I'm mostly responding to this comment in another thread https://www.speedrun.com/posts/e679s where the response to "why no emulation" was:

There is way too much room for cheating in emulators

I get what is being said here, but what is the point of moderation if not this. If there is no advantage, then why not allow it? It could be its own category, I feel like a lot of n64 games allow emulation in this way.

I guess I'm confused with the spirit of the ruling, as it seems exclusionary for kind of no reason. Especially as time moves forward the barrier to entry gets higher and higher if you only allow for original hardware.

I'd also like to submit a few runs if an EMU Category is created just like the Avalanche LBs.

i’m all for allowing emulation - srcom has an option for it anyway AND u can’t tell me wii u and switch aren’t an unfair advantage already being low-lag ports with save states. like fuck.

We ended up finally allowing emulators in Wave Race 64 last year. Part of the reasoning is that the Wii / Wii U / Switch ports are already using emulation, and in particular, the emulation they use is significantly worse than the best standalone emulators. I have never considered "easier to cheat" to be a disqualifier for emulator being allowed on a leaderboard, personally. You can cheat on any version of a game if you really wanted to. That's why we have moderation teams.

Hi, I recently started running this game and I'm using Simple64 to practice. I would REALLY love to be able to submit runs from my stream because I have no clue how I would set up capture for an N64, and the virtual console shops for Wii and Wii U are permanently discontinued... Please advise!! I would be so ok with an emulator category!!

Just my 2 cents!:

I too believe the community would benefit from making space for emulator tuns. However, I also don't think it's unreasonable to not support emulator runs here. I extend respect and understanding to the moderation team either way.

Different emulator versions running on different hardware with different settings will either A: be a noticeably un-level playing field compared to each other, and/or B: be more complex to police.

As someone who creates cheat codes for retro consoles using Game Sharks / Action Replays / Game Genies, I don't think the strongest argument is that it's easier to cheat on an emulator. Cheating and modified ROMs are a serious problem that affect the console environment too.

Regardless, I want to remind everyone that speedrun.com is not a universal authority on what counts as a speedrun. It's a site with a lot of popular leaderboards, and has the capacity it does because it empowers volunteers set rules and maintain quality control within reason.

This seems to be an ongoing discussion, but I encourage people on emulators to still run 1080, save it, share it, and be proud of it. Seeing more of these runs will probably make it easier to decide what comes next.