A Historical Perspective on Speedrunning: Evolution and Impact of the Informational Aspect upon Speedrunning Communities

Abstract

This presentation will focus on a historical perspective on speedrunning, a practice that consists of completing a video game as fast as a player can. The practice went into an important change of paradigm in the 90s. At first, a performance was an information transcribed into a document such as magazines. Then, speedrunners started to share their runs thanks to digital technologies including the web, and a performance became a document like a demo file from the 90s DOOM games or simply a video. Nowadays, modern artifacts such as Twitch or Discord are exploited by speedrunners for producing and sharing information through different mediums (YouTube videos, Google Drive, private messages, etc.). Finally, I argue that the informational aspect of the practice – such as producting and sharing information – is the very heart of any speedrunning community.