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Born to Run: a Grounded Theory Study of Cheating in the Online Speedrunning Community

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Born to Run: a Grounded Theory Study of Cheating in the Online Speedrunning Community The University of Southern Mississippi The Aquila Digital Community Master's Theses Summer 8-2017 Born to Run: A Grounded Theory Study of Cheating in the Online Speedrunning Community Christopher G. Brewer University of Southern Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses Part of the Criminology Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons, and the Social Psychology and Interaction Commons Recommended Citation Brewer, Christopher G., "Born to Run: A Grounded Theory Study of Cheating in the Online Speedrunning Community" (2017). Master's Theses. 311. https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/311 This Masters Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by The Aquila Digital Community. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of The Aquila Digital Community. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BORN TO RUN: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY OF CHEATING IN THE ONLINE SPEEDRUNNING COMMUNITY by Christopher Glenn Brewer A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School, the College of Science and Technology, and the School of Criminal Justice at The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts August 2017 BORN TO RUN: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY OF CHEATING IN THE ONLINE SPEEDRUNNING COMMUNITY by Christopher Glenn Brewer August 2017 Approved by: ________________________________________________ Dr. Joshua Hill, Major Professor Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice ________________________________________________ Dr. Kimberly Chism, Committee Member Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice ________________________________________________ Dr. Laura Gulledge, Committee Member Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice ________________________________________________ Dr. Lisa Nored Chair, Department of Criminal Justice ________________________________________________ Dr. Karen S. Coats Dean of the Graduate School COPYRIGHT BY Christopher Glenn Brewer 2017 Published by the Graduate School ABSTRACT BORN TO RUN: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY OF CHEATING IN THE ONLINE SPEEDRUNNING COMMUNITY by Christopher Glenn Brewer August 2017 Video games represent a growing genre of media quickly becoming one of the leading forms of entertainment (Jordan, 2014). This popularity has allowed new playstyles to emerge across the video game genre, such as e-Sports and speedrunning. In particular, the speedrunning community has somewhat redefined what it means to “cheat” in a video game by accepting the use of certain software and hardware violations that could be seen as “cheating” to the general gaming community. This paper examined the social construction of cheating in this digital community through the use of grounded theory methods. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the guidance from my committee members: Dr. Joshua Hill, Dr. Kimberly Chism, and Dr. Laura Gulledge. I would like to thank them for their valuable time and unwavering support throughout my graduate experience here at USM. The lessons I have learned from them will undoubtedly follow me into the next chapter of my life. I would like to thank Dr. Dean Bertram for the experiences and training I have been given. I would also like to thank Dr. Lisa Nored and the rest of the department for allowing me to be a part of this great program. Graduate school is definitely a large undertaking. I would like to thank my fellow graduate students for their support as well. The relationships I have developed throughout my time here has helped tremendously in shaping my graduate experience. Lastly, I would like to thank speedrunners GothicLogic, JazzyChoi1991, IHNN, ItsJabo, MikeMint, and EZScape for their valuable and rich descriptions of the speedrunning phenomenon. iii DEDICATION To my mom and my sister, who have been with me from the very beginning, who I can always rely upon in helping me through the difficult times, and who I love very much. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ............................................................................................. ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................. x CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER II – LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................... 5 Cheating in Sports ........................................................................................................... 5 Cheating in Education ................................................................................................... 10 Cheating in Digital Communities ................................................................................. 13 Deviance in Gaming Communities ........................................................................... 14 Motivations for Cheating in Games .......................................................................... 20 CHAPTER III - METHODOLOGY ................................................................................. 23 CHAPTER IV – DATA .................................................................................................... 27 A Reintroduction to Speedrunning ............................................................................... 27 Arguments Against Glitches ..................................................................................... 27 Arguments Against Developer’s Intent .................................................................... 28 Rebuttals ................................................................................................................... 29 v Definitions from the Community .............................................................................. 32 Cheating as Defined in the Speedrunning Community................................................. 33 Hardware ................................................................................................................... 34 Software .................................................................................................................... 35 Code Changes ....................................................................................................... 35 Exploits ................................................................................................................. 38 Hacks..................................................................................................................... 42 Walkthroughs ........................................................................................................ 43 Emulators .............................................................................................................. 44 Splicing ................................................................................................................. 46 How Cheating Comes to be Defined in the Speedrunning Community ....................... 47 Speedrunning Communities ...................................................................................... 47 Rule Creation ............................................................................................................ 49 Initial Phase ........................................................................................................... 49 Decision Phase ...................................................................................................... 50 Final Phase ............................................................................................................ 53 Verification ............................................................................................................... 53 The Essence of Speedrunning ....................................................................................... 55 Trust .......................................................................................................................... 55 Entertainment ............................................................................................................ 57 vi Skill ........................................................................................................................... 58 An Explanation of Cheating in Speedrunning .............................................................. 59 CHAPTER V – CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 65 Limitations .................................................................................................................... 69 Future Research ............................................................................................................ 70 APPENDIX A – IRB Approval Letter .............................................................................. 72 APPENDIX B – Information Letter .................................................................................. 73 APPENDIX
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