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Super Mario 'Speed Runners' Are Setting New World Records (fivethirtyeight.com)
Virginia software engineer Brad Myers has played Super Mario 22,000 times, and just set a new speed record earlier this month -- 4 minutes and 56.878 seconds. An anonymous Slashdot reader summarizes a new article at FiveThirtyEight:
"In this 31-year-old video game, there is a full-on, high-speed assault on Bowser's castle under way right now..." writes Oliver Roeder, describing a collaborative community of both theorists and experimentalists "who test the theories in game after callus-creating game... 'Everything in my run, so many people contributed so much knowledge at various points in the game's history,' Myers told me. 'Now someone can come along and use that as their starting point.'"
Online broadcasts form a kind of peer-review system, with an ever-expanding canon of tricks -- for example, intentionally bumping into objects for a slight increase in speed. But the success rate for the maneuver is estimated at 3%, meaning speed runners spend most of their time stating over. "On average, about 1 out of 1,000 times does a record-setting campaign continue beyond its halfway point..."
Online broadcasts form a kind of peer-review system, with an ever-expanding canon of tricks -- for example, intentionally bumping into objects for a slight increase in speed. But the success rate for the maneuver is estimated at 3%, meaning speed runners spend most of their time stating over. "On average, about 1 out of 1,000 times does a record-setting campaign continue beyond its halfway point..."
Why do people care about sports at all? Why do the Olympic Games exist?
One possible angle that I might accept is that unlike well-known ball sports, notable video games are proprietary. A video game's publisher has state-backed power to dictate whether, how, and by whom its game shall be played in public.
World record time to beat Super Mario. Who gives a shit?! Why would you spend time on this?!
I agree with you, but let me be the devil's advocate anyway
TFA also plots recent advances in "time to assemble Rubik's cube" and "time to run 100m dash".
So why do people care and spend time on that? Because there are more spectators?
or if not... Check out this guy playing tetris. At the end the pieces are invisible when they drop in. Crazy stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Silence is a state of mime.
Now, this is just a guess so there is a chance that I am wrong, but hear me out.
Here goes.
The point of this pastime, according to my own thoughts and beliefs, is ... ...
To have fun.
I know, MIND BLOWN. But how is this more pointless than, say, building model aircraft or watching NASCAR?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Exhibit B, human nature
From the linked page:
I guess it's human nature to charge for human nature.
I present to you, Exhibit A for "why Millennials never accomplish anything."
I know right! I mean they only broke 65 Olympic records and 19 world records this year alone!
Though I have to hand it to you, you may have just broken a record of your own for stupidest comment on the internet.
CONGRATULATIONS!!
Don't challenge MLB if you know what's good for you.
I don't know what you're getting at because "challenge MLB" can have any of several meanings. If you start your own league unaffiliated with MLB, do you "challenge MLB"?
Major League Baseball has copyright over broadcasts of matches between MLB clubs or between clubs in MLB-affiliated minor leagues. It does not have copyright over broadcasts of baseball matches in other leagues. Video game publishers, on the other hand, control which leagues are even allowed to exist.