I think it's silly that in every other sport there's testing for performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and yet in speedrunning a person can very well earn WR after WR with the help of amphetamines or beta blockers or what have you without anyone being any the wiser.
Now I understand that most leaderboards would not benefit from drug testing. In fact, if it was a requirement I'm sure speedrunning would just collapse, since it would take a tremendously higher investment to even compete in games that only have 4-5 serious competitors, which seems to me like the majority of speedrunning.
HOWEVER, for high-profile, highly competitive games, where world record holder DO make substantial amounts of money off of their records, I think it's absolutely imperative to find out without a shadow of a doubt that the rest of the community isn't being cheated. We already know there are plenty of cheats to perform in-game, but nobody brings up the physical cheating that can also arise in competitions.
My idea then is to draft a formal proposal to have guidelines for submitting drug testing kits, based on the popularity of the game, the competitiveness of the world record (if, say, several people are likely to attain the WR) and so on. Thoughts are appreciated.
I have a confession to make. I have used performance-enhancing drugs in my PBs. I use the drugs named 'laxatives' in order to make my bowel movements faster so I can, myself, go faster. I sincerely apologize to anyone I have hurt, and thus resign from all of my moderator posts and my status as a known legend in the HP community.
Edit: Side-note: What do we do when beta blockers are obsoleted by final-version blockers? Do we put the beta blockers into Misc.?
A few years ago, in small competitions among friends in various racing games I had used amphetamines in the form of adderall to improve focus, reaction time, and decrease fatigue to secure higher leaderboard positions, so I think I know a bit about what I am saying here.
It is true that virtually all speedrunners are likely innocent of this, HOWEVER, we are witnessing an explosive growth in popularity that has steadily risen alongside esports thanks to the rise in popularity of video game streaming, along with events such as AGDQ, ESA and soon NASA. When the money gets good enough for more people to stream runs consistently, or to have the chance to win thousands, if not millions (as in the case of esports) of dollars, you can GUARANTEE there will be cheating scandals.
We should build the appropriate protocols while the community is still small and such things do not cause major headaches in the years to come. It is our community and therefore our responsibility to ensure things work as intended.
Why even bother trying to ban drugs when all speedrunners are addicted to speed anyway?
I have to apologize to the speedrunning community. I take aspirin when I have a headache so I can look at my computer monitor without my head throbbing and actually manage to stream. I'm sorry for the lies and the 0 PBs I've acquired on drugs. :'(
And who exactly decided that using drugs should be banned? I mean, it is the faster strat. In my opinion, using drugs should be allowed in the run, as long as the timer keeps running. Kappa. (I should do some runs on molly sometime)
I understand speedrunning is so small at the moment the idea seems ridiculous. However, online entertainment is exploding, and justin.tv, esports, etc. were all very, ¤very¤ small years before. Remember when UFC was two fat white guys with headbands kicking each other in a garage? Now it dwarfs boxing.
I say this because it is not even necessary that this policy be employed at all levels, HOWEVER, in a few years it will greatly, GREATLY benefit us to have such mechanisms in place, and so in this way I would compare employing these policies to "beta testing", to improve the stability of the community for years to come.
I'd like you all for just a moment to consider how, say, Narcissa Wright, former world record holder of the well played and liked, even by the general public, game "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", found out the man, John Numbers, who beat her record, was using concentration improving stimulants to do so, even if perhaps illegally?
I don't know about you, but I would feel extremely frustrated that a game I spent thousands of hours of my life learning to play bore fruit, only to be stolen by some crackhead. I would not want my reputation as a speedrunner, my importance to the community, and my status as an expert on the game to be damaged by someone who brazenly does not respect the legitimacy of the sport.
I would be devastated, my declining popularity after so many thousands of hours spent would become very painful; I wouldn't want this to happen to anyone in our community when there is already so much reason for various people to be denied their deserved recognition (such as claiming emulators don't count to claim the Mega Man X2 world record).
This post is in no way meant as an attack on the honorable reputation of John Numbers.
I'd be very shocked if John Numbers used drugs to beat Narcissa's old WR. Especially seeming as John Numbers doesn't run OoT, he was the guy who beat Narcissa in the Nintendo World Championship. You mong. Plus, Narcissa's popularity and respect in the community didn't drop simply because someone beat her record; her popularity in only the speedrunning community nowadays has most likely dropped because she doesn't do speedruns as much any more - she mainly streams Smash and Super Mario Maker, with the occasional Goldeneye stream.
I'm not sure if you people are being intentionally obtuse; John Numbers was just an illustration, I don't actually watch female streamers anyway so I don't know who's robbing who in the OoT scene.
Drug test kits can be had for under $10 USD so I'm not sure that argument holds up at all.
Which can't be proven to be taken at the time of the WR without staff, and staff cost money and would need to fly all over the world to check. Not only that, but competitive sports have their results sent to labs, which also costs more money. Also, there isn't a speedrun authority.