Sure, direct capture is better but it's stupid to say that the speedrunning community should disallow anything but. Discourage, sure, but not disallow.
The only cases i can really think of where such a hard line should or could be reasonably drawn are for the world record positions, especially in a case like super mario bros where world record runs are put under a LOT of scrutiny. I'm pretty sure they have big spreadsheets detailing every permutation of a bowser throw so you can time the end of the run to within 2 frames accounting for lag-frame in 8-2. Also there was a famous super meat boy run that was discovered to be spliced from the frames of the loading icon animation. So there are definitely contexts where a community or even individuals in one are justified in requesting direct capture for world record or high placing runs. Some of these people make money from this after all. But for people just entering a field for fun? i don't think anybody minds too much.
@@Deses for retro yes, but for hdmi it's a lot more expensive. I will 100% agree that retro can disallow it, but I don't think it is needed. I think it's about 30 dollars for a nice capture card for anything before the days of hdmi. at the same time, I get that it's not fun to watch, but for anyone who can clearly see the skill level it is fine, and we are not trying to appeal to the masses, we are trying to show off our extreme skill. Getting more people into speedrunning will usually lead them to already spending 100 dollars on a nes, and more for: the game, a controller, and when required, a capture card. when you already also require streaming for some speedruns to even be accepted, not just recorded. that all becomes a fairly expensive hobby for anyone to do, and that's before even doing a run sometimes unfortunately. *or it will lead to the even more expensive option of newer modern game speedrunning* I also know you did not say it should be required, but nitpicking made it seem that way before reading through again, sorry. but it is still useful information for people who will want to actually enforce direct capture.
Honestly I think Cheese’s nerves is one of the reasons I like him so much. As someone who often has my performances ruined by anxiousness, there’s something really cool about seeing the top player of such a renowned category struggling with the same things and manage to still succeed. I hate knowing that chokes must absolutely wreck some runners confidence. It’s ok to choke, there are reasons why we watch humans instead of tasbots sometimes. I love the human part of speedrunners too, not just the extremely refined skill part.
How would you enforce such a rule? If someone breaks the world record on a cam capture and you don’t officially recognize the run then it will be pretty hard for you to maintain credibility as the official record keeper when there’s video proof that the run you are listing is not actually the fastest run. I wouldn’t be surprised actually if some anachistic types actually take to caming just to prove how impossible this rule is to enforce. This reminds me of the situation in chess in the late 90s. FIDE the main chess organization and world champion Garry Kasparov had a disagreement. So Kasparov chose to leave FIDE and start organizing his own world championships. Now FIDE of course declared him to be not champion and held their own parallel championship and crowned a new champion. But no one cared. Turns out it didn’t actually matter whether FIDE officially recognized you or not. All that really mattered was whether you could really prove that you were world champion. The organization that runs it is not important. As long as Kasparov has not been defeated he is the world champion, you can’t dethrone him any other way. Likewise as long as you provide solid evidence that you ran the fastest run then you ran the fastest run. Whether the run is pretty or not can never change this. Pretty ness does not factor into evidence.
Look, if there's a rule, you have to abide by it if you want to compete. It's really that simple. Or we can say that we can use our feet in basketball because how can anyone enforce that rule?
@@Deses "we can say that we can use our feet in basketball because how can anyone enforce that rule?" that isn't actually a rule disallowing anything, you can't enforce a rule that allows something you can just not disallow it. Also changing the rules in basketball is not the same as changing the rules in a speedrun. Changing the rules in basketball is more equivalent to changing the code of a game someone is speedrunning. A rule change in basketball changes the fundamental experience. Also speedrunning isn't a competition, and it isn't official, and no power on earth can change how it works or change who is the champion. The world champion of any given game in speed running is simply the one who beats the game the fastest in the way they choose to play. The person with the best time is provably the best player. A game dev who made the game can't say x person wasn't the fastest to beat the game when they are provably the fastest to beat the game. the only way you can say someone is faster then this person is if you find someone faster then that person.
Well, it's always the community that sets the rules. If you don't like the rules, make your own community. In terms of sports: american football, soccer, rugby, futsal. It's all football, but with different rules that different communities decided on at some point. Same goes for speedrunning. Different games got different rules. What counts as glitch, what as major glitch, Is in-game timer used or an external timer, etc. Some games even got specific, unique skips that are allowed in categories that are otherwise run without skips.
@@Deses This argument makes about as much sense as "if they weren't bad people they wouldn't be in jail" If you're blindly obeying the rules without thinking about it you really don't deserve the human rights you're graced with, for you're not using what makes you a person in the first place. Just be a good puppy and live your empty life to the end.
I agree that speedrunners should strive for high quality, especially for those who want to view it. I don't think it should be disallowed, I still think it's acceptable as long as the run itself follows the rules Even I had to use a camcorder to record my runs just to save on frames and get multiple records in my respective game. So I know about the struggle of having to play a game I loved and record it at such low quality until further notice of being able to save enough moneys to upgrade my specs. If anything, I think it's charming to see people willing to try out speedruning whichever way they can. If they don't have the tools to direct capture, they shouldn't be barred from submitting runs they did using a camcorder/webcam/etc. It shows how much dedication they're willing to put into their game, that they won't let the lack of such tools stop them from recording and showing themselves improving their time. I understand this may hurt how outsiders may look at speedrunnimg, but it could also be a way of showing that anybody can speedrun. Even if you don't have the necessary tools, as long as you have the drive to improve your times and have a means to record your runs, you'll be accepted amongst the community
Record holders aren't obligated to get others interested in the speed running community, nor should they constantly be dragged to do so. If a run is provable to be legit, it shouldn't matter the way it is recorded. People are making it out like he's wrong for recording the TV lol.
A little bit of quality, some tiny marketing and these people could quit their jobs and just do why they love for a living. But no one wants to put in the work in the areas they don’t excel at. What a shame. They do such great work and yet other people making bank off their thousands of hours
While I agree that requiring direct capture would not particularly affect the fundamentals of what speedrunning is, or really harm it, the analogy to physical sports and their marketing techniques does not necessarily work: Consider modern fencing or judo: Both have had significant rules changes, that directly diminish the potential subtlety of the sports, and move them further away from the combat they try to simulate. While some of these changes have been made for the sake of safety or sportsmanship which I am fine with, some (like reduction in allowable groundwork time in judo) have been made purely to make the sports more entertaining for the spectator, at what I consider a fairly steep cost to the sport itself. This would be somewhat like not allowing glitches in an any% run if it wasn't immediately clear to the viewer what was happening on screen. It would make it a "better" spectator sport, but it would reduce the options and subtlety inherent to speedrunning, which is part of what makes it so enjoyable for many of the actual runners. Tl;dr: While *some* watchability tweaks can be made at no cost to the sport, this is not necessarily the case with all, and you need to carefully analyze each one, rather than cast a wide-net conclusion.
Good point. That's why I often enjoy "no skip, no major glitches" runs. They are pretty close to the developers vision of the game, but use all the tricks even us normal players would use.
You make a great point. Sacrificing the core of running is the last thing anyone wants I think. But having the runs be recorded properly doesn't interfere with the run at all. If anything, I'd imaging using a cable and a PC rather than a camera on a tripod of something would be a quality of life improvement for the runner as well.
It's creators like yourself that have opened my eyes to speedrunning. I can't remember the name, but the guy that was kicked out of your speedrunning community for posting what amounted to blasphemy at the time, saying runners would do good by creating content sharing their strategies and getting more people involved, is something I totally agree with. There can only be greater good done by inspiring new talent to join the field, and I'm sure there are many people out there that would give it a shot if they just had some encouragement and strategies to try. Great job Karl, very much enjoying your content, keep the craft of speed running games alive, I'll keep watching. Also congrats again on your world record Goldeneye run recently.
Love your videos man very entertaining and i understand that if everyone stops using cspture cards good quality videos won't be possible to make. But the main objective of the video footage should be to prove that the run happened any entertainment value is just an added bonus there shouldnt be any restrictions on recording method as long as they are clear
Yea that's the magic of SMB1. With how SMB1 frame rules are humans can actually catch up with the TAS as the only big time difference once frame rules are matched is pure execution of 8-4 And considering the TAS is so refined that saving a frame is almost impossible now so we may have a hard limit of time.
I disagree with what you said in the end and actually enjoyed watching the footage you showed. Perhaps not everybody has the desire to make speedrunning more popular or they simply like the aesthetic of a camera pointed at a TV screen or whatever
I agree with you! I spent 2/3rds of my life enjoying all my entertainment from a 27 Inch CRT, and actually my jump from CRT to LCD has been difficult (mainly due to poor black levels.) What I'll say about the SMB WR is that it looks DIFFERENT, but it doesn't look WORSE. The main problem with the Direct thing is that everything looks pixelated. The game was designed to be enjoyed on a CRT, and for many other games, techniques were used so the NES could show colors that it couldn't produce on a CRT (via dithering), and those colors don't show up on Direct (instead you see a small chessboard). So the camera pointed at the TV version looks smoother (no pixels) and as you can see in the underground levels, there's some kind of "bloom" effect caused by the screen, so there's a gradient of glowing colors surrounding Mario, the pipes, the bricks, and the enemies, which makes everything look very different than on Direct. It could be argued that pointing a camera to a TV shows a closer representation of what the developers of the game intended for people to see when they played the game, so it makes no sense to talk about "HD Capture" of Retro games, much less to enforce it, because they never were meant to be seen that way (we were never meant to see the pixels) in the first place.
@@Yntec I gotta say, I was in your boat too for pretty much my entire childhood, though I had an even smaller 24-25 inch CRT TV. When I first got a 720p 32 inch HDTV. My mind was blown. Everything had suddenly become so much more clear. Though I never had a issue moving from CRT to LCD. In fact, I'm writing this from my desktop plugged into that 720p TV lol
@@randomlyentertaining8287 What I loved about my 27 inch CRT were the colors... I'd rank up the colors to the max, and I loved how everything looked. LCD TVs just don't have a way to show those colors, as if you use something like NVIDIA Digital Vibrance (which works better than built-in saturation, anyway), the colors at the top are "squished" and all of them look the same (which drives me crazy in Super Mario World, where pipes look completely green, no gradients to be found!) I've had to learn to live with greyish skin colors when compared to what I used to have. But that was then, and this is now. I had moved to a 40-Inch LCD TV in recent months, and since then I stopped going to the movies! From the distance I watch it, it looks bigger than a cinema screen, so I've had the best movies experience of my life without leaving home. And if my old TV was here (which was 4:3...), side by side it'd look laughably small, so no way I'd go back after tasting this, in the end I have to be grateful that my old TV died! XD But size isn't everything, my aunt has had a 60Inch TV since I was little, and I used to watch it in awe. I visited her the other day and took a look, and it was a blurry mess where I had difficulty reading text! (I guess imagine 240p material stretched to 60Inch...) I think it comes down to what one gets used to, back in the day I was happy with VHS cassettes recording on the SLP speed on a 16Inch CRT, nowadays I can't stand 480p anymore...
I really like how that run looks as well, seeing the ground curve and bend like that makes it feel a lot more alive. Not that huge of a fan of the bloom and slowly descending dark rectangle artefacts, but overall there's something soothing in low levels of distortion... maybe it's because it reflects how distorted our memories of old games are now 30 years later, so it feels more relatable this way?
This recordholder is streaming on twitch, right? If direct capture is really so important, then it's their decision to make once they see their own bad analytics. It's a matter of how much internet popularity and money each runner gets, so there's no reason for speedrun leaderboard sites to babysit them and force them to make what amounts to only a personal business decision. If it mattered for verification reasons, I'd be on board, but if someone doesn't care much about their video quality, and they're able to get a good time, there's no reason for other people to raise a big fuss, and certainly no reason to raise the cost of entry even by a small amount.
I think the importance of direct capture depends on the game. For a game like Goldeneye its important because you can't even tell what's happening unless the quality is good. But for Super Mario Bros. It's pretty easy to tell what's happening, and for some games I think it's better not to direct capture because it would be that much harder for cheaters to splice runs, ect.
Great video. I don't know if I 100% agree with your take at the end, but you lay out some reasonable, solid points. I myself capture speedruns of N64 using a setup that (barring my PC which I already had) cost less than $40. I'm also not vying for a WR of a popular game, and so my revenue/fundraising is pretty minimal. Still, it does kind of scare me for someone to say "your run looks legit, but we won't approve it because of some arbitrary criteria set by the moderators." That kind of reeks of the same elitist bullshit that got Twin Galaxies and SDA axed in the long run. Not sure where I fall on the spectrum of the question, but you lay out your point well here.
Regarding video quality, we just went through some of the discussion about it this exact past week in the Super Mario Kart Community. Some later WRs were recorded using the "point a camera to the screen" method. We have contacted the guys involved in those WRs and they were all very open to implementing a better way of capturing video. I have a personal interest in that method because I'm a "visual learner", and I use WRs not only as a history keeping mechanism, or proof even. I like to watch it as a form of improving my own times, by dissecting the lap and paying attention to as many details as I possibly can. I'm glad that movement towards better proof is global. (Btw, I mentioned The Elite as an example during our discussions hahaha)
Great video! I've been trying to explain the speedrunning to my wife for a while, and I think this video is a perfect mix of entry level info and the emotions and skill that goes into it. Definitely showing it to her.
I can really feel the passion you have for this in your announcing and editing style. Thank you for getting me interested in something I never thought I would find interesting.
I really appreciate the care that was put into compiling this video! It's very accessible for many audiences and is very thorough. An enjoyable watch, looking forward to more!
I know the accessory being shown at 11:38 is just an example, but on Amazon it tends to be at 1/5 or 2/5 because of quality issues or other troubles of the kind, which made me think that at some point, if we go in the direction of forcing people to use digital capture, won't we get to the point where there will be complaint on how low the quality of the capture is ? Also, I don't know where you live, but in Canada, the same thing on Amazon is at it's lowest 15$, most of these got a 5$ shipping fee, my point with that is: that the cost can climb up really fast, and if the person is having a hard time on the side of money like me, that 20$ can mean 5 days worth of food, and that's only to buy a cheap low quality apparel that might not work. That can be an issue to a lot of people sadly.
Just to bring extra info about why Taven didnt use a capture card to record his SMB1 runs: He actually has a GVUsb2 capcard, but his computer is a chromebook, and no matter what he tries, he couldn't use the capcard there (and if he tried to run Windows via virtual box, it would make the stream unwatchable). Tho Taven has a job now, and he will eventually gather enough money to buy a new PC. Also I won't talk about the reddit users that said things like "this run should not be accepted since bad footage quality, easily fakeable and bla bla bla" because there is way more than enough proof that comproves Taven's legitmacy. I agree that Taven's recording quality is not so good, but it's more than enough to tell what is happenning at the run. Just a little tip: If you have a good android cellphone, you can use an EasyCap to record game footage. There are some apps on Play Store that do a good job as capture card softwares for EasyCaps (That's what I do to stream with capture card sometimes... I can even use a facecam if I want to with some creativity).
Karl Jobst Because he would still run into the same problem of "this capture card has no compatible software for chromebooks", but maybe there is a way to do it. I actually should talk with him about that.
I don’t think the run isn’t legit, but make no mistake, webcam videos make it much harder to detect illegitimate runs. Taven could have also used a DVD recorder, VCR, or a TiVo to record his gameplay without a computer at all in quality that would have satisfied just about anyone.
@@happens4656 That would actually help him a lot since his streams tend to buffer a lot depending on how good or bad his internet is at the day, so he would have both the game capture (as a better quality footage/backup) and his stream footage with commentary and stuff. AndrewG actually used to do this.
I do understand what that guy you mentioned near the end of the video might have been trying to do, which was prove the the attempt was live and on real hardware, but that's what hand cams are for, right?
Oh man I've been watching Goose's Speedlore series and there are _so many_ videos with cameras pointed at old CRT monitors. The catch is that most of these videos are like 15 years old. In the year 2019 I think there's no excuse to not have direct capture if you're at all serious about speedrunning.
If someone is doing their speedrunning for themselves, as i did 15 years ago, then they wont care if a site accepts their run or not. Having standards for a WR recording is great and all, but telling people how to do their hobby is isnt constructive. That said, if they want to be taken seriously, they should follow the accepted community rules.
Great video! Just for the record, at 8:00 , that bonk into the pipe loses much more like 20-25 frames. The fast accel he did saved 4 frames. Also at 9:22 , kosmic is already doing 1858 attempts and is going to do 1857 and likely 1856 attempts.
Karl Jobst he never mentions that bonking loses 5 frames, but he does say that doing backwards wall jump saves 5 frames. He also says that going into 8-4 he is on around 18:59.5 pace, but after walk jump room, he is only barely on sub19 pace. Not trying to be rude, but it does loose a lot more than 5 frames. I’m gonna DM kosmic just to check
"When presented well, speedrunning can attract interest from a pretty large subsect of gamers" I can confirm I had 0 interest in Speedrunning my entire life until I stumbled upon your channel. You made it interesting. From here I watched Summoning Salt, and after that, I actually gave watching some speedruns themselves a try over on GDQ's youtube page(woot PJ). And now I actually like them. I used to think they were ridiculous, but I was converted. And I personally wouldn't be as interested in watching a speedrun that looked like it came from 1999 when there are much better options. :P
I agree looking at that footage it’s like I’m watching something from the early 2000s not something that was recorded recently and the quality makes it so I instantly don’t care
I personally enjoy footage via a camera pointed at a tv. Maybe it's just nostalgia but I grew up on that and something about it is refreshing from time to time.
I remember the "King Of Kong" documentary when Billy Mitchell submitted a video cassette of a video camera recording of his Donkey Kong world record soon after Steve Wiebe managed to set a new record. Very suspect and aptly timed. That's what I thought of when you mentioned the camjob.
Ok so I will say this much about the direct capture comment at the end of the video. Although direct capturing for older game systems is still cheap, there are still a few games where actually recording the screen is more impressive then a direct capture. This is namely for the really major games for example SMB even if you can't or don't want to direct capture from the system actually recording from the screen is more, how to put this a throwback to when we were all younger. Basically SMB and a handful of other games have such connections for gamers that it actually makes the runner seem more approachable and how much hard work they have put into the game. Yes it may not be the best as far as you think, but in cases like this it makes the runner feel more like an underdog who's going for WR because they love the game. Yes I know that it's something that you wouldn't think about but the fact that being someone who's is a little unknown going for WR in some games and finally getting it does get people interested in speedrunning. You know the whole idea of even"YOU" can be a speedrunner. By you I mean anyone.
Sorry dude, i watched this SMB WR and it was one of the best runs i saw in recent years. Speedrun is niche because it hard to get into. You need to spend hours and days grinding, streaming all your attempts or you'll be called a cheater, you need to have all the best and high end hardware in order to save every single second (specially for PC games), some games have they best version released only on one region so you have to import game and console (like Mario Sunshine NTSC-J). Speedrunning nowdays is more about the looks and the streamer's ego than getting the most of your favorite game. That SMB run was very special because not only the cam recorder, but the use of a CRT and the mute player. It felt personal and touching. It show to the world once again that anyone can try speedrunning and be the next top player, a message the community since lost many years ago.
Speedruns don't need to be 'marketable', that feels like a bizarre claim to make. Other than a very small section of the speedrunning population that do speedrunning in lieu of another job, marketability should not be at the forefront of anyone's mind. And of those people, they use direct capture. It's very... well, similar to the culture of complaining about someone else having a less well tended yard than anyone else in the neighborhood. Your tweet even says that camcorder runs should be disallowed, which would last as long as the WR wasn't a camcorder run. As soon as there was one (say, at this very moment, in fact), people would drop the requirement because it'd be obvious that the one who got the fastest time -should- have the record, no matter the method of capture.
I'm blown away that after 30 years, people are still making new records in this game. I'd love to see some more videos about the history of super mario runs from you
Another thing to add about SMB. Not only are those individual tricks brutal but the way the game does randomization means that missing a trick on one level actually fucks up later levels. Being on a wrong framerule changes patterns further along. It's so crazy that some levels CAN'T go faster even though it's possible to do so. The entire run has to be mapped out beforehand.
To be completely frank, the desire for direct capture only not only suppresses runners who cannot afford proper stream setups, but this desire will probably end up negatively impacting the community. If you force runners to use direct capture, that will detract speedrunners from running those games where those rules are implemented. While yes, it would remove the possibility of obvious cheating in a run, but it would also remove many great runs that have been done without direct capture. For growth, a seedy underbelly has to exist as well. That is how you grow a community.
Maybe make it so direct recording is only mandatory for world records If someone is capable of getting a world record in a game then they could probably get the funds needed to buy a capture card. But otherwise, I think they should be allowed in speedrunning. This way the people doing it for fun can still submit their runs, and if you are capable of world record pace runs you should be able to raise the funds needed to get a capture card. I think it would be on a game by game basis though, because a niche game such as golden sun speed runs, may not be able to get the funds needed to buy a capture card, but a game like super Mario 64 you should be able to easily get the needed funds to buy a capture card if you stream, and upload footage of your runs and PB's.
I am not a speed runner, just a casual gamer. Over the past year I have slowly started to notice Speed running and the great stories behind Strategies and players. To me (The spectator your community is trying to reach) It is vital that you Direct capture Your runs. It is very interesting and entertaining To learn about all of this. presenting it in a Entertaining way is critical.
Another great video Karl. I find your voice so soothing. I think yourself and Apolo Legend have raised some interesting points in your latest vids with regards for new rule standards for speedrunning. Though Apollo is more focused on how to rid speedrunning of cheaters I do think there's huge potential for a more mainstream audience for speedrunning if it's taken more seriously by all involved. It's a shame that such a huge achievement in speedrunning of probably the most famous game of all time is filmed off a TV. Possibly a missed chance for more mainstream exposure.
"Cusp", why is it so dang euphonic? ✾ The hard smoothness of the aquatic lullaby-esqe ambient score, you can hear the generacy of the hydration in that track𝄞 (not the DKC♫ the 2nd BGM has the hardness like a polished stone)
I totally agree about SMB. It also worries me that a spliced video can be played back on a CRT to prevent the video from being analyzed. At this point, being a super optimized game, they should have to show inputs and a hand cam.
Who cares about "growth and exposure" in a COMPETITION? It's like people who jeopardize the integrity of chess in the interest of "bringing the game to new people." Interested parties are ALREADY going to be gravitated to a competitive game, and bringing in half-interested people is the real detriment.
As someone born and living as a pretty poor guy (not as "American poor" can be), i do like support for the less fortunate ones, as i know how hard it can be to be poor. At the same time, i'd tell those others to find easy but cheap ways to record through capturecards, because it looks better, and maybe people will support them more, meaning they could get some money to spend on their food, each month or even week, depending on how life goes for them. I don't look at it through the eyes of people from the speedrunner communities, but more my own life experience, and since i get decent food and such for less money, like fast food restaurants being expensive and cheap ingredients used by them being WAY cheaper to buy and make your own burger, and if done well (not Gordon Ramsay level, of course), it's taste is better, and way cheaper than at the fast food restaurants. This applies to anything, including second hand computers and such, like i bought one for €200-300, which plays like a new one, but was way cheaper than from a store... glad that young boy told his father he didn't want a PC, but a laptop, making the father tell the boy to sell the PC, and use that money to buy a laptop, instead! Since i've been poor my whole life, which won't change due to my brains being damaged since i was 11, i HATE it when people say "just buy", but i also want to encourage other poor people to use their brains more, so they get ways to get almost the same stuff with much less money.... but NOT stealing!!
Hmm.... Maybe there's a way to also capture the inputs of a user passively while also capturing the gameplay footage, so you could have an input analysis like you can with emulators. I'll have to look into it. Sounds like a fun project.
This is all coming from an armchair speedrunner fan. I watch a lot of videos on speedrunning and dissections of runs too. I've been a fan of speedrunning for years. So, if I get anything wrong, please tell me. Why not both captures for speedrunning? One for a wider audience while having a handycam as proof of the authenticity for the boards. You could have double the proof. If something is off in the direct or vice versa, you can look at both videos to see why something looks off. If I'm not mistaken Japanese players do handycam because there were certain players that straight up spliced and cheated. One can look at the stupid Brazilian yu-gi-oh "player" or the controversy with Link to the Past runs where someone did splice and TAS to get to the board. It's getting harder and harder to see the difference between the subtilty of a human-run and a TAS run. It comes down to a runner's intuitions and deep knowledge to see that something is off; especially if that runner is moving up the boards in record speed. That doesn't really help the case if that runner is well-known, who is alleged having a cheated run, and those who have a surface level appreciation of a game. Those who have a surface level appreciation want more evidence than intuition. I also think when you're in the speedrunning community, you're not only playing for improvement of yourself but for the friends you made there, and maybe the niche cliche groups one may be a part of. If one of those people in those groups is in a position of power then they may be more lenient of cheats if they're friends with that runner. We're dealing with people, pride, power, and "fame". I hope this isn't a jumbled mess. But I feel these issues have to be ironed out before speedrunning gets REALLY big. Then you might get something like that Brazilian yu-gi-oh cheater but magnified.
I agree with you about direct capture in general, but for a different reason. The thing I'm most interested in is making sure the top runners who challenge the world records in these games are legitimate. I honestly don't know if splicing and other forms of cheating would be harder with direct capture or camera-at-the-tv setups, but whichever one would be more difficult to cheat with is the one I think should be used for WR attempts.
I guess I’m one of the only people that agree with you about the capture footage thing. People cheat all the time and there are even more ways to cheat using footage like that and makes it hard to detect.
The point you made at the end is really interesting, and I think you're completely right. Not only will higher quality recordings increase the appeal of watching speedrunning, thus attracting new fans; it will also attract new speedrunners. More exposure = more people who learn about it = more people who would have already joined but just didn't know it existed. And also, more popularity generates more revenue, which - like it or not - is undeniably a large motivating factor. Only the most dedicated of people will sink massive amounts of time into something with no monetary incentive. There are certainly people out there who could be great speedrunners if they could make money doing so (perhaps they have a job that takes up too much time), and there are certainly current speedrunners who would be more motivated if they could make more money. TL;DR: Requiring higher quality runs will increase the appeal of speedrunning and attract new fans - which, in turn, will attract more speedrunners. More popularity = more people who want to watch AND more people who want to participate.
It's a nice sentiment to encourage people to get into speedrunning, I can see where you're coming from! For some people it's just a hobby though, is any artist obligated to frame their work so other people will get into art? It feels a bit lazy to not get a capture setup if it's as cheap as pointed out here, going for very high status records, but discouragement feels like the right choice, not banning.
