<story><title>“World’s best” Guitar Hero player was a cheat</title><url>https://kotaku.com/guitar-hero-clone-schmooey-cheating-esports-speedrun-ac-1848470920</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kmeisthax</author><text>&amp;gt;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).&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;edge&amp;quot; - 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:&lt;p&gt;- Embrace superstition&lt;p&gt;- Cheat&lt;p&gt;Schmooey&amp;#x27;s actions are explainable purely as a way for an otherwise amazing competitor to get their &amp;quot;edge&amp;quot; by cheating &amp;quot;just a little&amp;quot;. 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.&lt;p&gt;[0] For the record, doping is not purely a physical athletics problem; e-sports have already been roiled by allegations of Adderall abuse.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jancsika</author><text>&amp;gt; Schmooey&amp;#x27;s actions are explainable purely as a way for an otherwise amazing competitor to get their &amp;quot;edge&amp;quot; by cheating &amp;quot;just a little&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Playing slower and then playing a sped-up video to pretend it is live is the epitome of cheating, not &amp;quot;just a little&amp;quot; cheating to get an &amp;quot;edge.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>“World’s best” Guitar Hero player was a cheat</title><url>https://kotaku.com/guitar-hero-clone-schmooey-cheating-esports-speedrun-ac-1848470920</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kmeisthax</author><text>&amp;gt;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).&lt;p&gt;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 &amp;quot;edge&amp;quot; - 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:&lt;p&gt;- Embrace superstition&lt;p&gt;- Cheat&lt;p&gt;Schmooey&amp;#x27;s actions are explainable purely as a way for an otherwise amazing competitor to get their &amp;quot;edge&amp;quot; by cheating &amp;quot;just a little&amp;quot;. 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.&lt;p&gt;[0] For the record, doping is not purely a physical athletics problem; e-sports have already been roiled by allegations of Adderall abuse.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xurukefi</author><text>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&amp;#x27;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.</text></comment>