These World Record Super Mario 64 Speedrunners Were All Caught Cheating

[Music] we've already covered a story about a recent cheater in the super mario 64 community while entertaining it was certainly not the first incident of its kind nor was it ever the most significant today we're going to go back back to the beginning of mario 64 speedrunning where we will take a look at some of the biggest cheaters the game has ever seen every single one of these cheaters has claimed to have a world record time in some category of sm64 the effect that these runs have had on the game as a whole cannot be overstated and yet as time has gone on many if not most people have become wholly unaware of them remembering their stories is not only interesting but necessary if our competition is wish to be kept alive nearly all of the information covered here has been researched and documented in write-ups made by sm64 historian frosty zako links to all of his amazing work can be found in the description our story begins back in 2005 speed demos archive was the biggest website for both speed running discussion and competition at this time the site had finally opened up its forums to feature more games and super mario 64 had just enjoyed its first year of healthy competition on its leaderboards at this point the best 16 start time submitted was held by a runner named kirby carter with a time of 20 minutes and 46 seconds a few runners including kirby carter himself had already completed times faster than this however they all refrained from submitting as they had wished to further improve their times first so for all intents and purposes the 2046 was considered the de facto world record by the community the only person to actually contest this time with the video submission was a runner named marius m also known as holymoly2207 retimed with modern day timing conventions his run finished with a time of 20 minutes flat however the run was ultimately rejected because of the video's less than stellar audio quality this led to a unique situation in which kirby carter's 2046 was still listed as the official world record yet with many considering holy moly's 20 flat to be the true world record after all the validity of the run itself was never questioned at this time it was only the quality of the video that hindered its verification this run would eventually be beaten many times over the years but the record came back into attention over a decade later when holy moly himself commented on a world record video by cheese in his comment he brags about the fact that he once held the 16 star world record for several years holy moly at this point so many years later practically no one knew who this person was let alone any records he may have set so upon seeing this a moderator from the sm64 leaderboard's gothic logic immediately went to check the validity of this statement and by using modern day verification techniques he was quickly able to determine that this run was spliced splicing is the act of recording individual segments of a speed run and editing them together to create the illusion of one continuous run it is one of the most common forms of cheating in speedrunning and with good enough editing can easily remain undetected this story is just insane for this very reason if holy moly had just said nothing he probably would have gotten away with this like he had for the past 12 years but he instead decided to brag on someone else's world record video about a time that he knew was fake holy moly so how did gothic logic find out the run was spliced well in most analog video recordings a noise known as a mains hum can be heard in the background under normal conditions this hum will be constant and uninterrupted throughout the recording however in an edited run this noise will stutter during a splice when looking at the audio of holy moly's run in a spectrogram display you can see a clear gap in many spots of the waveform this very method is how a large number of runs were confirmed to be cheated throughout mario 64's history for another example of this kind of cheating enter miles b better known as shadow of miles miles was an extremely skilled and well-respected speedrunner in his time not only in super mario 64 but in many other games as well he began his speedrunning journey back in 1998 playing mario kart 64 where he held numerous shortcut records and pioneered many famous lap skips in super mario 64 he additionally held 70 separate single star records all at the same time however his achievements in the game reached their apex on may 11 2008 when he took the 16 star world record with a time of 18 minutes and 30 seconds this time not only beat the unsubmitted world record by 38 seconds but also the de facto record set by holy moly all the way back in 2005. up to this point holy moly's run was still not known to be cheated and was still the fastest time submitted to the sda leaderboards and so over three years later this time set by miles was the first one to finally beat it with video proof this run went on to be a widely respected milestone in the history of sm64 it was the last 16 star record ever submitted to speed demos archive and was therefore visible to anyone who visited the page for almost a decade afterwards many people were introduced to mario 64 speedrunning because of this very run and naturally looked up to it with a great deal of respect almost nobody had even considered the idea that such a prestigious run could be anything but completely legitimate however in 2014 the very same methods used to catch holy moly three years later were used here on miles's run once again it was discovered that there were clear gaps in the audio of the run confirming that his record was spliced out of hundreds of legit records this run was the only one the miles had ever cheated but despite his otherwise clean reputation it seemed that not even the most prestigious of runners could be completely absolved of cheating miles was immediately confronted about these discoveries and he eventually made his own statements in a forum post discussing the incident its contents are strange to say the least [Music] looking at his apology it's difficult to say what miles's motivation for cheating exactly was he claims to have been disillusioned by cheating growing out of control in the sm64 scene however there is no clear evidence of any other known cheaters from this time and despite the immensely high regard that miles was held in he seems to believe that he had been disrespected by the speedrunning community in some way and seems spiteful because of it on the other hand he also seems to show an extreme amount of guilt over what he had done unlike holy moly miles never went around bragging about his fake world record time if anything he seems almost shameful of it but his plan seems strange even in the first place this run was not discovered to be cheated until six years after it was first posted if his intent was to eventually confess on his own then why wouldn't he have done so years earlier these answers can never be known for sure as miles left speedrunning for good immediately following this incident any of his records still left standing at this point would also eventually be beaten including every one of his single star times but cheaters were not only limited to the main categories of super mario 64. single star runs were not safe either it is important to know about the distinctions between the different platforms that super mario 64 is run on around this time period runners playing on an emulator were about as common as runners who played on original nintendo 64 consoles emulators are generally much more accessible and much easier to record footage for furthermore the advent of safe states and in-game timer cheat codes exclusive to emulators at this time made the platform much better for single star optimization because of these advantages it was in fact more common for single star runs to be completed on emulator but despite these differences the two platforms were usually not separated on any leaderboards at the time in 2009 the single star leaderboards were hosted in japan on a website called rakuraku hp in the west they were shared on sm64.org a continuation of a previous website competition on these sites was both healthy and honest but it only took about a year for these leaderboards to see cheaters of their own in the summer of 2010 a runner going by the name of fragilism first appeared in the sm64.org forums and immediately began claiming single star world records however it was quickly realized that these records were being done tool assisted a tool-assisted speedrun or task is a run created in an emulator with inputs being entered in frame by frame rather than in real time they are usually reserved for research or entertainment purposes only but in cases such as this one they have been used as a method for cheating many of the strategies used in these runs are nearly impossible for a human to do without safe states or any consistent setups and yet they are all done flawlessly with frame perfect execution single star runs in this vein were also published at the same time on three other separate youtube channels while it's never been confirmed that these channels were made by the same person their similarity in concept and close proximity of upload times makes it very likely that they were these runs were almost immediately concluded to be fake and they would have remained insignificant if it weren't for two events the first is that these runs were still accepted to the japanese leaderboards despite the general consensus that they were cheated moderation back then was lax and it was rakuraku hp's policy to accept every run that had no definitive evidence of cheating this policy most certainly led to a number of cheated runs being accepted onto the leaderboards which devalued the site's reputation as a whole the second event was one particular video uploaded to the channel bowser sm64 of three claimed bowser stage records similar to the other videos there is a blatantly obvious display of tool-assisted gameplay but what separates this video from all the others is the unique inclusion of an in-game timer cheat code to understand why this is important we need to take a quick look at the different emulators that sm64 can be played on there are two main versions of emulators for the nintendo 64 moo pen 64 and project 64. moop n64 is the emulator generally used for tool assisted runs due to its superior functionality for making tasses project 64 on the other hand has no task functionality and is generally used for human played runs of mario 64 only it is also the only emulator currently permitted on the official speedrun leaderboards at this time distinguishing between these emulators was relatively simple as it was believed that cheat codes could not be added to moo pen 64 or any of its tases codes such as in-game timers were thought to only be possible on project 64. as we will later see many cheaters from this time were caught because of these distinctions if somebody was found to be running on moopin 64 at this time there was a high probability of that person having cheated a run before this no one had assumed that it was possible to have any sort of cheat codes in a tool-assisted run this fact alone is what kept the validity of emulator runs alive for so many years but this video proved this fact wrong for the first time it was the perfect combination of blatantly fraudulent gameplay and everything that could prove emulator runs to be legit given the circumstances it's possible that these runs were created and submitted with the goal to expose these supposed shortcomings of the emulator platform but we may never know for sure these faked runs had a long lasting effect on the super mario 64 community but unbeknownst to most runners in the west japan was dealing with its own epidemic of cheaters some of which who would go on to effect things much more drastically super mario 64 saw japanese runners pick up the game for the first time in early 2009 within a year the japanese community quickly grew to numbers much larger than speed demos archive ever had information about the early japanese scene is scarce at some points and almost non-existent in others despite this there is still clear evidence of cheaters pervading their entire history firsthand accounts for nearly all of these incidents have been provided by japanese runner and tasser midori sm64 as a leading figure of the japanese community for over a decade midoriya was directly involved with the exposure and rulings on nearly all of these cheaters in the summer of 2010 almost 30 runs were confirmed to be cheated seven of which were claimed world record times and the majority of which were ran on emulator every one of these times was submitted by one of four japanese runners with all of them streaming on nico nico japan's equivalent of twitch their method for cheating was all the same create tool assisted runs and then try to pass them off as real the first to be exposed was a popular streamer in tasser known as t-o-t t-o-t had achieved world records in both xero and one star in june and july of that year videos of these records can no longer be found on the internet however it is known that they were deemed suspicious less than a month after they were first submitted he was found to be running the game using moo pen 64 and was accused of streaming tool-assisted runs while attempting to pass them off as real-time attempts the evidence seemed conclusive enough but tot's influence as a popular streamer at the time made any punishment he received largely minimal the moderation team was apparently harassed by tot's followers and lightened their pressure on him because of this intimidation t.o.t initially denied that he had ever even cheated but as we will later see he would eventually change and apologize for everything but according to midori the lack of any heavy punishment for tot set a precedent for the rest of the japanese community suddenly an entire flood of new cheaters entered the scene with the belief that none of them would receive any sort of repercussions the next one to be exposed was a runner named haru kaze later known as kedama and also known under many other names haru kaze had taken the 16 star world record for the first time on june 22 2010 with a time of 16 minutes and 42 seconds in the next two months he additionally improved his pb by more than 30 seconds any videos of these runs no longer exist on the internet but it is known that his fastest times were never listed on the japanese leaderboards it appears that these runs were considered suspicious as early as june but it wasn't until august of that year that he was concluded to be cheating harukaze was notably more careless in his acts of cheating compared to others from this time his main motivation for cheating was to gain popularity as a streamer and so his only plan was to fool his general audience and not experience players of the game his only real concerns with the sm64 community was when it came to attacking them just like t.o.t harukaze used his position as a more popular streamer to attack the people accusing him of cheating but this approach would ultimately backfire on him when it led to his eventual ban from nico nico dismayed by this ban he would ultimately admit to cheating and retired from the game for good both tot and harukase were dealt with behind closed doors under rather private circumstances as a result of this the public perception was that anyone could get away with cheating without much punishment the moderation team was determined to expose any future cheaters that were discovered and exposed them they did the next to be caught was a runner named coin coin was similar to tot in many regards they were both extremely skilled tassers as members of the 120 star task team and were both popular streamers at the time he was also a top level speedrunner holding the 120 star world record in 2009 and one year later was one of the first people to ever complete a zero star run but unlike t.o.t coin did not immediately arouse any suspicion cheating was so uncommon before this point that no one had expected anyone to ever do it it wasn't until t.o.t and harukaze were exposed that the japanese moderation team set their sights on coin he had been creating both spliced and tool assisted runs and using them on his own stream and in tournament races but the moderation team was cognizant of their previous experiences dealing with cheaters privately and the harassment that followed and so this time they took a much stronger approach against coin on september 26th a live stream was conducted with the intent to expose coin publicly in front of a large audience in this live stream it was proven through multiple means that he was streaming tool-assisted gameplay and pretending that he was the one playing it was shown that he was running on moopin 64 and multiple points in his stream where the gameplay either paused or restarted made it evident that he was playing back a pre-recorded run following this live stream coin admitted that he cheated and subsequently deleted his page on nico nico after apologizing for his actions unlike the cheaters before him he was much more honest in his apology and never used his position as a streamer to incite harassment on the moderation team for these reasons midori looks back on him much more favorably than the other cheaters who were caught but he unfortunately had to be made an example of in order to set a new precedent for the future the summer of 2010 was one of the most chaotic times in super mario 64's entire history the fake single star runs created by fragilism combined with japan's multitude of cheaters made waves throughout the community after this the reputation of emulator runs was left extremely damaged by 2011 emulator runs went from being half of top level competition to almost none at all their validity became increasingly more questionable and the community was essentially thrown into a state of accusatory paranoia nearly every top runner playing on emulator was scrutinized to the point that they all either switched to console or in some cases ended up quitting altogether any runners who still remained were left largely demotivated and in the end accusations of cheating on emulator were largely baseless and only led to a decrease in honest competition additionally both rakuraku hp and sm64.org went offline a couple years later without any backup the majority of these records are now lost as a result and the community was left without any single star leaderboard for the better part of a year to this day the reputation of emulator runs has not returned to its original status and console has remained on top as the definitive platform for super mario 64 speedrunning while these cheaters were some of the most notable at the time the knowledge of their acts never really left japan however a select few had such a large impact that their stories could not go unnoticed in the west these are the stories of white heiress and akikon super mario 64's biggest cheaters white heiress and akikon both began speedrunning super mario 64 in 2010 and within only two years both players had established themselves as proficient runners of the game's short categories in a matter of months white heiress had successfully brought his 16 star pb down to a world record level he would go on to set five separate 16 star world records and kept his spot as number one on the leaderboard uninterrupted for over a year that is it would have been if it weren't for two of his runs being deemed suspicious from the very beginning of aerys speedrunning career many people doubted that any of his runs were legit one particular time of 15 minutes and 37 seconds was never added to the leaderboards this time was the biggest improvement that aerys had made to any 16 star world record the insanely fast improvement rate made many people doubt that the run was real aerys previous runs were also removed as a result of these suspicions and so he was left with no times on the leaderboards however he would eventually return in the second half of 2012 and this time his records would stick he would go on to set yet another 5 consecutive 16 star records culminating at the end of the year with a final record of 15 minutes and 31 seconds by all definitions this run was insane it was the fastest run on the leaderboards by a margin of 21 seconds and with no new strategies to implement no one could hope to beat it anytime soon after this run aerys would not attempt to beat this time again but his record would remain at the top of the leaderboard for over a year aki khan had a very different beginning to his speedrunning career he was never doubted or accused in the way aerys was as he had proved himself with respectable times in all five main categories of sm64 by 2013 he was a top 10 runner in 4 out of 5 of them he also held a large number of single star records all of which were set on console rather than emulator which further cemented his legitimacy but his achievements in the game would peak on september 3rd 2013 when he beat white heiress's seemingly unbeatable 16 star record with his own time of 15 minutes and 22 seconds this was once again an insane improvement many had thought that aerys 1531 was practically untouchable and yet akikon seemed to have beaten it by 9 seconds but the insanity of the run itself was nothing compared to what would later happen as a result of its existence three months after the run was first uploaded something strange happened akikon delisted his world record video and asked that no re-uploads of it be made with this removal the world record was then returned back to white heiresses 15 31 that is until another three months later when eris in turn deleted the video of his own run the japanese community immediately saw their actions as a sign that both of their runs were cheated years of suspicion around white heiress's runs made his ruling conclusive but no one could have ever expected this from akikon it was the first time he had ever done anything like this and the first time anyone had ever questioned his credibility outside of japan the western sm64 community had already been suspicious of aris after learning of his rejected 1537 two years earlier but any suspicion of akikon remained in japan even after he removed his own world record time however that would all change on september 10th 2014 a day that would change speedrunning forever on this day midori sm64 and another leading figure of the japanese community hirobomb published their findings on a revolutionary new method for verifying speedruns they were the ones who discovered the ability to find splices by using the mains hum in the background of analog video recordings this verification method was the very same one used to expose both holy moly and shadow of miles in the coming years but it was used here for the first time on white heiress and akikon's runs by using this method they were able to confirm that both of the self-removed runs along with many of aerys other runs were spliced following these discoveries white aerys and akikon both began deleting anything that was left of their presence on the internet this included nearly every speedrun that either of them had ever completed but their justifications for doing this were very different akikon disappeared almost immediately without ever publicly commenting on the incident however a private conversation between pancajan and xayah shows that he at least admitted his cheating to his close friends in the community aerys on the other hand was not so humble he claims to have simply not been satisfied with the quality of his gameplay and said that he removed the videos of his world record times for that reason only to this day he has still never officially acknowledged that he ever cheated he has only ceased to contradict any claims of it as the years have gone on this incident has endured as one of the most well-known examples of cheating in the history of speedrunning it was the first time that any case of cheating in super mario 64 had ever reached the wider public world record times and one of the most prestigious speed runs were found to be cheated and this fact only heightened the attention that it received as of today this was the last major cheating incident that super mario 64 had ever faced and it was the largest by far a number of these runners are still around today some under new names and many of them now contributing positively behind the scenes in ways you could never imagine i was able to reach out to nearly every one of them however the only one who responded back was t.o.t up to this point t.o.t had still never admitted to any wrongdoings and so it was very surprising to read what he said [Music] [Applause] [Music] tot's own point of view is very different from what midori had to say about him he does not believe that his own cheating inspired anyone after him to do the same and that they only shared a similar mindset if anything furthermore he does not have any recollection of inciting his viewers to harass anyone but he admits that he may have just chosen to forget about it either way tot's transparency and honesty in this matter is something that should not be overlooked while he was the only person to respond to me i think his messages speak volumes about everyone else we've covered these were all people who wanted nothing more than to win and they were willing to do anything to accomplish that even if it meant they had to cheat of course this does not justify their actions in any way but it also does not make them terrible people being able to make that distinction is very important i once again want to make it extremely clear that under no circumstances should anyone watching this video attempt to seek out or harass any of the individuals shown here there's a common mentality in the speedrunning community of once a cheater always a cheater while it's true that many of these people were repeat offenders it's clear that most of them were not proud of what they did and have changed considerably in the years since they cheated many of these people were not even close to reaching adulthood at the time so many people seemed to forget the fact that white heiress and akikon were only 15 years old when they cheated and not even 18 when they were caught super mario 64 has not seen a major cheating incident since then these people have all moved on with their lives and have grown as human beings you should all do the same it's not easy to say what leads any particular cheater to cheat but no matter the cause cheating will never be tolerated in our communities speedrunning at its core is a test of virtue built on a system of honor and trust if acts of cheating are left to run rampant that trust goes away along with any legitimate competition on their own these stories are interesting and entertaining case studies of people who've broken the rules but most importantly they are each a lesson and a cautionary tale we must remember our history or else we are doomed to repeat it i want to give a massive shout out to frosty zako for his absolutely insane research on the history of cheaters in super mario 64. zako has been doing research on sm64 history for years now and every single instance of cheating shown in this video has been well documented in a write-up made by him thanks to him more than half of the work on this video was already finished before i even started i cannot thank him enough for the insane amount of work he has put in to helping make this project as complete as it is there is a whole lot of background information in his main write-up that goes beyond the scope of this video and so i've left links to that document as well as zako's other work please check all of them out if you want to read up on the rich history of one of the greatest speed games of all time shout outs as well to midori sm64 for providing crucial information and first-hand accounts of many japanese cheaters without his insights a large amount of history would have remained lost and a large part of this video would have not been anywhere near as complete if you enjoyed the video please also consider subscribing to this channel and checking me out over on twitch recently things have been getting a little more interesting the shirt was holding me back the whole time chat [Music] you

Channel: charliebrown64

Views: 676,106

Rating: 4.945291 out of 5

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Id: iL7sNPGKksc

Length: 26min 50sec (1610 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 10 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/BigDaddyCornChipz]

Super interesting video! Haven't seen this topic covered anywhere else!

[u/Kewl0210]

Holy moly! What some people will do for a mild amount of internet popularity.

[u/jj0629]

CB is at-it again. Love to see it! :D