[HN Gopher] "World's best" Guitar Hero player was a cheat
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       "World's best" Guitar Hero player was a cheat
        
       Author : luu
       Score  : 178 points
       Date   : 2022-03-30 06:11 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (kotaku.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (kotaku.com)
        
       | ben7799 wrote:
       | Depressing someone would get so into this and spend so much time
       | and effort on a game and then be ruined by cheating when it
       | wasn't even necessary.
       | 
       | Watching the video the narrator talks about playing real guitar.
       | I played Guitar Hero before learning real guitar and that's such
       | a fascinating thing. In general I also find the real thing easier
       | (sometimes MUCH) easier than the game. I think the real thing
       | made the game harder for me, perhaps because the game is visual,
       | not auditory.
       | 
       | That said I played Guitar Hero I/II on the XB360 when it was
       | popular. More recently I had tried Rock Band on the XB1, and it's
       | possible it's just that the whole thing was just terrible on the
       | XB1 due to the HDMI latency.
       | 
       | I can't imagine getting so good at the game as well.. cause I
       | found the controllers RSI monsters compared to real guitars.
       | Mushy buttons with lots of travel. They would often make my left
       | hand hurt.
        
         | vlunkr wrote:
         | I think Guitar Hero is harder than the real guitar in the sense
         | that it's hard to know what you're doing wrong because the
         | feedback isn't so immediate. For me, when it comes to really
         | fast sections, if I start missing notes it's hard to tell if
         | I'm going too fast, too slow, or just pressing the wrong
         | buttons. I loved the games in their heyday and got pretty good,
         | but I reached my own skill plateau where I stopped improving
         | and it just didn't feel good anymore.
         | 
         | I recently played through Thumper, made by ex Rock Band devs,
         | and while it's not a direct replacement, it's a huge
         | improvement in many ways. It's much less forgiving, but you at
         | least always know exactly what you did wrong.
        
       | thriftwy wrote:
        
         | PetitPrince wrote:
         | Why can't you let people have fun?
         | 
         | Guitar hero players (or at least, the subset of players in who
         | are interested in very difficult tracks) are not trying to
         | produce melodies or jamming harmoniously ; they're doing high
         | speed, high precision pattern matching.
         | 
         | This is like berating gamers playing Elden Ring where they
         | could do HEMA instead !
        
           | thaumasiotes wrote:
           | > This is like berating gamers playing Elden Ring where they
           | could do HEMA instead!
           | 
           | I'm going to have to say that this analogy doesn't work. The
           | downsides of doing real HEMA are things like "you can
           | experience what it's _really like_ to have your head bashed
           | in with a historically-accurate mace ". The downsides of
           | playing guitar in real life are things like "you need a
           | guitar".
        
           | thriftwy wrote:
           | Speed running Guitar Hero and conflicting over its validity
           | does not sound very fun to me.
           | 
           | This is the embarrassing point where fun have been lost
           | already but productivity is not there also.
        
             | recursive wrote:
             | Sometimes other people will find things fun that you do not
             | find fun. This is ok.
        
             | emerged wrote:
             | Cynicism will run your life right into the ground if you
             | aren't careful.
        
         | np_tedious wrote:
         | Real musicians frequently record things they are unable to
         | legitimately perform live
        
           | fredoliveira wrote:
           | Can confirm this is extremely frequent, especially when it
           | comes to harmony. Not everyone can be Herbie Hancock on a
           | keyboard, but with just enough theory and a good ear, you can
           | write complex progressions into a DAW, for example.
           | 
           | This subject always reminds me of Squarepusher's Music for
           | Robots [1], which was made to be played by robots instead of
           | humans.
           | 
           | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_Robots_(EP)
        
             | DonHopkins wrote:
             | And Raymond Scott's Soothing Sounds for Baby -- who ever
             | knew a baby could play a synthesizer so well?
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k66nGplNRmQ
             | 
             | At least the Android Sisters play their own music:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeerjrFjgT8
        
           | thriftwy wrote:
           | And that's a good thing, because you end up with a recording
           | which have cultural value.
           | 
           | Guitar Hero playes, on the other hand...
        
             | JasonFruit wrote:
             | There's nothing wrong with having fun playing a game. Do I
             | think it's wise to make a game your _one big thing_?
             | Probably not. But when it comes down to it, few of us will
             | have any lasting effect on the world, and your personal
             | happiness has value, too.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | LocalH wrote:
             | There's always someone who judges the pastimes of others,
             | and makes value statements regarding something they're
             | perceiving from the outside.
             | 
             | The Guitar Hero community is honestly pretty close knit,
             | given the size of it relative to other more popular games.
             | Some of my absolute best friends in the world I met through
             | Guitar Hero.
             | 
             | Your dismissive statement has about as much cultural value
             | as what you attribute to Guitar Hero.
             | 
             | At this point, the Guitar Hero community is _its own_
             | subculture.
        
             | fknorangesite wrote:
             | However small you feel the cultural value of Guitar Hero
             | plays, it is still more than that of judgmental
             | gatekeeping.
        
         | omnibrain wrote:
         | There is even an early xkcd about this topic:
         | https://xkcd.com/359/
        
         | tvararu wrote:
         | I played Guitar Hero for years before I picked up the real
         | instrument. I still enjoy the game.
         | 
         | Let people have fun.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | anonu wrote:
       | From the end of the video:
       | 
       | 0.75 * 132.5=99.375
       | 
       | 0.75 * 133.3=99.975 or 60 milliseconds slower over 4 minutes.
       | Probably imperceptible if you played 2 videos over each other.
       | 
       | Interesting they caught that difference. Wonder why he made the
       | math error? Maybe originally he divided 2 wall clock times that
       | weren't exact lengths and just ended up using the wrong
       | multiplier all along.
        
         | LocalH wrote:
         | This game is all about the tiniest differences in timing. I can
         | feel the difference if my game is even 10-20ms out of sync. It
         | doesn't surprise me at all that someone detected it.
        
           | Graziano_M wrote:
           | Back when guitar hero was big I went home to visit family and
           | played my brother. He stomped me, but I noticed the sound
           | wasn't synced up to the video. Once I fixed the setting to
           | make it accurate he was horrible. He had trained in a ~100ms
           | delta in what was shown on video. He couldn't play on anyone
           | else's TV, either.
        
       | kmeisthax wrote:
       | >What's wild here is that Schmooey was a really good Guitar Hero
       | player! This wasn't a case of some kid sitting alone in his room
       | faking his way to the top through video alone. Schmooey had been
       | an active member of the community, and had even attended live
       | events and played alongside fellow players like CarneyJared
       | (whose exploits we featured last year).
       | 
       | In many competitive sports, the top players will all plateau at
       | nearly the same level of performance. Distinguishing competitors
       | any further becomes impossible, with what is effectively random
       | chance deciding (honest) winners. The search for an "edge" - some
       | split-second advantage to go from being effectively tied at #2
       | with 30 other competitors to being consistently #1 - leads
       | competitors to do one of two things:
       | 
       | - Embrace superstition
       | 
       | - Cheat
       | 
       | Schmooey's actions are explainable purely as a way for an
       | otherwise amazing competitor to get their "edge" by cheating
       | "just a little". The same mechanics are why many sports not only
       | have problems with doping[0], but organized doping rings that
       | expend lots of time and energy on figuring out how to beat anti-
       | doping tests. The face of sport is great athletes either making
       | themselves very slightly superhuman with damaging drug abuse, or,
       | if they can, lying about their performance to make it look like
       | they did the former.
       | 
       | [0] For the record, doping is not purely a physical athletics
       | problem; e-sports have already been roiled by allegations of
       | Adderall abuse.
        
         | HideousKojima wrote:
         | Billy Mitchell (the guy from _King of Kong_ ) was also actually
         | genuinely good at _Donkey Kong_ , definitely in the top 1% of
         | players. But like you said, that isn't always enough to get to
         | the top, and he resorted to cheating.
        
         | mocha_nate wrote:
         | I was at a family house party and an 8 year old came up to his
         | mom asking for Admin rights in Roblox (we found out -- so he
         | could cheat). He was very upset because EVERYBODY DOES IT and
         | he felt left behind.
        
         | mc4ndr3 wrote:
         | Yeah, the Donkey Kong guy was the same way. No love of the
         | sport. People living for empty achievements.
        
         | xurukefi wrote:
         | That is also why cheating done by actually skilled people is
         | really dificult to detect. Schmooey is a skilled guitar hero
         | player and therefore he very well knows the limitations in
         | terms of the results the competitive gh community will believe
         | him. A random kid with no skill would have no idea of what he
         | is actually doing and would just perform some absolutely unreal
         | run that nobody would buy into. It's a bit like cheating in
         | chess where a grandmaster using an engine would not blindly
         | play the best moves but rather the ones that seem barely within
         | human capabilities. Or like a professional runner on EPO who
         | breaks the world record in the 10000m just by a few seconds
         | although he would have had much more left in the tank.
        
         | jancsika wrote:
         | > Schmooey's actions are explainable purely as a way for an
         | otherwise amazing competitor to get their "edge" by cheating
         | "just a little".
         | 
         | Playing slower and then playing a sped-up video to pretend it
         | is live is the epitome of cheating, not "just a little"
         | cheating to get an "edge."
         | 
         | What's refreshing here is the fact that he seems not at all
         | interested in attempting to rationalize his own behavior. The
         | article says he refunded the bounties he collected. Someone who
         | admits to this kind of public mistake like this has a good
         | opportunity to come out the other side a better person.
        
           | pirate787 wrote:
           | Agreed, especially since he was so young when he cheated.
        
           | taeric wrote:
           | Sadly, I don't think we do enough to actually celebrate
           | coming clean. I can hope this is a situation where I'm wrong
           | on that.
           | 
           | And to be fair, I get why it can be hard to celebrate the
           | admission of something without celebrating that something.
           | So, celebrate is probably not the right word.
        
             | pessimizer wrote:
             | Everybody sees the perverse incentives in celebrating ex-
             | cheaters while non-cheaters are ignored.
        
               | taeric wrote:
               | I think my problem is in the excommunication style of
               | dealing with cheating. Reparation and nullification of
               | cheat wins makes sense. Beyond that? You wind up
               | encouraging scorched earth defence of celebrities. Or
               | worse, when the stakes start to outweigh the actual
               | costs.
               | 
               | Note that I'm not clear there is any path free of ego
               | based hiding of behavior. Not do I really have actionable
               | ideas. About the only faith item that I still have is
               | redemption. And it is crazy to me how hard the modern
               | world seems to try to block that off. Worse still, when
               | allowing for redemption is mistaken for endorsing the
               | previous behavior. Often in bad faith discussions.
        
         | donalhunt wrote:
         | This reminds me of how F1 teams will look for any ambiguity in
         | the regulations to allow them to take advantage over fellow
         | teams.
         | 
         | Mercedes with their "not rigid enough" rear wing springs to
         | mind. The sporting rule makers later clarified exactly what was
         | and was not allowed.
         | 
         | And yes - I note the other responses mentioning the difference
         | between bending the rules and breaking them.
        
           | walton_simons wrote:
           | My favourite instance of this is the Brabham BT46B, which
           | used fans to suck the car down onto the track. Not cheating
           | by any means -- they never tried to hide it -- but
           | nevertheless a very creative interpretation of the rules!
           | 
           | https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-
           | seaters/f...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | danjc wrote:
       | I get that this is just a game but I seriously think if you're
       | going to spend so much time playing a fake instrument, you might
       | as well learn to play the real thing. As for speed - shredding
       | anyone?
        
         | wodenokoto wrote:
         | There's a South Park episode that takes the idea that Guitar
         | Hero players are more skilled and renowned than actual guitar
         | players.
         | 
         | There's a scene where one of the kids plays an acoustic set of
         | guitar hero, and people listen deeply and applaud him tapping
         | on an unplugged guitar hero controller.
        
         | code_duck wrote:
         | Guitar playing doesn't have visual reinforcement. It would be
         | interesting if it did.
        
           | Foxboron wrote:
           | I personally vividly hallucinate tabs, chords, shapes and
           | scales while playing. Sometimes with it overlaying on the
           | fretboard.
           | 
           | Arguably this depends on how you learn and memorize, but I
           | don't think you can discount the visual element of playing
           | instruments. We do have the dots in the fretboard after all.
        
             | hoseja wrote:
             | You needed to learn to hallucinate them. Imagine them in AR
             | from the get-go.
        
           | grujicd wrote:
           | You don't know about Rocksmith? Basically, it comes with a
           | guitar to USB cable, you plug in the real thing and play
           | something very similar to Guitar Hero.
        
             | xdfgh1112 wrote:
             | It's not as fun and it takes longer to get good. That's why
             | rhythm games are popular.
        
               | grujicd wrote:
               | You're probably right since I never played Guitar Hero.
               | 
               | Rocksmith would definitelly be harder since you have to
               | produce clean tones for game to recognize. Correct
               | fretting and picking... But you'll have some real guitar
               | skills when you turn off the game.
               | 
               | As a not-so-skilled guitar player, I found Rocksmith to
               | greatly improve my rhythm and to teach me a valuable
               | lesson of "show must go on". When you play alone and make
               | a mistake it's natural to stop and redo that last part.
               | But that's not how you can play with others and not the
               | way you can play Rocksmith. So it teaches you to keep
               | playing whatever happens.
               | 
               | Aparth from these aspects, which are important, I didn't
               | learn much more from Rocksmith. Yes, it does have some
               | musical lessons but my general feeling is that it leads
               | you to follow patterns that scroll down, and not to think
               | about notes/chords/scales involved.
        
         | jerrre wrote:
         | You might as well, but if one is more fun to you than the
         | other, there is nothing inherently better with a "real"
         | instrument.
        
         | ClemFandango wrote:
         | I play guitar/bass, and I've played in bands and by myself, but
         | this represents an entirely different and interesting skillset.
         | Rhythm games are a skill in their own right, the visual element
         | of what they're simulating is somewhat inconsequential - the
         | guitar controller could just be a stick or even a regular
         | controller and the gameplay is roughly the same. Maybe the drum
         | controller for rock band(?) is a close analogy, but it misses
         | the point so to speak
        
           | lloeki wrote:
           | IIRC the Rock Band team was borne out from part of the GH
           | team that had a different view of the game. It's all in the
           | title: Rock _Band_ vs Guitar _Hero_. One is collaborative,
           | the other competitive.
           | 
           | The RB team had this vision that the game was a mind trick to
           | maybe get people into music, with a low barrier to entry,
           | ramping up all the way to RB3's pro guitar (the one with 6
           | strings and the full fret board, that ends up showing actual
           | chords on screen), pro keyboard, pro drum set, and so on. Of
           | course it's useless to pretend this makes you learn the real
           | instruments, still you get to approach key things like pacing
           | yourself, rhythm, strumming, song structure, pattern
           | matching, rehearsing, talking to your band members... all
           | while having a damn fun time.
           | 
           | And dare I say, this was a success, at least for one of my
           | friends and his family. I showed him RB1, he enjoyed it so
           | much that the next day he bought a X360+game+accessories,
           | started playing it, and pulled along his wife and two
           | daughters, where they rotated instruments in turn. As they
           | ramped up through the whole RB saga up to RB3, they thought
           | "it's so fun playing this game together, kinda like being a
           | band!". Next thing you know they picked up real instruments
           | and started an actual band.
           | 
           | I myself picked up the guitar much more easily, not because
           | of any technique learned (because the game is incredibly
           | different from the real thing still) but because it made me
           | raise in confidence that this was approachable.
        
             | LocalH wrote:
             | The Rock Band team _was_ pretty much the Guitar Hero 2
             | team. Harmonix made Rock Band because Activision chose to
             | hand GH3 development to another team. Activision even had
             | the option to use the Harmonix engine under license, and
             | chose to allow Neversoft to fork the Tony Hawk engine and
             | bolt a beatmatcher on top (which they did horribly, by the
             | way, ExileLord has some videos on YouTube discussing some
             | of the more egregious bugs).
             | 
             | It's entirely possible that, had Harmonix developed GH3, it
             | may have been a full-band game. We do know that they
             | considered drums as early as post-GH1 development, there
             | exist a whole array of drum gems in the 4-song OPM GH2
             | demo, as well as some leftover code fragments (for example,
             | there is an entire DrumTrackWatcher class with several
             | functions like AddFills and AddLanes, and the OPM demo
             | build itself actually also at some level checks for
             | Konami/Topway drums for PS1 DrumMania, and has controller
             | detection script that recognizes Topway drums).
             | 
             | GH2 also has leftover "band_version.dta" files that, across
             | all builds of GH2 and GH80s that we have, always contains
             | the same contents: "Build: 060302_A" (HMX dated these
             | builds YYMMDD, best we can tell). band_version.dta is the
             | file later used in the Rock Band series to contain the
             | build date. There is also a separate file "gh2_version.dta"
             | that is different between PS2 4-song, PS2 10-song, PS2
             | retail, 360 retail, 360 10-song, PS2 GH80s press review,
             | and PS2 GH80s retail. I'm pretty sure there exists within
             | Harmonix, a disc with that very build date written on the
             | label (including the A, which I feel signifies that they'd
             | burnt a second distinct build that day), and my feeling is
             | that if we had that disc, it would have whatever drum
             | support active that they had at the time. Perhaps 060302
             | doesn't have drums active, but 060302_A was a branch that
             | did? No way to know unless someone steals those binders
             | from HMX and leaks them to us (fat chance lol) or HMX
             | themselves decide to open up their archives to our
             | dataminers.
        
           | chaps wrote:
           | Interestingly, you could buy a midi adapter and hook up
           | something like a roland electronic kit. Kind of a learning
           | tool.. just that it wasn't good at teaching good habits.
        
           | bananamerica wrote:
           | I actually prefer Guitar Hero with a PlayStation controller.
        
             | LocalH wrote:
             | If the 360/PS3 controllers didn't absolutely blow for the
             | purpose, I'd suggest checking out Rock Band 2 Deluxe and
             | the "pad is guitar" modifier we added, which restores
             | GH2-style gamepad play for guitar (and for shiggles we
             | added another that does "pad is drum", although button
             | mappings are kinda funky).
        
               | bananamerica wrote:
               | I was actually thinking of the PS2 controller, where I
               | used to play Guitar Hero back in the day.
               | 
               | That's cool. Uh... Who's "we"?
        
               | LocalH wrote:
               | Yea, I knew that. I was mentioning that it's possible to
               | play RB2 in the same fashion.
               | 
               | "We" are a small team of people who make mods to older
               | Harmonix games. RB2 Deluxe is a free patch for modded
               | 360/PS3 that adds a lot of quality-of-life features to
               | the game. https://rb2-deluxe.neocities.org/
        
         | entropie wrote:
         | > you might as well learn to play the real thing
         | 
         | You could argue the same with almost every other game thats a
         | copy of real life actions. Racing, Soccer, Martial Arts
         | games... the list is long and does not even end with FPS games.
         | There was lots of arguing the early days of "killer games" if
         | they actually make people violent. No they don't. Competitive
         | FPS games were and are about skills and being better, faster
         | and able to outplay your opponent.
         | 
         | My GFs sisters family was all about classical music education
         | and her sister is already known international for playing her
         | instrument. She also plays guitar hero (and competitive FPS
         | shooter). Its just an entirely different skillset. Guitar hero
         | needs absolutely no education in any music stuff, therefore the
         | entry level is much much lower.
         | 
         | You cannot really compare it. Guitar hero is like mastering any
         | other video game like tetris or pong. Mastering a music
         | instrument is another level of education. At least yet. Sooner
         | or later it will comparable maybe. When children start to play
         | a video game with the age of like 4 and keep doing it basically
         | their entire life 6+ hours a day - that's the amount of time a
         | professional classical musician invests in their profession.
        
           | philjohn wrote:
           | I'd say sim racing stands out a little as the cost of entry
           | into doing it for real tends to be a lot more than a
           | computer, wheel and pedals.
        
             | dewey wrote:
             | And some even make the jump to the real thing:
             | 
             | https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.f1-esports-
             | gradua...
        
           | rkangel wrote:
           | I agree on most games. I find it interesting that being good
           | at simracing (with one of the proper simulation games like
           | iRacing) _does_ translate to ability on a track.
        
           | yodsanklai wrote:
           | > Guitar hero is like mastering any other video game like
           | tetris or pong
           | 
           | Still, there's an important rhythm element to it. I'd assume
           | musicians or people who have a good sense of rhythm are at an
           | advantage.
        
             | hnlmorg wrote:
             | I DJ (3x deck techno and breaks too, so stuff that requires
             | being good at rhythms and beat matching) as well as play
             | the guitar and keyboard. I totally suck at guitar hero and
             | other rhythm games.
             | 
             | I'm not saying there isn't any transferable skills what-so-
             | ever but being good at one doesn't automatically mean you
             | have an advantage at the other.
        
             | entropie wrote:
             | > there's an important rhythm element to it.
             | 
             | Well. You could say timing =~ rhythm. So yes and no. I'am
             | pretty sure - correct me if iam wrong - that guitar hero
             | pros watch the screen and don't listen to the music. Makes
             | it also easier to adapt to (way) higher speeds than 100%.
        
               | LocalH wrote:
               | Some people play that way, yes. I personally play where I
               | sync myself to the actual music as best as possible. So I
               | have to hear both the music _and_ my controller sounds. I
               | don 't know if I'd consider myself a pro _player_
               | (although I 'm a prominent GH2/Rock Band _modder_ ) but
               | I'm much better than the average player, when you take
               | into account all players and not just GH community
               | members.
        
           | riater wrote:
           | I have played classical guitar for 30 years.
           | 
           | It is absurd to say you can not compare these things. Utterly
           | absurd.
           | 
           | It is exactly like spending time in car driving simulator
           | instead of actually learning to drive car.
           | 
           | Your point makes zero sense. I don't even think you believe
           | this because comparing video game soccer or martial arts to
           | actually playing soccer or fighting is just stupid.
        
             | entropie wrote:
             | > It is exactly like spending time in car driving simulator
             | instead of actually learning to drive car.
             | 
             | Thats not remotely comparable with playing guitar trying to
             | replicate what you see on a screen with a few buttons. But
             | I will not argue with a guy that just called my opinion
             | "just stupid".
             | 
             | Also:
             | 
             | > because comparing video game soccer or martial arts to
             | actually playing soccer or fighting
             | 
             | Thats not what I did.
        
           | maratc wrote:
           | > Its just an entirely different skillset.
           | 
           | With a plastic guitar, you're right. But plastic drumset
           | skills are transferrable to a real instrument.
        
             | hnlmorg wrote:
             | Not necessarily. The way you sit at a drum kit, angle your
             | arms and even hold the drumsticks differ on real kits than
             | they do on the Guitar Hero kit. The technique matters a lot
             | because you use the flex in the drum skins to help with
             | your movements and thus allow for tighter patterns and
             | reduce the risk of RSI. This same technique isn't
             | transferable to Guitar Hero and nor would playing Guitar
             | Hero make you a competent drummer (due to teaching the
             | wrong technique).
        
               | maratc wrote:
               | I agree it's not 100% the same thing but it's much closer
               | than playing a plastic guitar.
               | 
               | Being an excellent GH drummer might make you (a mediocre)
               | drummer IRL. Being an excellent GH guitar player won't
               | make you even a beginner guitar player IRL. It's not "an
               | entirely different skillset", it's a relevantly close
               | skillset as long as drums are affected.
        
               | hnlmorg wrote:
               | My point is that being a drummer, even a mediocre one, is
               | all about technique and that technique differs on a real
               | drum kit vs Guitar Hero drums.
               | 
               | While superficially it might look the same, drumming
               | isn't just about hitting objects in time. How you hit
               | those objects is what really matters but GH doesn't train
               | that skill.
        
         | djmips wrote:
         | This is strange thinking. just because it's got the word
         | 'guitar' in the title you think they should pick up the real
         | thing. Well it's got nothing to do with a guitar other than the
         | fantasy. They are playing a rhythm game. Why not ask them to
         | play the piano or sing opera. Do you tell people who are good
         | at driving games to go learn to be a race car driver?
        
           | Moru wrote:
           | The difference between a racing game and learn to be a race
           | car driver is actually not that big compared to guitar hero
           | and a real guitar. I would say a drum set might be more
           | fitting to the guitar hero player. The modern racing games
           | actually teach you some skills that a real rally driver
           | needs.
        
           | reincarnate0x14 wrote:
           | > Do you tell people who are good at driving games to go
           | learn to be a race car driver?
           | 
           | In many cases the more simulation-focused games are used by
           | people who really like racing cars, or flying planes, or
           | driving tractors, or whatever, but can't do it as much or in
           | the expensive equipment they'd physically prefer.
           | 
           | There is a lot of variance in games as to the fidelity of
           | what they're representing. Most shooters won't teach you
           | anything about real firearms or bows and arrows and most
           | racing games have little to do with real cars, but there are
           | flight sims that have physics and controls directly modeled
           | on real equipment.
           | 
           | There have been real piano training games. I'd imagine any
           | instrument could be with modern audio sampling and analysis
           | if people wanted to pay for it.
        
         | LocalH wrote:
         | 2006 called, it wants that joke back.
         | 
         | I play Guitar Hero for the flow state it can induce for me.
         | It's one hell of a way to enjoy a remarkably wide range of
         | music.
        
         | bananamerica wrote:
         | One video I saw states that, at the higher levels, Guitar Hero
         | can be harder than playing a real guitar.
        
           | LocalH wrote:
           | It absolutely can be. It can even be harder at lower levels,
           | if someone has strong muscle memory for guitar. The engines
           | are much less rigid than one might think - GH is one of the
           | few rhythm games were per-gem accuracy is not a consideration
           | whatsoever. Some fan engines will _track_ your accuracy per
           | gem, or at least report it to the player, but the core
           | gameplay mechanics don 't take that into account at all (gems
           | score the same whether you hit them early, late, or perfect,
           | as long as they're still within the hit window). In fact,
           | that creates a phenomenon known as "squeezing" where you
           | abuse the window to hit a gem as late as possible, activating
           | star power immediately before, and then hitting a gem as
           | early as possible right before the star power empties. This
           | allows one to get an extra gem under the additional 2x
           | multiplier that active star power provides. Almost all of the
           | #1 scores on Scorehero use this to a high degree, making the
           | actual star power "path" (basically, the positions in the
           | chart where activation of star power gives you the most
           | optimal score) highly important.
        
         | acomjean wrote:
         | There is a guitar hero like game for guitar and bass. It even
         | has some basic video lessons. My partner and I played. You
         | needed the 1/4 inch plug to usb for your instrument.(I think
         | they're cable)
         | 
         | It's actually pretty fun. Though I haven't played in a few
         | years. You could buy new songs once you finished the initial
         | ones. They're at various difficulties and you get more notes as
         | you level up.
         | 
         | "Rocksmith"
         | 
         | Now on steam apparently
         | https://store.steampowered.com/app/221680/Rocksmith_2014_Edi...
         | 
         | For drumming /finger drumming/keyboard there is
         | 
         | https://melodics.com/
         | 
         | Which is pricy / less game like but I did it for a year.
        
         | wirthjason wrote:
         | I used to think e-sports and games were not real things
         | compared to their counterpart but I've come to feel that they
         | are just as real. The different is subtle but let me try and
         | explain.
         | 
         | He is playing "real guitar hero" not fake guitar hero or
         | simulated guitar hero. Playing the guitar and playing guitar
         | hero are not the same despite containing similar looking
         | elements. In one case the target is to produce music, in the
         | other it's to produce points or a high score. He doesn't care
         | about producing music, he cares about producing a high score.
         | Likewise, the musician's aim isn't to be better at scoring
         | points, it's to be better at producing music.
         | 
         | To use another game, one could say "why play Madden when you
         | could play 'real' football?" Madden IS real. Is it football,
         | no. It's a game. But that's OK. Football is a game, Madden is a
         | game, but they are different games. The aim of playing Madden
         | isn't to become the next great linebacker for the Chicago
         | Bears, it's to be better at playing Madden.
         | 
         | Chess is an example outside of video games. It's said that chew
         | is a simulation of war. But people don't play chess to become
         | better generals and generals don't play chess to become better
         | at winning wars. They are each their own thing.
        
           | wirthjason wrote:
           | I'd like to add that I think e-sports will come to overtaking
           | physical sports in my lifetime.
           | 
           | I really enjoy watching sports (pretty much every sport,
           | although I'm a partial to college football) and played sports
           | as a kid but it's much harder to do as I get older for the
           | obvious physical reasons and the fact that adults don't have
           | the coordinated free time and schedules of children.
           | 
           | Video games are a much more accessible medium. I see my 8
           | year old nephew play video games and watch streamers. He can
           | then play the same game for himself. As much as I loved
           | watching Michael Jordan as a kid I could never, and will
           | never, be able to dunk a basketball. There barriers to entry
           | for video games is much lower, almost anyone can do it, such
           | that it's practically zero. It's much more relatable and as
           | he gets older I think he'll choose to watch people compete in
           | the things he grew up with and relates to. Given the shear
           | number of people to game it's not unimaginable to see how
           | e-sports could surpass professional sports one day.
        
         | asiachick wrote:
         | Rhythm games are generally fun immediately. Real instruments
         | are fun maybe after investing several hundred hours of
         | practice.
         | 
         | I don't know if they've fixed it but I did try version 1 of
         | Rocksmith, a game that's supposed to teach you actual guitar.
         | Unfortunately, the first song was playable by a noob. The 2nd
         | song was impossible for a noob. And that was the end of that.
         | 
         | Maybe they've fix it, or maybe I suck, or maybe some people
         | plow on anyway.
        
           | grujicd wrote:
           | I didn't play Rocksmith for years, but I think it had some
           | "level" setting for most songs. You'd get fewer notes and
           | simpler chords on the easiest level. That said, I didn't
           | start with Rocmith as an absolute beginner. It did improve my
           | rhythm, correctness and speed, which is great, but didn't
           | improve my musical knowledge about notes, chords or scales. I
           | see it as a good stepping stone, but eventually you have to
           | move on.
        
         | BolexNOLA wrote:
         | I get that Halo is just a game but I seriously think if you're
         | going to spend so much time shooting a fake gun on a fake
         | planet at fake aliens, you might as well learn to do the real
         | thing.
         | 
         | Sarcasm aside, most people can't just pick up a guitar, find a
         | full band, book a gig, etc. That's one of the main reasons we
         | even have video games. To "do" stuff we can't do in our lives.
         | 
         | I love Stardew Valley. Should I sell my possessions, leave my
         | family, and go start a new life in a small town as a
         | farmer/dungeon diver/beer brewer?
        
       | kibwen wrote:
       | _> What's wild here is that Schmooey was a really good Guitar
       | Hero player! This wasn't a case of some kid sitting alone in his
       | room faking his way to the top through video alone._
       | 
       | I think this is a misconception. Being a good player might even
       | make you more likely to cheat, in some ways. After going for a
       | record and failing for long enough, players can start to assume
       | that they're entitled to the record via any means necessary.
       | Furthermore, as a good player you have the skills and knowledge
       | necessary to make a fake video that passes the initial sniff
       | test. You also may have enough clout and social standing that
       | others may be reluctant to even consider the possibility that you
       | cheated, or they may be afraid of the backlash from your fans
       | that would result from any accusation (just look at what happened
       | with Dream, who was undoubtedly a good Minecraft player).
        
         | LocalH wrote:
         | > You also may have enough clout and social standing that
         | others may be reluctant to even consider the possibility that
         | you cheated
         | 
         | This is what happened here initially. Some of the achievements
         | Schmooey got were almost "too good to be true", but they were
         | just close enough to what was considered feasible as to largely
         | go unnoticed until people started looking closer. Schmooey was
         | also friends with a ton of prominent GH players, such that he
         | ran a fairly successful private Discord server. I was there
         | when that place burned to the ground lmao.
         | 
         | It also didn't help that, at the December meetup that Schmooey
         | attended, he avoided playing certain things that, given the
         | skill level he'd built himself up as having, he should have had
         | no problem tackling. I didn't notice this so much while
         | actually at said meetup, as I largely focus on the Harmonix
         | side of things (GH2 and Rock Band), but the other players there
         | certainly brought it up after everyone had returned home.
        
       | lqet wrote:
       | > Sure, some of his videos had the odd questionable moment--a
       | video lag here, some dark footage there--but for the most part
       | these queries were far from conclusive proof that he had been
       | cheating, and so nothing ever came of them.
       | 
       | This reminded me of the excellent documentary _Kong: A Fistful of
       | Quarters_ , in which at some point ( _SPOILER_ ) one of the best
       | (if not the best) arcade game players in the world submits a very
       | suspicious VHS tape of a new record.
       | 
       | If you want to have a deep look into the world of competitive
       | arcade gaming, I strongly recommend this movie. It starts out
       | quite innocent, but gets darker and more insane with every
       | minute.
       | 
       | The full movie is on YouTube:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXLQqcHcJDQ
        
         | belter wrote:
         | Great documentary. Thanks for sharing. Those were the times.
         | 
         | Was surprised at the low amount of views. This other one, (
         | spoiler warning ) that you should NOT see before watching your
         | linked video...has more than a million :-)
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/yJ74cr1x6SE
        
         | wnevets wrote:
         | IIRC there was a story posted here on HN about the admins of
         | the leaderboard helping the hot sauce guy cheat as well.
        
         | BolexNOLA wrote:
         | I need to find it, but I remember reading an article that was
         | critical - or at least complicated the narrative - of the
         | documentary, saying that the characterizations were not very
         | fair/were very lopsided to facilitate the "good guy vs.
         | villain" story. I'll try to track it down.
         | 
         | Update: https://www.avclub.com/the-king-of-kong-continued-
         | donkey-kon...
        
       | LocalH wrote:
       | I met Schmooey in December, at a Guitar Hero meetup in North
       | Carolina. He _is_ a very good player, there 's a song named Novae
       | Ruptis with an extremely hard strumming chart. I personally
       | watched him 100% full combo that song _sixteen times in a row_.
       | But he wanted _more_. He didn 't just want to be a _great_ GH
       | player. He wanted people to think he was the absolute _GOAT_.
       | Kinda sad, he was really chill and cool to hang out with.
        
         | MivLives wrote:
         | It seems like a lot of these speed runner cheaters are in this
         | sort of boat. A lot of them can do the record they're breaking
         | but want to skip some of the grind that comes with speed
         | running or are just frustrated by being so close so many times.
        
         | postingposts wrote:
        
         | m1gu3l wrote:
         | so he cheats at a guitar video game and all of a sudden he
         | isn't chill or cool to hang out with... i mean, ok.
        
           | ninth_ant wrote:
           | He cheated in order to claim world records, earn fame and
           | admiration, and to collect cash bounties.
           | 
           | It's not just a casual "he cheated in a video game", like it
           | was some small thing someone did to beat an end boss. It was
           | a fairly elaborate fraud/deception over a long period of
           | time.
        
             | postingposts wrote:
        
           | LocalH wrote:
           | I didn't say he wouldn't be outside of a Guitar Hero context.
           | But I only met him the one time, and so it is a past tense
           | event.
        
       | bambax wrote:
       | One of the methods of cheating that was used was "splicing":
       | playing parts of the song separately, and then cutting and
       | pasting the parts together so that they appear to have been
       | played in one continuous session.
       | 
       | Pro musicians -- especially singers -- do this all the time in
       | the studio though: there it's called "comping". Singers sing the
       | same song multiple times, and the best takes for each part
       | (sometimes very small moments of a few seconds) are put together
       | to construct the best possible whole.
       | 
       | Somehow this is not considered cheating, but there is an
       | ambiguity; how the performance was produced is either not known
       | or willfully ignored by the consuming public.
       | 
       | Songs are like sausages. Or most things really. Better enjoy the
       | end product and not worry about how it was made.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | woliveirajr wrote:
         | Isn't considered cheating but it is at the edge.
         | 
         | If you just listen to the music at your home, it's ok. If you
         | go to the show and the performance is poor, you feel you're
         | missing something. If the singer is just dubbing, you'll feel
         | fooled if you expected the real thing.
         | 
         | Some say that even in this case what's worth is the
         | performance, the "experience". But if you find out that they
         | were stunts with pre-record music, your "experience" vanishes.
         | 
         | Cheating is one of those things that depends on your
         | expectation.
        
           | bambax wrote:
           | It's considered cheating when for example the "singer" is not
           | doing the singing, and it's kept a secret.
           | 
           | There was a big scandal in France in 2006-2010 when the
           | public learned that a 1977 hit record "ca plane pour moi" by
           | Plastic Bertrand, was in fact sung by somebody else; see:
           | 
           | https://www.expatica.com/be/uncategorized/plastic-
           | bertrand-a...
        
             | quakeguy wrote:
             | Milli Vanilli is an even better known example of cheating
             | in this regard i'd say.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli
        
               | bambax wrote:
               | Maybe, but apparently in their case the deception lasted
               | about a year; in Plastic Bertrand's case it lasted about
               | 30 years.
        
               | Synaesthesia wrote:
               | I feel like they were just a couple of naive guys who got
               | used by the industry and then chewed up.
        
         | dagw wrote:
         | The big problem is when you cannot reproduce anything close to
         | that performance live. There was this one band I used to like
         | and on the album the singer had this deep, powerful, voice that
         | really projected. Then I went to see them live and singer had a
         | weak reedy voice the barely carried. It was a depressing and
         | terrible show.
        
           | JasonFruit wrote:
           | I had a recording of Paul Galbraith playing Bach on the
           | guitar, and it was stunning. I went to a festival to hear him
           | play live, and he really could barely struggle through the
           | same works. He seemed on the verge of rage-quitting the
           | performance, so maybe it wasn't going as he expected either?
           | Hard to say, because I never went out of my way to hear him
           | again.
        
         | manuelflara wrote:
         | > Somehow this is not considered cheating
         | 
         | because it's supposed to be an art performance, which everyone
         | understands is recorded and edited to produce the best result.
         | this was supposed to be a "feat of skill", so of course using
         | that same method is considered cheating, because you are lying
         | about the implication that you were playing the song in one go
         | and "perfect"
        
           | ar_lan wrote:
           | Pro movie directors do this too. In fact, it's so ubiquitous,
           | there are several millions of dollars _per movie project_
           | that go _strictly_ into editing.
           | 
           | One of the best known examples of this, from Peter Jackson's
           | The Lord of the Rings trilogy, notably did not even have a
           | _single_ real Balrog appear in their raw footage.
           | 
           | It's a shame he resorted to cheating - but what's strange is
           | the trilogy is universally acclaimed as one of the greatest
           | movie trilogies of all time.
        
         | Hasnep wrote:
         | It's not considered cheating because music is not a
         | competition.
        
           | bambax wrote:
           | Of course music is a competition, in listeners' time, sales,
           | streams, and awards.
        
             | DonHopkins wrote:
             | ...where musicians are graded on how dramatically they slap
             | comedians before receiving their awards instead of how good
             | their performance was, and comedians are graded on how well
             | they take their slaps instead of how much the musician who
             | slapped them just laughed at their jokes.
        
             | fknorangesite wrote:
             | Is it so unfathomable to you that people make art for its
             | own sake?
        
               | bambax wrote:
               | No, it's not; in fact I do it myself. That doesn't change
               | the fact that all artists are competing for the public's
               | attention.
        
               | positus wrote:
               | Many are compelled from within to create and they have
               | progressed and developed to the point where their art
               | appeals to a large audience -- they do not produce out of
               | competitive drive, but out of an intense inward force
               | that they can only satisfy through creative expression.
               | They are those who create because they must, not just
               | because they can.
        
         | pcwalton wrote:
         | Multi-segment, or tool-assisted, speedruns are legitimate. The
         | problem wasn't that the guy made multi-segment runs--it's that
         | he passed off multi-segment runs as single-segment.
        
         | whateveracct wrote:
         | Rhythm games aren't music - they're more like Tetris
        
       | Synaesthesia wrote:
       | There was a similar controversy in Trackmania nations where the
       | famous player "riolu" was busted for cheating.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDUdGvgmKIw
       | 
       | https://donadigo.com/tmx1
        
         | flobosg wrote:
         | The Trackmania expose is mentioned at the end of the article:
         | https://kotaku.com/trackmania-cheating-scandal-is-utterly-fa...
        
       | munificent wrote:
       | This is such a wild and kind of heartbreaking psychological loop
       | you see people fall into time and time again:
       | 
       | 1. Get legitimately good at some thing.
       | 
       | 2. Become known for being better at that thing than others.
       | 
       | 3. Have that reputation become a key part of their identity and
       | self esteem.
       | 
       | 4. Feel an internal pressure to keep getting even better at that
       | thing to get more of that esteem.
       | 
       | 5. Hit a wall where they are unable to honestly progress.
       | 
       | 6. When forced to choose between sacrificing a pillar of their
       | identity or their own personal integrity, crumble and start
       | cheating.
       | 
       | 7. The cheating buys them some time but the self esteem boost
       | requires not just skill but _continual progress_. Now that they
       | are already morally compromised, it 's easier to continue to
       | cheat.
       | 
       | 8. Eventually, in order to appear to keep getting better, the
       | cheating becomes egregiously obvious.
       | 
       | 9. Downfall.
       | 
       | It's exactly like watching a drug addict build up a tolerance to
       | their chemical of choice.
        
         | chernevik wrote:
         | There is a very similar cycle with a lot of financial fraud.
        
       | RomanPushkin wrote:
       | Original Metallica's "Master of Puppets" was a cheat - recorded
       | at a lower speed, which was later confirmed by the band.
        
       | cmckn wrote:
       | This reminded me of this really fun story of a reporter who
       | accidentally discovered that his wife is the best Game Boy Tetris
       | player in the world (by a lot):
       | https://archive.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007...
        
         | lqet wrote:
         | She had a score of 841, which was broken just 3 months after
         | her record by Neil Gewirtz with _2,349_ lines. The record is
         | _5,164_ points now.
         | 
         | https://www.twingalaxies.com/game/tetris-dx/game-boy-game-bo...
        
         | kingcharles wrote:
         | This was such a cute story, thank you.
        
         | gverrilla wrote:
         | Such a good read, thank you. There doesn't seem to be much
         | content like this around: interesting, honest, non-directly-
         | commercial, no fake news, no SEO bullshit. Really thanks was
         | good 5 minutes.
        
         | lqet wrote:
         | Twin Galaxies did an interview with here [0], sadly that
         | version is without line breaks.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.twingalaxies.com/content.php/2614-Lori-Baker-
         | Gam...
        
           | mkl wrote:
           | Run this in the browser console to insert line breaks:
           | e = $('.article.postcontainer > font[size="2"]')[0];
           | e.innerHTML = e.innerHTML.replace(/(LB:|TG:)/g,
           | '<br><br>$1');
        
           | vanderZwan wrote:
           | > _One of the things that interesting to me about coming to a
           | place like Funspot is seeing things like what happened today
           | with your score, where people start to congregate, including
           | me, watching someone absolutely take control of a game like
           | you did._
           | 
           | People love seeing people be competent. I miss this in modern
           | TV series, btw. It's one of those things that makes the older
           | Star Trek series so compelling. Or for a relatively recent
           | example: The Martian. I wonder why it's so rare to see
           | stories like that in fiction though?
           | 
           | (thanks to the other commenter for pointing out how to fix
           | the article)
        
         | Arcorann wrote:
         | Posted three days ago, funnily enough:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30820685
         | 
         | I've never had much faith in 2000s-era Twin Galaxies
         | scorekeeping, ever since I saw their recorded scores for
         | Pokemon Pinball in the first Guinness World Records Gamer's
         | Edition and realised that they were lower than my own (not
         | especially good) scores.
         | 
         | In this particular case, it turns out that if you count
         | unofficial records, Japanese player Koryan (who incidentally is
         | still active) recorded over 5000 lines in 2001 [1]; compare the
         | TG verified record of 4988 set by Harry Hong one month after
         | this article in 2007 and the current TG record of 5164 set by
         | Tao Kitamoto in 2016 [2]. It's likely that Harry Hong could
         | have beaten his previous record at any time if someone had
         | contested it earlier.
         | 
         | [1] http://www.din.or.jp/~koryan/tetris/sco.htm
         | 
         | [2] https://www.twingalaxies.com/showthread.php/154227
        
           | bena wrote:
           | People have found out that if you get specific enough or if
           | you choose something people don't really care about, you can
           | get a Guinness World Record.
           | 
           | For example: there's a guy who had a record invalidated for
           | "fastest time to build the Lego UCS Millenium Falcon (75192)"
           | because he forgot a piece. That's not the point. The point is
           | that he clocked a time of right around 16 hours. Which I
           | found weird. Because that's about what I clocked as well.
           | Now, I wasn't super rigorous. When I started, I started a
           | timer, when I finished for the day, I stopped the timer. At
           | the end, I added all the times together.
           | 
           | And I wasn't trying to build fast. I was just vaguely
           | interested in how long it would take me to assemble a 7500
           | piece set.
           | 
           | There's a guy on Penn Jillette's podcast, Michael Goudeau.
           | He's a clown. Like, professionally. He has the Guinness World
           | Record for most bites taken out of an apple in a minute while
           | juggling. Dude Perfect holds the Guinness World Record for
           | most ping pong balls stuck on a person's head using shaving
           | cream.
           | 
           | Remember, Guinness doesn't approach people, people approach
           | Guinness. Then there's a whole process about getting the
           | record verified. If it seems like a lot of work for a piece
           | of paper and to be an answer to a trivia question, you'd be
           | right.
        
             | wmwmwm wrote:
             | I met someone years ago who was an adjudicator for
             | Guinness. I remember two stories in particular. One was a
             | trip to Venezuela to judge a biggest bowl of soup (chicken
             | IIRC), the other to Italy for a biggest doner kebab! (yes
             | Italy not Greece). She said her biggest concern was that
             | the doner kebab would fall off an underspecced trolley and
             | kill someone, though I imagine that would probably have
             | achieved a record of its own!
        
         | ar_lan wrote:
         | I'm 99% sure I'm the best NBA Live 2004 (PS2) player in the
         | world (by a lot), if it means anything :)
        
         | waterpowder wrote:
         | That was a good read, thanks for sharing!
        
         | glandium wrote:
         | Amazing story. This makes me wonder how many people unknowingly
         | hold world records-breaking personal best.
         | 
         | Edit: holy f%ck, the record is 4988 lines, now.
         | https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-line...
        
           | ummwhat wrote:
           | As far as I know, I currently hold the world record score at
           | knife fairy. The game of knife fairy is very simple. You must
           | sneak into your roommates room late at night and slip a knife
           | under their pillow. My current score is 1, so it should be
           | easy to beat. Good luck!
        
           | honkdaddy wrote:
           | That's pretty funny! The record is from a month after this
           | article was published, and it's held by the previous champ
           | who Lori briefly dethroned, Harry Hong [1].
           | 
           | Watching the gameplay is a trip - it's like watching an i9
           | crunch numbers when you're used to a Pentium II.
           | 
           | [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/SuPaSaYaJiN/videos
        
             | vanderZwan wrote:
             | That's NES though, he doesn't seem to have his GBC records
             | uploaded. I actually can't find any recordings of GBC
             | records.
             | 
             | But yeah, watching tetris pros is amazing. The "classic" is
             | of course 2018's Jonas Neubauer vs. Joseph Saelee NES
             | Tetris world championship match:
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_UPHsGR6fM
             | 
             | If you've never seen it before, you'd probably don't think
             | you'd enjoy watching twenty minutes of two guys playing
             | tetris. You'd be wrong.
        
               | glandium wrote:
               | Have you seen people play Tetris the Grand Master 3 past
               | level 999?
        
               | vanderZwan wrote:
               | Oh yeah! Totally different type of Tetris though, kinda
               | like... I dunno... rugby and Australian rules football?
        
           | checkyoursudo wrote:
           | Probably everyone, in some obscure thing or other. ;)
        
         | dudeinjapan wrote:
         | Reminds me a story from my 6th grade teacher who lived with the
         | Maasai tribe in Kenya. One day she brought one of the tribesmen
         | named Moses to Nairobi and they happened to pass by a stadium
         | field where some men were practicing the javelin throw. Moses
         | said "let me take a turn" and his throw landed far beyond where
         | all the other javelins were clustered. Turns out it was the
         | Kenyan national team... apparently they recruited him!
         | 
         | I just Googled this and lo-and-behold:
         | https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVA898C58S9MG8CMJB071BCI...
        
         | beeforpork wrote:
         | Fascinating! When I read the WR for Tetris was 327 lines, I
         | realised that I was in that league, too, at the time. I never
         | knew I was that good! I never thought about competition or even
         | world records at that time! I remember it became boring after a
         | few hundred lines, and I am sure I never made 800, let alone
         | the 4988 someone else posted.
         | 
         | Weird...
        
         | vanderZwan wrote:
         | > _She has her game face on; I didn 't even know she had a game
         | face._
         | 
         | Hahaha, amazing! Thank you so much for sharing that. Also a
         | wonderfully wholesome story to balance out the one about
         | cheating.
         | 
         | Tangent: is it just me or does anyone else feel like this
         | article is much better written than many long-form articles we
         | see today? I'm obviously biased because of the subject, but
         | still.
        
       | sclangdon wrote:
       | Karl Jobst (does a lot of speedrunnig videos) has a video on
       | this, which is worth watching and explains everything in detail.
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/58fqNL-kvaI
        
         | hnlmorg wrote:
         | I second this recommendation. The article is basically just a
         | summary of Karl's video.
        
           | ahahahahah wrote:
           | And thank god for that. Karl's video is ridiculously drawn
           | out and should've been a tenth the length.
        
             | uhhyeahdude wrote:
             | That's why you speedrun it
        
         | fenomas wrote:
         | Karl's channel is a great place to dive into. I guess he
         | started as just a speedrunner, but in recent years he's been
         | making terrific videos on deep mechanics of speedrunning, on
         | cheating and cheat detection, etc. And he's done significant
         | journalism on shady business in adjacent topics, like records-
         | keeping organizations and the market for retro game cartridges.
         | He's even been (being?) sued by Billy Mitchell (the King of
         | Kong guy), whom Jobst calls the biggest conman in gaming.
         | 
         | Really good channel to check out and support.
        
         | jmcgough wrote:
         | it's embedded in the very beginning of the article
        
           | 22c wrote:
           | The article is essentially just a rehash of Karl's video.
        
             | InitialLastName wrote:
             | Welcome to the M.O. of every (ex-) Gawker Media site. Find
             | something on the internet that hasn't been covered, re-post
             | it with enough summary to masquerade as an independent
             | post, and get coverage on aggregator sites where most
             | viewers never even glance at the original media.
        
               | ocdtrekkie wrote:
               | FWIW, I rarely desire to find out about something like
               | this via a YouTube video. I'm rarely somewhere I want to
               | listen to something with sound. When I am, I still
               | usually would rather get to the point than listen through
               | a ten minute narrative. Even if Gawker sites solely
               | existed to regurgitate YouTube videos to text... I'd
               | _pay_ for that service.
        
       | somehnacct3757 wrote:
       | It's interesting how the UI animations provided as juice by the
       | game developer end up becoming anti-cheat devices. For those who
       | haven't watched the vid, they discover video splices by observing
       | a spinning animation (think circle loading animation) that plays
       | during a full combo. If the animation jumps, there was a splice.
       | 
       | All a developer has to do is randomize the starting position of
       | the spinner during a full combo and it creates a non-
       | deterministic signature for the run. Take note, game devs!
        
         | kibwen wrote:
         | Indeed, I've long thought about the idea of persistent,
         | nondeterministic UI overlays as an effective anti-cheat device.
         | Stuff a widget in a corner of the screen and make it match the
         | game's visual aesthetic and nobody would even mind (and make
         | sure it persists from the moment the game boots, including
         | during loading screens). Of course, this would require
         | developers to care about stymying cheating speedrunners, which
         | they certainly don't. :P
        
         | LocalH wrote:
         | One of the ways he got caught was a fuckup on his part. He
         | claimed a really high speed run of Through the Fire and Flames,
         | and ended up taking the video down claiming copyright. This
         | ended up being bunk, because someone saved the video while it
         | was up and it turned out that he spliced in such a way as to
         | "lose" something like 2,000 points mid-song. Guitar Hero has
         | never had any mechanic to allow one to lose points they had
         | already gained (unless it did in the earliest GH1 development
         | days). The only thing even remotely close to that is the Big
         | Rock Endings from the Rock Band series, where you have a series
         | of freeform lanes to do whatever you want in order to build up
         | a bonus, which is subsequently awarded to your actual score
         | when you hit the final few gems after the BRE. But, those
         | points aren't tallied to your total score until you actually
         | hit the final gems. The score discrepancy in Schmooey's TTFAF
         | video was a decrease in the actual score, as Clone Hero doesn't
         | support Rock Band style BREs.
         | 
         | It is literally impossible to have that happen legitimately,
         | and that's why he took the video down, because it essentially
         | was a key component of what busted him (and was also featured
         | in the Jobst documentary).
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | dm319 wrote:
           | A reminder of the cultural importance of youtube-dl.
        
         | dfxm12 wrote:
         | I think one thing to keep in mind is that cheaters in baseball,
         | cycling, _and even Donkey Kong_ brought more eyeballs to those
         | games than anyone could have imagined. I 'm sure a lot of
         | people forgot GH existed before seeing this thread.
         | 
         | I wonder how much devs should care about this in single player,
         | score attack type games.
        
           | sabas123 wrote:
           | Scandals can also single handedly destroy (professional)
           | scenes. This happened to Starcraft.
        
           | Akinato wrote:
           | Did they? I'd argue that the next highest competitor that is
           | competing legitimately would bring just as many eyeballs to
           | the games. People are attracted by watching the best of the
           | best compete -- I don't think the exact score is as
           | important.
           | 
           | Unless you're talking scandals, and then I guess so? There's
           | temporarily more eyes on the drama but it quickly drops off.
        
             | dfxm12 wrote:
             | They did. Feel free to make that argument. Just keep in
             | mind, at one point, people thought Barry Bonds and Lance
             | Armstrong were the best competitors competing legitimately,
             | and people came to these sports in droves, so it's not an
             | easy line in the sand to draw. Hell, can you even name the
             | next highest competitor competing legitimately in the Tour
             | de France 1999-2005? It's like those races never happened
             | because so many people were cheating, but people were
             | watching!
             | 
             | Of course I'm not talking about scandals, because anyone
             | who who has lived through this or even looked into this a
             | little bit knows the scandals were devastating for the
             | sports.
        
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