Why do you Speedrun?

[The Link Between Worlds]

Just curious...

[ING-X]

This is a rather unpopular attitude these days, but the reason I do speedruns (besides them being fun) is to create a final product that people will want to watch. Back in 2010 when I first got into doing runs seriously, this was more or less the general attitude among "serious" speedrunners, and I kind of kept that attitude despite its (relative) obsoletion by increased competition and streaming.

[RWhiteGoose]

I speedrun for WRs and so people will think I'm good at video games, which is cool.  I just want people to think I'm cool and speedrunning is a good way to do that.

[benstephens1000]

Gotta go fayust

[nathanisbored]

well I came from the TASing side of things mostly (I didn't really TAS myself, but I followed TAS runs almost exclusively), and I was mostly interested in glitches moreso than speedrunning. I was always fond of the stuff being found in Zelda games, but I was more involved in the SMW TAS community around 2009-2012. I hadn't realized how RTA runs had evolved and how big livestreaming got, and when I discovered this, it seemed like I'd been missing out. Personally, I always considered TAS runs to be more for the audience and to showcase what is possible, and RTA runs were more of a skill showcase. But livestreaming seemed to turn that around and make RTAs the face of speedrunning. I guess having some personality and commentary while you're playing live really changes the audience's attitude of a run.

I just like being able to explain all the crazy strategies and glitches that have been found over the years to an audience. I only really want to speedrun if there's someone to share it with, so it's probably all thanks to livestreaming that I speedrun. I also think it's sad when certain glitches or tricks don't get any attention because they aren't speedrun-viable, so I like having the opportunity to share these things with people through streaming.

[MattyJ613]

Back in early 2010, I came across ZSR for the first time and was really intrigued by all of the tricks and glitches that were in my favorite game, Ocarina of Time. I tried some out, couldn't do them, then stopped trying. My friend and I decided to attempt to complete OoT in one sitting and got a time of around 12 hours or so. A few months later, we tried again and finished in a bit under 10 hours. I thought that it was cool that we'd improved so much and I wanted to keep going. My friend didn't want to though, so I went about it myself. I got it down to a 6:19 without any glitches other than skipping half of DC with a stored ground jump. Soon after that the any% category was destroyed with the new glitch, ganondoor, and I started to follow speedruns, but only on sites like YouTube. I found Twitch in December of 2012 and saw ZFG break the 100% WR with his 5:14:59. I thought it was amazing that somebody could do all of that so quickly. Immediately after, AGDQ 2013 started and I was hooked. I began streaming in January after AGDQ and it's been great. I've always been extremely competitive, so I like to push myself to my limit. I wanted to do something unique as a speedrunner, so I decided to run Glitchless OoT. I found that it got a lot of hate, but it was a lot of fun and I still run it to this day. Speedrunning has become a large part of my life and I do it because it makes me happy to feel like I've achieved something after putting countless hours of practice into it. 

[stealinbread]

The MAIN reason I do it is because I like a challenge, and I love videogames.

My other reasoning:
I do it because I used to do let's plays. LP's, which used to be a respectable thing with a great community (old somethingawful forums!), aren't respectable and have been ruined by the likes of youtube and its swarm of mindless pewdiepie fans. No significant amount of people care about informative let's plays, which require some amount of time to do.

On the other hand, speedrunning is very respectable, requires time and dedication, and has an amazing community behind it (which I think might be because it has such an entry barrier. I have this theory that communities tied to activities with a large entry barrier tend to be in higher quality). Community is a very important thing to me.

[Apasher]

Before I got into speedrunning, I played Melee competitively. I've been overwhelmed by the competition, coping with my results, and the whole "player vs player" aspect in general, where I would have to focus on both myself and my opponent. Instead, I wanted to focus on my own play, personal challenge, and just general execution, so I thought that speedrunning would be a nice change of pace for me. Since I excel more in the execution aspect than the mental aspect in gaming, I thought I would have a better shot at being more successful in speedrunning.

[stealinbread]

Before I got into speedrunning, I played Melee competitively. I've been overwhelmed by the competition, coping with my results, and the whole "player vs player" aspect in general, where I would have to focus on both myself and my opponent. Instead, I wanted to focus on my own play, personal challenge, and just general execution, so I thought that speedrunning would be a nice change of pace for me. Since I excel more in the execution aspect than the mental aspect in gaming, I thought I would have a better shot at being more successful in speedrunning.

I used to play competitive Melee as well, and Competitive League of Legends. I feel you on the whole thing about wanting to just focus on yourself

[tHeObLiViNaToR]

I like learning and using different glitches in a run. Also the community is pretty dope. And racing is fun competition. Since I don't have much free time anymore, it's nice to be able to sit down and play a game from start to finish in a small time-frame.

[GoronGuy]

money