fast I could get through the mission if I perfected my routes and learned everything that I could about the level. I ended up playing that ONE mission for more hours than I played any other content in the entire game, I grinded it for hours and hours perfecting my route and my run until I got a time I was satisfied with! My pathing felt almost perfect, the AI and NPC’s did what I hoped they would do and I felt as though there was very little room for improvement. My time ended up being good enough for 11th place on the Xbox leaderboards with a 5 star silent assassin rating and I was so excited! I felt like I had just accomplished a fun personal feat! I’ve never speedran games before and I haven’t since; but the experience was one of the most memorable and fun I’ve ever had in my gaming career of over 20 years. Speedrunning is a great time, It’s unique, and challenging, it felt like a completely new experience to me which is rare after 20+ years of gaming; I encourage everyone to try it!

In my mind, you at least have to be having a little bit of fun to constantly speedrun a game for who knows how long to get a World Record...

"You can't have fun beating a game in 4 minutes!!" Funny thing is.. speedrunners don't just pick up a game and beat it and call it a day. No. They grind at it for 100's of hours on end. Sure, they can beat the game pretty quick, but their playtime with that game is huge.

“Running a game in x minutes” sounds super short until you realise speedrunning requires millions of it (while having fun of course, nobody is forced to do it).

Realistically, I would imagine that anybody who speedruns a game has done AT LEAST one normal play-through before learning to speedrun it. Regardless, speedrunners wouldn’t even be speedrunners if they didn’t have fun doing it. At the end of the day, it’s a GAME. It’s entertainment. How YOU have fun is not for other people to decide.

I remember watching Claris run Fire Emblem Three Houses at AGDQ, and I think she said something like "You have to play a game slowly to beat it quickly". Which makes perfect sense! Creating routes, studying the games, practicing techniques, grinding a competitive category, these things take a long ass time.

Great analogy with usain bolt

Karl Jobst: is making great video The background footage: is of Skyrim Me: a glitchless speedrun of Skyrim is probably one of the hardest challenges in existence

So many bro's heart sunk into their stomach when he said "how can anything that only lasts 4 minutes be fun?" And then bros rejoiced when he followed up with the theme park ride analogy 🤣

I’ve never fully speedrun a game, but I have used speed running techniques to get through certain parts of games quicker. I used to start fresh borderlands 2 characters near constantly, and that snowy hellscape you start in started to get annoying, so I checked out some speed runs and used some of the strategies to get through that part more quickly so I could get into the meat of the game faster.

While I’ve never been into the super glitchy speedruns, (I’ve always liked the more stylish ones) I’m fascinated by the fact that people figured these things out at all. I can always appreciate the fact that people are trying to push a game to it’s limits after already having their fun casually. Learning how those glitched runs work has always been interesting for me.

Enjoyment is subjective. Personally I don’t try to speed run games as it’s not something I want to do but it is something I respect. People who want to go faster and faster get their own challenge and enjoyment from the games. I guess to each their own is my point.

Awesome video Karl! I just have one thing I disagree with, which is stating that speedrunners love a particular game more than a casual player. I don't think that's really fair to say. The love someone has for a game is such a personal thing that I think it's silly to say that someone loves a game more than someone else just because they've spent more time with and done more things with it. Players love games for different reasons, and I think trying to compare that between players by measuring things like time spent playing or knowledge of secrets and glitches is a little narrow minded.

"Nothing that lasts 4 minutes can ever be fun" That's what she said :(

I think the misunderstanding comes from the "Beat the game quickly" aspect. People think that for speedrunners, they pick up the game for maybe the first or second time, then ignore everything it has to offer to beat it quickly. When in actuality, speedrunners know the game by that point just as much if not more than the developers themselves, they've far and beyond earned their money's worth for the game, and they love the game. I think that is what people are missing when they criticise speedrunning.

Karl: "Hey, here is some awesome content" Also Karl: "Hey don't forget to shave your balls" Love you Karl

Simply put It's the age old argument "You're having fun wrong"

"Twitter has spoken" is the scariest thing on earth

"Twitter has spoken" struck fear into my soul

It's not like most games have a "no major glitches" category, or anything.

To me, watching a glitched speedrun is just as fun as watching a glitchless one. I know that these speedrunners put more hours into a single video game than I've ever played video games. And since they find the game they've chosen fun to play, I can't argue that. Kudos to the speedrunners who can succeed in breaking their favorite games wide open for our personal entertainment!

I remember telling someone their favourite game (Morrowind) was completed in under 5 minutes. He got extremely angry at me and told me they were cheating and don't understand the game. Funny.

Imagine gatekeeping someone's hobbies. "Oh you entered the Boston marathon? You're supposed to enjoy casually walking around Boston while shopping and going to restaurants!"

I don't understand why people like speedrunning. But I don't have to, because I'm smart enough to understand people like different things than I, and it's fun to watch.

Devs: "5 mins should be just enough to get people to go and play the original" *Link appears, holding nothing above his head* Devs: "Oh shi-"

Karl: "nobody in their right mind would try to beat this demo" Also Karl: "let me introduce you to speed runners"

It's hard to imagine a greater tribute or expression of love for a game than really learning to speedrun it. And no, I'm no speedrunner (for many reasons), I just enjoy the ride.

Something he didn't mention is that many people often resort to speedrunning because they've played a game so many damn times that it's becoming boring to them to pay it normally, because of the sheer number of times.

“Nothing that lasts 4 minutes could ever be fun” So that’s why my sex life is so bad

Normie: "How can anyone enjoy a game beating it in 4 minutes??" Speedrunner: "Well, I actually clocked hundreds of hours playing it to do this" Normie: "How can anyone play a game for SO LONG???"

Devs : *"We'll give 5 minutes demo, no one is going to complete it, right"* Speedrunners : *"That's more than enough"* Yeah I agree wholeheartedly. For me it's the quite the opposite, speedrunners really know how to enjoy video games They play the same games, discovering new things, and new ways that casual/normal players can't. No one can do that without enjoying the games.

when Karl said "nothing 4 minutes could be fun", I was thinking about something else entirely XD

To The people who think that speedrunning takes away the joy of a game: People put more than a 1000 hours in a game, so that they could beat it in under 10 minutes. Plus do you really think that those guys have Speedran the game since they got, and they did not play it casually in their first playthrough?

If someone beats a game in under 4 minutes, they know it inside and out. They've probably researched stuff on both the technical and lore level of the game to the point where they are like an encyclopedia about the game's mechanics and unique quirks that make it interesting to them. They aren't "disrespecting" a game by beating it fast, they are just pushing its mechanics to their potential since they love it so much.

"you can have a free copy of Zelda but you only have fiv...." "Done"

Your rebuttal of "criticisms" of speedrunning actually helped me understand where these people are coming from and what misunderstandings may underpin their judgment. That's the sign of an outstanding argument, when all the assumptions and points of contention are accurately pinpointed

I'll be honest, most of this video just reiterates what I already know: Twitter is stupid. Speedrunning is impressive and respectable, just like the olympics, even though I have little interest in either of the two. Why comment this then? Well, I did find some common ground. It's very awesome indeed when you learn a speedurnning strat, which seems really fun to you personally, and you can use it when replaying an old game. I really like Crash Bandicoot 2 even more now. Neutral slide-spin is incredible - I wouldn't know how to design a secret tech. that's better than it for moving fast - it's so fun! In the end though, I prefer other avenues to speedrunning, generally. Score running, since I love arcade games, and shoot-em-ups in particular; hitless/no damage/no-miss clears, whichever you prefer or applies best(I really like the idea that it's even possible and consistent, regardless if I can't do it); and specialized challenge runs for specific games.

"You can't properly enjoy a game if you beat it in 4 minutes" Cos speedrunners always pop in a game they've never played before and immediately go for the world record

I remember seeing the Super Mario 64 A Button Challenge, I thought to myself, "Why would anyone play the game that way? Who would do all of this when I'm pressing the A Button whenever I want?" I eventually realized it was because imposing restrictions on yourself makes the solutions more interesting. This also applies to speedrunning in general because it's fun to try to figure out how you could go even faster. That's what speedrunning is about.

I love how they are telling speedrunners who play 10s of thousands of hours of the same game, to 'take their time' and enjoy the game lol. This all smells of people who just recently discovered gaming, as speedrunning is a perfectly logical evolution of gaming since the 80s. For most of gamings life, it has been about execution, points, skill, and yes, speed. Only in recent history have games turned to being about "immersion" and "story". (which are fine concepts, dont get me wrong) It's weird to see how new adopters of a hobby often tend to act the most entitled to it. Another great video, and great run.

"Twitter has spoken" That's where the problem starts

'Of course, nothing that lasts only 4 minutes could ever be fun' 'Which is why every theme park ride i have ever been on lasted for many hours' this had me rolling on the floor, not joking

Speed runners absolutely enjoy video games. Just in a different way than intended. And that's great. I enjoy video games too. Usually in easy mode and occasionally with cheats (though never in multiplayer). I like playing the story. Some like playing the mechanics. Who cares? I appreciate the skills of speed runners and I'm more than certain they enjoy what they do.

Thank you legend! Time to go watch some speed running videos now because that’s what you’re videos do to me, they get me hyped to watch speed runs which in turn keeps the games living on forever!!

Thank you for making this video, I saw these comments and couldn’t explain how impactful speedrunning is and how much it has helped me enjoy my favourite games.

"Nothing That Lasts 4 Minutes Could Ever Be Fun" We Are Thinking The Same Thing Aren't We...

I don’t understand why the 100 m sprinters just take their time and enjoy the track.

I think that speedruning a game is in fact a form of respect for the game. If you don't care for a game you won't spend time learning all the speedruning techniques, polish them and try to perfectly implement everything into one run. Doing so shows that you are passionate about the game and that you take it seriously, not just as a simple game that you brush of to the side.

So I discovered speedrunning probably about 4 years ago with AGDQ and your channel shortly after. I just want to say your videos are amazing, informative, and make the intricacies of speedrunning easy for people who are not in the know like myself to understand. I love your content and look forward to every video. You and a few others have made me interested in trying out a speedrun with my own favorite games. Thanks for all you do!

The "using glitches isn't a legit speedrun" is always the most baffling comment to me, because they're speaking with such confidence on a topic they objectively have no clue about, not understanding that the *vast* majority of speedruns use glitches. I know very little about hockey, and I feel like it's the same as me saying "this isn't a *real* hockey match, they're holding the stick with both hands"

I was one of those that didn’t really understand the appeal of speedrunning. That changed when I started watching your videos. Now I get it and I can appreciate it, even guiding me towards more speedrunning content on RU-vid, something I never would have thought I’d be watching two years ago. I may never speedrun a game, but I get it now.

I haven’t watched you in like a month and honestly it’s lowkey a blessing because now I can come back and just be able to binge watch your new videos for a few hours straight. Also I think you’re one of the only youtubers whose videos are actually interesting to rewatch. One of my favorite out there keep it up man 👌

Comparing speedrunning with speedrunning to prove his point... What a legend!

I don't understand why people have to force their perspective onto others, I absolutely understand the criticism, that some people see no value in speedrunning and especially speedrunning that doesn't resemble normal gameplay at all, why do those people feel like they need to shit on the people who do value the pursuit of excellence in that category. It's a hobby, there's objective metrics and a way to measure your own progress and a community surrounding the hobby. The criticism rings hollow, nobody is forcing you to change the way you play games, why do they feel so entitled that the way they play their games must be the way everybody else does?

Speedruns usually have multiple categories, including but not limited to Glitched Any% & No Glitches Any% If you have a favorite, there's plenty of fun to be had in optimizing a game in the category you seek to rule

It takes months and years to beat games in 4min.

Love all these video's thanks Karl 😊 keep making them so so interesting here how the story and strategies develop

I can't believe speedrunning isn't fun.. I thought it was fun this whole time, well gosh, now I know, thanks Twitter!

i can totally get on board with a debate around the merits of different approaches to gaming (ie speedruns, completionists, competetive vs or casual) but to call any of them DISRESPECTFUL is a take so bad i cant wrap my head around it at all.

I started watching you vids a few days ago, I'm not a speedrunner. However I can see the appeal of it, to try and find ways to finish the game as fast as possible. The work people put into it deserves respect.

Professional boxers don't know how to enjoy being punched by another heavyweight boxer

Imagine not knowing how to admire an artful skill.

The anger towards the glitched speedruns is because when casual players hear about "world records" and "the best in the world" they expect to go and look to see the top players playing something that looks similar to what they're doing when they play. When it comes to Ocarina they picture in their head top players as people using innovative strategies for tackling enemies and executing precision timing to dodge boss attacks, because those are the expressions of skill that the game teaches you to develop in casual play and they feel cheated when they come to watch people considered the elite players of the game performing different things entirely and skipping the hardest parts of the game. A somewhat similar phenomenon to this happened in professional League of Legends a few years ago, as strategies evolved in pro play it became clear that the dominant strategic play was to swap your lanes so that the solo laner who usually goes in the top lane plays against the duo lane who are usually in the bottom lane. The analysts and commentators all loved this because it was the next evolution of the League pro meta and it brought a much more macro-focused playstyle to the game. However the casual players despised it because the pro meta no longer looked like the games they would play, the skill expression changed from trying to win lane against your opponent to trying to move around the map and take objectives the fastest (something largely impossible in casual play due to lack of team cohesion) so eventually Riot had to make changes to kill the laneswap meta and force pro play back into line with casual play.

I've always explained it to friends like, playing the game casually is like enjoying going on morning jogs, speedrunning is like running competitively.

13:06 "Even something as simple as learning about speedrunning strategies allows anyone to enjoy a game, just that little bit more" As someone who has put hundreds of hours into BoTW, this hits hard. Leaarning about bomb impact launches was the catalyst for my 2nd playthrough of the game, in which I challenged myself to only use BILs to explore the world and avoid unnecessary enemy encounters or getting distracted, contrary to but somehow also in the spirit of the game. Playing this way means that enemies outside the great plateau don't respawn to better versions, meaning lower tier weapons. It also means no encounter with Hestu, which means less storage. Using BILs also forced me to not hoard stuff like apples. It's not a speedrun, and you could even say it's a casual playthrough, but one of my favorite unintended mechanics in BoTW would have never been discovered without speedrunning.

This is simply one of the greatest rebuttals I’ve ever heard. I hadn’t thought much about Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie and Goldeneye in years until speedrunning channels like yours and EZscape’s popped up in my recommended a few years back and I can say I haven’t missed ONE of your videos since Karl. Never tried to speed run anything, ever. But I respect the genius and dedication of some players and the way they push the barriers and break the mould. It’s awesome. Shout out to Queensland from NSW 🇦🇺

Speedruns make games like ocarina of time and super Mario 64 trend even more than 20 years from it's releases, this is what I called LOVE for videogames.

Fantastic video, great points. Thanks for sharing

"Nothing that lasts 4 minutes could ever be fun" thatswhatshesaid

"Oh no people are being too good at completing games so quicklyyyyy" Imagine, just for a second, not considering all the if not millions of hours dedicated to those since OoT's release practicing this game and learning more and more about it.

Awesome video, as always! I love the analogy to running.

Portal 1’s always a blast to speedrun, it’s so much fun seeing how fast you go and finding new strategies to put into your run. I’ve replayed Portal 1 countless times, beating it in around 30 minutes. I would never replay the game if I didn’t how to break it and play unconventionally. It just wouldn’t be fun knowing the solutions to the puzzles.

Imagen deciding how other people should play thier game

"As you all know, nothing that lasts 4 minutes can ever be fun" Haha yah I know what you me- "which is why every Theme park ride..." Oh. Ahem. *Bonk*.

I agree with Karl. I’ve put in thousands of hours into destiny 2. And I want to get into speed running so badly, because at this point, it’s the last thing I haven’t gotten to do yet. If anything, loving the game you play is what gets you into speed running or watching speedrun content.

Time spent on speedrunning videos like these, particularly Summoning Salt, really revealed just what goes into these speedruns, and gave me a new appreciation for them. They’re a challenge to do, and everyone likes a good challenge. And doing things quickly is just fun. I love getting in a flow and I don’t even do it with legitimate speedrunning in mind.

I'll fully admit, before I knew what speedrunning was, I just assumed it was "buy a game and beat it as quick as possible one time." After seeing GDQ, discovering channels like this, and following the history of speedrunning with guys like Wirtual and Summoning Salt, I realize speedrunners know your favorite game better than you, 100%.

I've only ever tried to speedrun one game, and that was Dark Souls. I did this after putting 300+ hours of casual play into the game, and after I gave up on speedrunning, I put another 300+ hours into casual play. Speedrunning is no different than choosing a different build or route through a game. Let people enjoy things how they want!

Speedrunning has actually breathed new life for me into a game. And that game is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Specifically the randomizer. I love going through and seeing what exactly I can do with what items I have and seeing how fast I can get through it. So far my best was a keysanity run at 2h30m. Not as good as the people in the tournaments but a time I am happy with. Challenge runs in general also breathe new life into games. I have done a low level Final Fantasy 6 where my entire end party is level 6 ( very fun to do I highly suggest ) and two that I am working on but haven't completed which is a low level Final Fantasy 9, and a low level no junction Final Fantay 8 (I am very stuck, this is brutal) . I would always suggest playing games you love in new ways as it will keep them fresh. Play a randomizer. Do that Pokemon Nuzlocke. Here you go this one is fun to do, play Diablo 1 and beat at least the normal difficulty without allocating any stat points, I was able to do that on the PS1 version I am not sure if it works on computer. It makes the game way different and you need to learn a new way to play.

There is an easy glitch, if you can even call it that, at the beginning of Dark Souls 3. The one where you use the tree jump to get on the roof. That simple jump took me over half hour to perform for the first time and over 5 plus hours I would estimate to perfect it. The fact that speed runners can perform hundreds of these combinations in a single run, and then to execute them to pin point precession, time and time again, not only shows a great love for the game but a complete domination over it. An absolute legend!