How much longer do we fight for the headphone jack?
How much longer can we keep up this fight, and will it actually make any difference?
I love having a headphone jack on my phone. Even though I don’t actually use it every day (love my Bluetooth headphones), I sure do miss it in the couple times a week when I encounter a 3.5 mm audio cable that I’d like to plug into my phone and I simply can’t do it. When I use the Pixel 2 XL, HTC U11, Essential Phone or the various iPhones owned by my family, I don’t carry around an adapter to let me plug in that headphone cable. Yet when I want to listen to something privately, or plug into my car stereo, or hook up to a friend’s speaker, that’s still the universally expected way to get it done.
Saying, “Oh here’s how you pair the Bluetooth on it” isn’t a fast or easy way to get the audio out of my phone and into the thing sitting right in front of me. Even with NFC pairing or Google’s new “fast pairing” method going forward, nothing beats plugging a piece of metal into a port in terms of simplicity. USB-C audio shows promise, but we’re so early in its development — with clear standards battles still to be fought — that we’re years away from its ubiquity. Even though it’s an “old” analog technology, the headphone jack still has plenty of use in 2017 (and beyond). It’s worth fighting for as a standard port on consumer electronics like phones, laptops and tablets.
But the question is, how much longer do we continue to complain about the lack of a headphone jack before we realize it’s a lost cause and an irreversible trend?
As soon as Apple released the iPhone 7, the stage had been set for high-end phones to come without a headphone jack on them. Motorola, HTC, Google and many others have now followed suit. Though none of the companies have been able to give us a real, solid, user-focused reason for the removal of the port, it’s a clear win for each and every one of them. Even though the margins are small, it’s one less component in each phone, one less point of failure, one less gap of entry for water and dust, one less weak point in the increasingly thin frame of the phone … and one more way to sell you new headphones and speakers, of course.
The companies, it seems, are in the power position here — and we’re fighting like they’re not.
Samsung and LG are the increasingly rare exceptions, at least for now. Every phone they each sell still comes with a headphone jack. Samsung uses that fact to take digs at the competition for easy marketing wins, while LG uses it as a differentiator and doubles down on it with a high-quality DAC in its top-end phones. There’s a good argument, however, that Samsung is selling phones with the headphone jack as a tiny part of the overall sales driver, and LG … well, it isn’t really selling many phones in either case.
The companies, it seems, are in the power position here. With a majority of new high-end phones being announced without a headphone jack, it sure doesn’t seem like any of them are interested in changing their tune in a response to our complaints. It seems no matter how loud we are, it isn’t a big enough issue to dissuade us entirely from buying a phone without a headphone jack — particularly as our number of options for phones with the jack is decreasing. And just like physical keyboards, removable batteries and SD card slots have turned into features that are either niche or dead entirely, it seems the headphone jack will follow suit.
I’m not quite done complaining about the lack of a headphone jack on new phones. But I’m getting pretty damn tired of it, and am coming to the realization that nobody who has any influence on these products is listening at this point. I’m … nearing defeat.
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HMD Global is launching a new Nokia phone in India on October 31
The Nokia 7 could make its way to India next week.
India is one of HMD Global’s largest markets, and the company is getting ready to launch a new device in the subcontinent next week. The manufacturer has sent out invites to the media for an event on October 31, where it will launch a new phone in India. There’s no mention of the device in question, but it’ll likely be the Nokia 7, which made its debut in China late last week.
The Nokia 7 is aimed at the mid-range segment, and is powered by a Snapdragon 630 and a 4000mAh battery. The phone retails for $375 in China, so it could debut at around the ₹25,000 mark in the country. We don’t know with any certainty that it is the Nokia 7 that will make its debut in the country, however. HMD Global could be gearing up to launch the entry-level Nokia 2, which retails for the equivalent of $99, with the device going up against the likes of the Redmi 4.
With no confirmation at this point, it’s anyone’s guess as to what the device could be, but we should know more next Tuesday.
Is the Pixel 2 XL’s screen burn-in that big of a deal?
A major issue, or just a minor annoyance?
Ever since reviews first started coming out, Google’s Pixel 2 XL has been faced with an onslaught of controversy and outrage surrounding its display. Initially, people were complaining about the phone’s muted colors. Blue tints when looking at the display from an angle followed this, and now, there’s the issue of possible screen burn-in.
Our own Alex Dobie first reported burn-in on his Pixel 2 XL this past weekend, spotting an outline of the navigation bar that had been burnt into the bottom of his 2 XL’s display. We already went into further detail on the matter and talked more about what exactly burn-in really is, but seeing as how this is very much so a user-facing issue, we want to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Here’s what some of our forum users have already had to say.
gnahc79
10-22-2017 10:19 AM“
IMO this is worth worrying about. A $850+ phone that you have to look out for burn in? No way, this isn’t the plasma TV days of the early 2000s. If AC’s Alex Dobie got burn in after 7 days of normal use, I don’t see replacing a phone every 7 days being a realistic option.
Reply
osubeavs728
10-22-2017 12:43 PM“
Accurate colors, all for it. “blue tint,” non-issue. Screen burn in though, would have me a bit worried.
Definitely still excited for my Panda, but will keep a close eye on it. Any burn in and the warranty department will definitely get used to seeing my number pop up.
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maverick7526
10-22-2017 01:08 PM“
If this is a legitimate issue, Google will have to warranty replace them. It has literally been 72 hrs since official release. I’m not seeing the issue, however I keep my screen brightness around 30% or less, which may help with reducing burn in/image retention.
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DMP89145
10-22-2017 02:46 PM“
I’m as big of a supporter of Google and their efforts with the Pixel brand as much as anyone, but 7 days is unreasonable. Yes, OLED panels suffer from burn in, but after some time generally… To me, this is on a different level than the blue hue. A “cooler” display falls in the “preference” category… Burn-in, and 7 day burn in at that, is more QC. It’s a brand new phone for crying out loud.
Reply
10-22-2017 03:55 PM“
Just did a white screen on my OG Pixel and guess what? Super faint image of my Nav bar. And also guess what, I have never ever noticed it before in a year of use. So to me, this is a non-issue, if I didn’t read this I’d never even know it was an issue and lived my life happily.
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It would obviously be preferable for the phone to not have any screen burn-in in the first place, but based on what we know and have seen so far – is the Pixel 2 XL’s reported burn-in an issue for you?
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T-Mobile’s Galaxy S8 Active passes through the FCC
A rugged and long-lasting Galaxy S8 is making its way to T-Mobile customers.
Each year since the Galaxy S4, Samsung has released an “Active” variant of its Galaxy S flagship with a more rugged design and other small touches that vary from year-to-year. These Active devices have typically been exclusives to AT&T, but this year, Samsung will be expanding this lineup to T-Mobile. We first heard murmurings of this in late September, and those have all but been confirmed with the T-Mobile S8 Active making its way through the FCC.
The model number for the S8 Active on T-Mobile is SM-G892U, and according to its listing in the FCC’s database, it’ll support LTE Band 71 and 66. The FCC listing doesn’t exactly mention T-Mobile, but LTE Band 71 is being developed specifically by T-Mobile for use with phones on its network. As such, it’s pretty clear that this is where the phone is heading.
The Galaxy S8 Active has been available on AT&T since early September, and along with a more ruggedized design, it also features a ginormous 4,000 mAh battery that offers some of the best endurance available in a 2017 flagship.
T-Mobile has yet to officially announce the S8 Active for its network, and while we won’t know pricing or availability until it does so, our guess is that it’ll be similar to its cost on AT&T. In other words, expect to pay about $850 for the privilege of that durable build and long-lasting battery pack.
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Pay with Google connects your online purchases right to your Google account
The service is rolling out now with promising merchant support.
It’s hard to believe that Google I/O was already more than four months ago, but time sure flies when you’re having fun and freaking out over screen burn-in issues. One of the announcements made at the developer conference this summer was “Pay with Google” – a new platform that aimed to simplify online purchases with your Google account.
Updates on this service were pretty much nonexistent following their initial announcement, but today, Google is finally making it available for all to use.
When shopping within certain apps or stores via Google Chrome, you’ll begin to see a new “Pay with Google” button as an option for your payment method. Tapping this will show you any cards tied to your Google account through Android Pay, Google Play Store, and other Google services, and after selecting the card you’d like to use, all of your payment information will automatically be filled out for you.
This functionality was previously available through Android Pay, but the introduction of Pay with Google now allows you to connect other cards that aren’t supported on Android Pay and is expanding the functionality to more apps and retailers than ever before.
Some of the merchants that will soon start using Pay with Google for online purchases.
Pay with Google will first be available on Android through supported apps and websites within Chrome, including support for things like Kayak in the United States, Dice in the United Kingdom, and even iFood for users in Brazil.
The list of supported businesses is already fairly strong, and developers can use the Google Payment API to integrate Pay with Google into their app or website at absolutely no cost.
Online payments have already gotten pretty good over the years, and while this isn’t the first service of its kind we’ve ever seen, the popularity and usage of Google services should help Pay with Google take off considerably better than its competitors.
How to set up Android Pay
Moto G5S Plus review: Too much of a good thing
This is Motorola’s most prestigious budget phone, but you can do better.
You’d be forgiven for not paying close attention to the release of the Moto G5S Plus; it snuck into the company’s lineup in early August alongside the Moto G5S.
The ‘S’ stands for “Special Edition” (Moto G5SE Plus was too much of a mouthful?), and they’re moderately improved versions of the existing Moto G5 line that debuted earlier in the year. Why would Motorola introduce slightly updated versions of existing phones less than six months after their release? Who knows?!
What I do know is that the Moto G5S Plus, which is available unlocked in the U.S. for $279, is one of the better budget phones you can buy, but the slightly better build quality, additional camera, and larger display don’t justify the additional cost over the existing Moto G5 Plus.
See at Motorola
Moto G5S Plus What you’ll love
There’s a lot to like about the phone when you consider its $279 starting price: the metal build quality is unimpeachable, its 5.5-inch 1080p LCD display is vivid and relatively sharp, and its software is among the best in the business, replete with truly useful additions to Android that I actually rely on.
Moto G5S Plus specs
The improvements to build quality over the existing Moto G5 Plus — which, also mostly metal, is no slouch — are immediate. Dense and sizeable, the phone belies its budget status with clicky buttons, chamfered edges, and precise etching that wouldn’t be out of place on a device three to four times its asking price.
This phone looks like a slightly larger version of the same budget phone Motorola’s been selling for nine months.
Immediately recognizable as a 2017 Motorola device, too, the phone looks pretty good, especially in the new Blush Gold hue that, in the right light, appears lusciously copper. I like it — a lot. There’s a fingerprint sensor below the screen, a rounded “Batwing” divot on the back, and a circular camera module with — and this is new — two sensors instead of one. We’ll get to that a bit later, but suffice it to say if you’ve seen a Motorola phone recently, this one will not be difficult to get used to.
That’s fine because the design is perfectly serviceable; count me among the people that will take a fast, reliable front fingerprint sensor over whatever shenanigans Samsung is up to these days. Here, that’s exactly what you get: you can choose to use the sensor as just that (as well as an on/off button by holding it down for a second), or as a navigation tool with Motorola’s One Button Nav feature. I’m still not comfortable recommending it for daily use given the tiny amount of reclaimed screen real estate, but others I’ve spoken to swear by it, so give it a try.
Along for the ride is Motorola’s industry-leading notification system, Moto Display. Thank goodness Lenovo, Motorola’s not-so-new parent company, hasn’t messed with a good thing here, because there’s no better way to triage Android notifications than with Moto Display. No other ambient display, from Samsung to LG to Google itself, comes close.
The Moto G5S Plus has the same 1080p screen as its G5 Plus counterpart, but it’s ever-so-slightly less dense. And it’s still LCD, not OLED. That’s not a slight against the screen — it’s fine — but if you’re looking for next-gen resolution here, you’re out of luck.
Here’s what’s significantly better than the Moto G5 Plus, though: the bottom-firing speaker is much louder and clearer than the single front-facing speaker on the smaller phone; the base model comes with 3GB of RAM instead of 2GB; and the front-facing camera gets upped to 8MP with a wider ƒ/2.0 lens and a real LED flash compared to 5MP/ƒ2.2/display flash. That front-facing camera is legit.
The phone also works with all four U.S. carriers out of the box, which is a huge boon to carrier portability.
Moto G5S Plus What needs work
The same processor, screen resolution, battery size and charging port doesn’t scream “special edition”.
I having nothing inherently against iterative improvements, but there is very little “special” in the Moto G5 Plus Special Edition. Its larger display, as mentioned, doesn’t add anything to the experience, and the modicum of additional metal, while certainly appreciated from a density perspective, can’t alone justify the added cost over the G5 Plus.
Motorola also chose to keep the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor inside the phone, too, which is a fine chip, but since it debuted in the Moto Z Play last year, it has since been displaced by the Snapdragon 626 and, more recently, the 630 (where it finds a home in the excellent Moto X4). Similarly, the 3000mAh battery inside the phone hasn’t changed either, which means battery life hasn’t improved over the Moto G5 Plus. Again, fine, but it would have been nice to see the phone achieve better uptime than its predecessor, since that phone wasn’t particularly impressive in that area.
All of these decisions would be understandable were it not for the phone’s biggest change, the inclusion of a dual camera setup — two seemingly-identical 13MP camera sensors with ƒ/2.0 lenses. Having two sensors obviously allows for shots with artificial bokeh, but they lack the additional connective tissue to justify what is clearly a downgrade in traditional photography from the Moto G5 Plus.
That phone has a single 12MP sensor with 1.4-micron Dual Autofocus pixels and a wide ƒ/1.7 lens. It’s not the best camera — it struggles in low light — but it’s damn good for its price class. In fact, it’s probably unmatched under $300. Motorola sacrifices fidelity for a gimmick with the Moto G5S Plus; the 13MP primary sensor, which will be used far more often than both together, has smaller pixels, less reliable autofocus, and much less impressive low-light prowess. For all but a few situations, this is a worse camera experience than its cheaper counterpart.
In fact, even that depth gimmick is undermined by some abysmal performance in the camera app; switching to it causes the frame rate to drop precipitously, making it difficult to line up a good shot. And as we discovered with the Moto Z2 Force, which contains better camera hardware, Motorola’s depth algorithms need a lot of work. The Note 8, this isn’t.
That isn’t to say the G5S Plus can’t take great daylight photos — look at some of the ones I captured above for proof — but they’re not particularly impressive, with muddy details.
Lastly, Motorola decided to maintain the Micro-USB port, which has been eliminated from nearly every other phone being released today, budget to premium. In fact, Motorola’s own $399 Moto X4 is all-in on USB-C, as is the excellent Moto Z Play lineup. The company missed an opportunity to move the needle with its Moto G lineup here.
Moto G5S Plus Buy the other one
I have no idea why the Moto G5S Plus exists. It’s a nice phone, and it sure looks and feels great — certainly better than any budget phone Motorola has made before. But it’s just not a true upgrade over the Moto G5 Plus.
I’m not telling you to go out and buy a Huawei or a ZTE; I’m telling you to buy another Motorola. Specifically, if you’re looking at the entry-level $279 Moto G5S Plus, which comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, look instead at the upgraded Moto G5 Plus, which features 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. At $299, it’s around the same price and, in my opinion, better prepared to handle the onslaught of the real world.
See Moto G5 Plus at Amazon
If you do insist on buying the Moto G5S Plus, you do get a few advantages: a bigger screen, a better front-facing camera, a slightly newer version of Android, and the knowledge that you’re getting a special edition. If that’s enough for you, grab it from Motorola directly.
See Moto G5S Plus at Motorola
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‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is returning for a second season
The experiment has been a success, because news has just dropped that CBS is renewing Star Trek: Discovery. The show, which was used as a tentpole to launch CBS’ All Access streaming service, has been enough of a success to justify a second season of episodes. The move comes as a vote of confidence for both the show and its platform, since it has recently aired the sixth of its fifteen-episode first season. Now, a second run of Discovery will air, presumably at some point toward the back-half of 2018.
Discovery has certainly benefited from plenty of hype, since it’s the first Trek show to air as a TV show since 2005. The pull of the Star Trek name was always going to be a draw, but it wasn’t clear how much of a draw given the saga’s lackluster popularity at the box office. CBS refused to offer numbers, but did boast that Discovery’s debut lead to the highest number of sign-ups in the history of its All Access service.
#StarTrekDiscovery will return for Season 2. pic.twitter.com/KZtI9Itpz6
— Star Trek: Discovery (@StarTrekNetflix) October 23, 2017
The show itself was also plagued by pre-production woes, including the acrimonious departure of star producer Bryan Fuller. According to Entertainment Weekly, Fuller’s replacements, Gretchen J. Berg and Aaron Harberts, are expected to remain in charge of the show for another year. Outside of Canada, the show will apparently remain on Netflix, since the official partnership account confirmed the renewal.
Google and others back Internet of Things security push
Rather than becoming ubiquitous in homes as expected, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become the butt of jokes, in part because of major security and privacy issues. UK mobile chip designer ARM — which created the architecture used by Qualcomm, Samsung and others — has a lot to lose if it doesn’t take off. As such, it has unveiled a new security framework called Platform Security Architecture (PSA) that will help designers build security directly into device firmware.
ARM notes that “many of the biggest names in the industry” have signed on to support PSA (sorry ARM, that’s a bad acronym). That includes Google Cloud Platform, Sprint, Softbank, which owns ARM, and Cisco. (A complete list is shown in the image below.)
The main component of it is an open-source reference “Firmware-M” that the company will unveil for Armv8-M systems in early 2018. ARM said that PSA also gives hardware, software and cloud platform designers IoT threat models, security analyses, and hardware and firmware architecture specifications, based on a “best practice approach” for consumer devices.
Despite Intel’s best efforts, ARM is far and away the most prevalent architecture used in connected homes for security devices, light bulbs, appliances and more. ARM says that over 100 billion IoT devices using its designs have shipped, and expects another 100 billion by 2021. Improving the notoriously bad security of such devices is a good start, but it also behooves manufacturers to create compelling devices, not pointless ones.
Kaspersky hopes independent review will restore trust in its software
Security software firm Kaspersky has had a rough year. As a means of trying to fix its public image, the company will now submit the source code for its anti-virus software to independent third-parties for review, Reuters reports. That starts next year, and there’s also plans to open three “transparency centers” around the world by 2020. The first will open in 2018.
“We’ve nothing to hide,” chairman and CEO Eugene Kaspersky told the publication. “With these actions, we’ll be able to overcome mistrust and support our commitment to protecting people in any country on our planet.” More than that, Kaspersky (the company) says it will boost its bug bounty program payouts dramatically, from $5,000 up to $100,000.
“We need to reestablish trust in relationships between companies, governments and citizens,” Kaspersky (the CEO) told The Guardian.
In the past few months alone, the company has been embroiled in accusations that it was complicit in Russian cyberattacks on Israel and the US, had its namesake anti-virus software dropped from retail giant Best Buy and was banned by federal agencies in the States.
Via: Reuters, The Guardian
Source: Kaspersky
The life of an elite ‘Super Mario 64’ speedrunner
Allan Alvarez can complete the game Super Mario 64 faster than anyone in the world, which means that most days he gets out of bed around 4 PM.
Afternoons consist of errands — lately, finding a new apartment and office space with reliable internet for streaming — and training with his volleyball team. After dinner, he does a few rounds of arm and finger stretches, makes sure he’s hydrated, then turns on the Nintendo 64 to practice. At around midnight in Spain — 6 PM on the US East Coast and thus peak viewing hours — he starts streaming on Twitch under his alias cheese05. His shift often wraps up close to 7 AM.
Alvarez is a full-time speedrunner; he competes with others around the world to beat a game in the fastest time possible. His primary game, the classic platformer Super Mario 64, is the most popular for speedrunners. Alvarez holds the world record for beating it: 120 stars, which essentially means conquering every goal in the game. It takes the average gamer about 24 hours to do this, according to HowLongToBeat.com, an online database of game lengths. Alvarez has done it in 1 hour, 39 minutes and 28 seconds, including cutscenes.
Now 22 years old, Alvarez first found speedrunning videos while grazing YouTube in Trinidad, where he grew up. He tried it himself in 2014, around the time of his senior high school exams. Then, in the days after graduating from school, he began streaming his Mario 64 speedruns every night on Twitch, pulling in about $100 or $200 per month. In only a year, Alvarez got his first world record and landed $1,000 in donations that day. Today, he streams five to six days each week, earning about $2,500 per month from Twitch alone.
“Mario has reached a point where it’s so optimized and so difficult that I feel like I can’t possibly try any harder and I just can’t get anything going.”
“Everyone says that I’m the fastest improver of all time,” he said. “When you have the world record in the most famous speedrun there is, you get famous, and I started making money. And then it started becoming my job.”
His job has felt tiresome lately. Since its release two decades ago, Mario 64 has been played and replayed to the point where eking out a new, faster time seems nearly impossible. “Mario has reached a point where it’s so optimized and so difficult that I feel like I can’t possibly try any harder and I just can’t get anything going. I spend hours trying to get a run going and I just can’t and I get frustrated,” he said.
Alvarez has clocked more than 5,000 hours of playtime in a single game — probably tens of thousands of semifinished runs. His closest rival, 23-year-old Devin Blair from Kentucky — aka puncayshun — said he’s played about the same amount. Steffen Hagelskjær, a 22-year-old from the small city of Viborg, Denmark, known as flippy_o, places himself around the 3,000-hour mark on Mario 64. “I almost feel bad saying that, because I know that I could’ve spent so much more time in the game,” he said. “I could spend three times that amount and probably still not be bored.”
Hagelskjær peaked at No. 11 on the world leaderboards for Mario 64 but lately has gone down to No. 19, about four and a half minutes behind Alvarez. When he started, he streamed up to 14 hours per day.
“Let’s say that I did get bored with 9,000 hours. Then there would be another game I could spend 10,000 hours in and not get bored,” he said. “As long as you like video games and as long as you like the concept behind speedrunning, it’s hard to fade out on it completely.”
How many times have you beaten your favorite game?
Three or four may be a lot, yet high-level speedrunners will easily clear that many playthroughs in a night. Their craft takes an absurd level of persistence and perfectionism, mastering a specific sequence over thousands of hours. Yet speedrunning has never been more popular.
By long jumping around the castle bridge at the start of the game, speedrunners avoid a lengthy cut scene.
“It’s really done nothing but go up,” said Anil Chirayath, a community program manager at Twitch who essentially acts as a liaison between speedrunners and the streaming company.
Speedrunning dates back to the days where players mailed VHS tapes corroborating their times to games magazines, but a shift took place around five years ago. The rise of streaming platforms like Twitch meant records were broken in real time to captive audiences. Where each game series might have had its own record keeping in Google Docs, sites like speedrun.com emerged to centralize leaderboards across genres, vetted by thousands of volunteer moderators. Meanwhile, live events like the yearly European Speedrunner Assembly and twice-annual Games Done Quick marathon drive more attention to the competition.
Speedrunner Sockfolder worked out a sure-fire way to clip into this star, instead of using a cannon to destroy the wall encasing it.
In 2014, a Games Done Quick event pulled in more than 100,000 viewers on Twitch. “Once you get to that level of exposure, I think that signifies that speedrunning has arrived on the scene,” said Chirayath, who himself speedruns NES game Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! blindfolded. Today, the same event can get more than 9 million unique viewers over the course of a week.
The rise of esports has also helped legitimize watching video games, not just playing them, for entertainment. Yet while competitions for Starcraft or DotA are analogous to soccer or tennis — competitions where you face off directly against others — speedrunners are more like weight lifters or gymnasts. They compete alone, in nearly the same single-player environment each time, trying merely to master their own exacting standards. While speedrunners compete with one another, their aim is also to bust personal mental plateaus. And ultimately, all of them are competing on the same side against the game’s architecture.
The backwards long jump is possible because there’s only a speed limit on forward movement. By chaining together jumps, speedrunners can gather enough pace to clip through solid objects.
“The shared mindset is kind of that you want to push the game as far as possible,” said Hagelskjær. This has created a collaborative community that shares time-saving game glitches widely instead of hoarding them for themselves. “If everyone knows the same things it’s more about who’s the better player rather than who found something that he didn’t share with anyone else. It’s almost seen like a scumbag move if you don’t share something these days.”
Because speedruns are usually streamed, any accidental glitches don’t remain secret long anyway. The bane of casual gamers, these bugs are integral to speedrunners, who hunt for and exploit them to get from A to B more quickly than the game’s creators intended.
“Nine times out of ten, doing the tricks and glitches takes more skill than not doing them.”
“You’re hardly ever going to find someone who actually speedruns who tells you glitches are bad,” said Summoning Salt, the alias of a video maker who documents speedrunning records on YouTube as a kind of community historian. “Nine times out of ten, doing the tricks and glitches takes more skill than not doing them.”
For all the high-profile tricks, the foundation of every speedrun is using skill to take the optimal path to each star.
A finesse in even the trickiest of techniques makes top speedrunners popular on Twitch. Runners mainly make income from subscribers who pay monthly and individual donations. Professional speedrunners thus need to be internet personalities too. They comment on their moves to educate viewers on their strategy and how to execute tricks. They joke with their audiences and talk about what they had for dinner during cutscenes or in the seconds between restarting aborted runs.
On one level, the enjoyment of following speedrunners is that of seeing a live drama: players who want to reach their goals, face continuous setbacks, improve their skill and maybe, eventually, conquer a record. Audiences get invested in players they’re rooting for.
Another reason for its popularity is nostalgia. “People always have a place in their heart for the old games that they used to play when they were young. I don’t think that ever goes away,” said Chirayath. Watching speedruns is a way to enjoy them without the labor of playing them through. It means getting to vicariously re-experience the games of one’s youth in a new light, through the eyes of an expert.
There are certain games that speedrunners gravitate toward, like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Metroid and Portal. Many of them are older titles and involve puzzle or platforming elements. They not only hold sentimental value but also, unlike modern games, waste little time with storyline and dialogue. “If you’re going to be playing a game and resetting 100,000 times, then it’s easier without those cutscenes and opening intros,” said Peter Anthony Chase, aka “Pac,” the founder of speedrun.com.
Super Mario 64, however, is the most played game on Chase’s site. For all the anticipation around the upcoming Super Mario Odyssey (Alvarez says he’s “definitely” going to play it), Mario 64 has remained king of speedrunning games despite the many Mario titles that have emerged over the past 20 years.
One of the first 3D platformers, it combines varied puzzles with multiple paths to collect stars, the goal of the game. It’s also an iconic game worldwide, drawing a high standard of global competition: The top 15 players in the 120-star category represent five continents and 10 different countries. Moreover, it’s the right length for speedrunning. A 120-star playthrough might take two hours, but shorter routes that rely heavily on glitches can be finished in under 20 minutes (the record for a 0-star run is 6 minutes 44 seconds).
At this stage, there are few fresh tricks to find in Mario 64 — a YouTuber even offered $1,000 in 2015 to anyone who could replicate an apparent new glitch. With the margins for winning now so narrow, the emphasis for 120-star Mario 64 speedrunners is all on execution, with players mostly hemming close to the known optimal path through the game.
In 2006, the record for the most challenging, completionist 120-star category was 2 hours, 10 minutes and 40 seconds. In 2012, speedrunner Siglemic vowed to stream 12 hours per day for a month to bring the record down, according to Summoning Salt, a position he mostly held until 2014, when he lost it to Blair. Since Alvarez took the title in 2015, he and Blair have been trading top honors.
In May this year, Alvarez beat the 1:40:00 mark for the first time ever. A month later, Blair beat his record by eight seconds. The very next day, Alvarez made a run to reclaim the title.
The world-record run
Multiple speedrunners describe Mario 64‘s appeal in terms of its movement, and watching Alvarez’s world-record attempt from this June is simply aesthetically pleasing. Like a portly gymnast, Mario somersaults, long jumps and dives gracefully from platform to platform in Alvarez’s hands, every next move seamlessly anticipated. He confidently pulls off glitches like the backward long jump and precisely locates a star hidden behind a wall.
About an hour into his run, Alvarez goes upstairs in Peach’s castle, a marker that he’s entering a second phase of the game. Seeing that he’s on track for a world record, Alvarez gets nervous.
In an earlier run, he’d gotten to the last stage, a face-off with Mario’s nemesis, Bowser. The game’s final challenge is to pick him up by the tail, swing him in circles like in an Olympic hammer throw and hurl him into bombs dotted around the area. Missing your throw costs about 15 seconds of game time, and Alvarez had lost a record by missing twice in a row.
This time Alvarez keeps his nerve. At the second Bowser hits the final bomb, his expression goes from impassive concentration to the kind of involuntary release of adrenaline and relief you see in tournament-winning athletes as he jumps up and down. For now, he holds the world record: 1:39:28.
When asked to describe Alvarez, Blair said he “really thrives off of competition, probably more than anyone that I know.”
“Some people lose a world record and they feel demoralized, but Cheese is the complete opposite. He just has what I’d call a champion’s mind-set,” Blair said, using Alvarez’s Twitch screen name. “Whenever I take a world record from Cheese, the first thing he’s going to do is grind till he takes it back.”
Alvarez, who got into speedrunning Mario 64 from watching Blair’s videos and said they’re pretty much best friends, agreed. “Most speedrunners want to play just because they love playing video games,” he said. “I always had a competitive mindset. I always wanted to be the best.” He’d never even gotten 120 stars in Mario 64 until he started speedrunning.
Playing soccer as a kid, Alvarez would juggle the ball a thousand times and do a thousand passes against a wall every day, on top of playing tennis and volleyball. “I know what it takes to practice the same thing over and over to get better and better,” he said. “That’s exactly what speedrunning is, except it’s all mental instead of physical.”
Speedrunning is a kind of gaming purism: no pesky narrative nor immersion, just sheer technique. All destination, no journey. Watching the best speedrunners ply their trade is like watching an athlete pull off a feat so sublime that it expands your conception of the possible. Over time, competitors get closer and closer to perfection, honing their skills to be almost machinelike.
Except elite speedrunners aren’t machines. They choke at critical moments; they may wake up one morning and not want to work. So as in the upper echelons of many competitions, resilience separates the great from the good. “There’s times when no matter how good you are, you’re just going to mess up, because it’s so hard. But the more you get there, the more comfortable it’s going to seem,” said Summoning Salt. “You’ve got to just be used to being able to hit the reset button.”
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