Speedruns on YouTube: Celebration of World Video Games Day!

In recognition of World Video Games Day, YouTube decided to celebrate a key subgroup within YouTube’s larger gaming community: Speedrunning.

12th September was World Video Games Day and here’s how YouTube celebrated it. They changed their logo to celebrate a key subgroup within YouTube’s larger gaming community: Speedrunning.

What are SpeedRuns?

According to YouTube blogs, “Speedruns are an attempt to complete a challenge in a video game — or the entire game itself — as quickly as possible. While the style of gameplay began to rise in prominence during the 1990s, creative approaches to the endeavor in recent years and a generation of cultural commentators have helped propel speedruns to a new wave of popularity on YouTube. 

In 2021, there were more than 7 billion views of videos related to speedruns.“

They have explained the two categories of these videos-

• Let’s Plays: Unsurprisingly, this content forms the basis of the speedrunning community, with creators posting recordings of their gameplay. Doing so helps give credibility to runs and prove to fans that record-breaking times are legitimate. Players try various kinds of speedruns, from Any%, where there are no limitations in place, to 100%, where no steps can be skipped in the attempt to complete a challenge. Many players consistently push creative boundaries, finding in-game glitches that will allow them to capture their personal bests.

• Analysis & Commentary: Part of the thrill of speedrunning content is tracking when and how time records are broken. That’s where speedrunning historians come in. Creators like Karl Jobst and Summoning Salt pull in tens of millions of views each year with videos breaking down the rich stories behind legendary speedruns. They are part of a larger fan culture that drives the speedrunning community’s popularity.

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More information on why viewers enjoy this part of gaming may be gained by looking at the most popular speedrun-related games. While the majority of the most popular games were launched in the 2010s and later, many of them also include titles from the early 1990s, demonstrating how speedrunning allows spectators to experience a sense of nostalgia and breathes new life into long-forgotten classics.

“The top three games are ones that are already massively popular on YouTube: Minecraft, followed by Grand Theft Auto V, and Roblox. However, when we drill down to country-level specifics, we see regional nuances emerge. For example, in Brazil, the presence of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 2 in the top 25 most viewed games reflects Sega’s in-country dominance. We’re even seeing speedrunning expand beyond its gaming origins, with applications to sketch comedy and Duolingo, showing how culturally ubiquitous this once-niche community has become.”, wrote YouTube blog.

This is one community that shows no sign of slowing down. They’ve shared a list- a playlist that you should check out for speedrun videos in their blog-Head here to explore speedrunning in greater depth.