The Gold Split - Week #32: Twitch's Time Trials
Week #32 (Feb 20): Twitch; Quick Poll; Diablo; Speedrun Competitions; Super Mario 64 Awards; Event News; New World Records: Portal 2, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Donkey Kong Country, Breath of the Wild
Happy Week #32!
I originally had a different story planned, but after Twitch decided to be an ass again I pivoted and put together a quick article about what was announced, what it causes, what to do now and even some potential alternatives.
Preservation of old speedruns is so important. Please share this one if you can, we need as many people as possible to take note.
Contents
Up to Speed ⚡️
I encourage you to think about what happened recently in the communities you are a part of. If there are any stories, articles, glitches, events, or other topics I should cover, go ahead and submit them here or in the Gold Split Discord! 📨
Quick Poll: Are you affected by Twitch’s policy change? 📊
Story of the Week ✨
Yesterday, on February 19th 2025, Twitch announced that they would limit the storage capacity for Highlights. Let’s go over the details and effects of the new policy, what to do now and even discuss some potential alternatives. Even though it affects every streamer, the speedrunning community is disproportionately targeted by this announcement.
Twitch’s New Policy
The main and crucial part of the announcement is the future storage limit for Highlights of 100 hours. This will come into effect retroactively and everybody above the limit right now will see their content deleted on April 19th 2025 until it reaches a total duration below the threshold.
Additionally, it is already affecting people right now: if you are above the limit, you will not be able to save any more Highlights.
Because Past Broadcasts only get saved for a few weeks at most depending on your Twitch status level and Clips have a maximum duration of 60 seconds, Highlights used to be the main way to preserve past speedruns indefinitely and provide a living record. And for many people they still are. These days, YouTube has taken over a large part of this and most speedruns submitted to speedrun.com include a link to a YouTube video, but a large part of the history is still found in Twitch Highlights.
What it causes
Now, at least a decade of speedrunning history is in peril. A speedrunner’s Highlights on Twitch are documenting their personal journey as well as how routes and techniques evolved. They’re a living record of a community’s progress and it’s an educational resource for newcomers. Additionally, leaderboards are set to lose countless runs that were submitted as Twitch Highlights.
Even if everything was miraculously saved and exported to other platforms, Twitch’s discovery features with the ability to look for content for a specific game only works great as a library for this type of content. Streaming on Twitch is now many people's livelihood, and it’s unreasonable to expect them to go through hundreds or even thousands of hours of videos to preserve their Highlights.
And the effects don’t stop at the individual streamers. Marathon organisations like Games Done Quick likely already have a different platform for their past events, but will be forced to stop offering them on Twitch. YouTube creators will have a much harder time to find clips and information for their long-form video essays that showcase a game’s unique speedrunning history. And for viewers, the ability to read chat messages sent during the livestream alongside the VoDs gives Twitch Highlights an edge over other platforms.
Ultimately, I expect that a lot of people, both streamers and viewers but especially speedrunners, are going to consider alternatives and that this new policy will do more harm than good in the long run.
Arguments
Twitch claims that Highlights don't drive discovery or engagement like Clips or the mobile feed and are therefore considered ineffective. But for speedrunners it’s not all about the numbers. It’s about keeping a historical record. Low view counts don’t equate to low importance.
Twitch tries to soften the blow by arguing that only 0.5% of active streamers would be affected. But this makes it even more baffling that a drastic step like this is necessary. Besides, the announcement overgeneralises and treats all content alike. I bet that the percentage is much higher among our community. A one-size-fits-all policy is incredibly blunt and not the solution. It erodes trust in the close relationship between Twitch and the speedrunning community yet again, and some people will leave.
We’re all aware that storage and maintenance isn’t free. But other platforms have also figured this out long ago, maintaining vast libraries of rarely viewed content. In addition, Twitch is owned by Amazon, which also runs AWS, one of the largest cloud service providers with access to highly scalable, cost-effective storage.
Alternative Solutions
Let’s entertain their arguments for a bit and assume that some form of action is absolutely necessary. At the heart of it all it’s still a money issue and there are many better potential solutions that don’t cripple the speedrunning history of the entire community.
For content that sees little traffic, Twitch could migrate these videos to a lower-cost archival storage solution while still being retrievable. It reduces costs significantly while still preserving these libraries.
Similarly, another option might be to automatically downscale the resolution of videos stored long term with a low amount of views. This reduces their file size and the costs of storing them.
The Path Forward
We need to move forward under the assumption that Twitch is not going to back-pedal on this policy. Many leaderboards are already considering rejecting times submitted with a Twitch Highlight as the video.
If you are moderating one or more leaderboards: help preserve the legacy of the game(s) you oversee. Launch a community effort to check the speedruns on your leaderboards and verify whether the videos are hosted on Twitch or elsewhere. Inform the runners that use Twitch Highlights about the issue. Ideally, no action is necessary if their Highlights don’t add up to 100 hours. But if they exceed the limit, advise them to export the videos and provide a new link.
Many runners have already left the scene and won’t hear about this, but their times still remain relevant or even competitive. If you don’t receive a response shortly before the deadline on April 19th 2025, please take the initiative to download those videos yourself, re-upload them as private videos to a shared community channel on a different platform and update the links.
For all speedrunners, here are some options you might consider:
Check whether or not you’ve reached the 100-hour limit through your Twitch Dashboard. You’ll find the Video Producer under Content.
If you are, start working on exporting and/or backing up everything that might be valuable.
Create a plan about which Highlights to manually delete before April 19th. Don’t leave it up to Twitch to select them automatically.
Stream your progress! Take a trip down memory lane together with your community!
Raise awareness! Share this article and repost content regarding the issue on your favourite social media platform.
Helpful Links
TwitchDownloader can help you to download videos in bulk and save chat messages in a separate file.
Matse007’s SpeedrunRescueScript checks your own runs on speedrun.com and lets you download the videos hosted on Twitch.
Jonga’s Step-by-Step Process on Bluesky is about setting up a separate YouTube channel and exporting Twitch Highlights there.
Up to Speed ⚡️
🔍 How Diablo hackers uncovered a speedrun scandal (8-minute read)
Back in Week #7 I covered the news about how a team of speedrunners, TAS creators and programmers discovered that one of the most iconic speedruns of the original Diablo and official Guinness world record had been illegitimate and cheated. This article tells the story again and includes several behind-the-scenes interview responses with the team.
💰 $2,250 Speedrun competition for FPS game Hell of an Office (6-minute read)
Hell of an Office is an FPS with precision platforming elements currently available on Steam. The prize pool is divided between the Hell Rush category and individual levels. $1,750 will go to the best three Hell Rush times, and the remaining $500 will be distributed to individual level runners at $5 per world record in each of the 100 levels. The competition will be up for a while longer and run until March 17th. The full set of rules is available in the article and links to more information is included.
🌟 therun.gg hosts speedrunning contest for Aethermancer (3-minute read)
Aethermancer includes a unique combination of monster taming and roguelite mechanics. The goal for this contest is to defeat all 17 possible encounters in the free demo version of the game, available on Steam. The contest starts on February 24th and the fastest time by March 2nd will be rewarded with in interactive statue inside the game, while the five best times in total will also receive a key for the full version of the game. As always, the full rules are available in the article.
🎯 Logitech hosts Counter-Strike 2 speedrunning challenge (6-minute read)
The challenge will run through March 9th and has the goal of finishing the official AIM & RUN map in Counter-Strike 2 as fast as possible while taking out all targets along the way. Prizes are only available to players in the EU, but contain a large amount of Logitech peripherals, including a 24k gold mouse for player who achieved the record time. You might have already guessed it, but the full set of rules and links to submit your entry are available on the page.
🎉 Vote for your favourites at the Super Mario 64 Awards (5-minute form)
A total of 18 Super Mario 64-related categories are up for evaluation and some of the awards will be presented by popular community figures. Intimate knowledge is required for some of the categories in order to make an informed decision, but voters aren’t required to vote in every category. The public voting period ends on Sunday, February 23rd, and the ceremony will be broadcast live on Twitch and YouTube on Sunday, March 2nd.
🔧 The Twilight Princess Decompilation Project (2-minute read)
Anybody with experience in C++ as well as rookies with a willingness to learn are invited to join the decompilation effort for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. A potentially fully decompiled game would open a vast amount of possibilities, including but not limited to new speedrun strategies, randomisers, modifications and adaptations for different platforms.
Briefly
New Elden Ring TAS beats the game in 02:26.829 (5-minute video)
Event News 📅
We have two heavyweight events coming up real soon. First, BSG is kicking off the week-long marathon event BSG Plus 2025, live from Nieuwegein in the Netherlands. Apart from short four to five hour long breaks during the middle of the night, they will showcase a variety of speedruns by some of Europe’s (and also America’s) best runners for a full week!
Secondly, next Thursday, February 27th, all eyes will be on France for SpeeDons 5. While the event set at the Lyon Congress Centre will be broadcast primarily in French, the team has partnered up with several organisations to provide alternate language restreams for the first time. Games Done Quick, Germench and Japanese_Restream will allow viewers to also follow along in English, German and Japanese respectively. Last year’s event raised €2,066,663 for Médecins du Monde and was an incredible show. Expect the same again!
🏁 Finished
No Fish 2025 raised £164 for Mind
⏱️ Running
Until February 24th: Lifeline for Linear (Schedule)
🔜 Upcoming
Starts February 23rd: BSG Plus 2025 (Schedule), benefitting MIND
Starts February 27th: SpeeDons 5 (Schedule), benefitting Médecins Du Monde
This Week’s Top Times 🏆
🥇 First Place
Portal 2 (Single Player: No SLA) in 00:55:27.967 by leough
VideoMario Kart 8 Deluxe (48 Tracks: 150cc, Items) in 01:52:54.300 by kusaan
Video • YouTubeThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Any%: Normal Mode) in 00:23:01.000 by Player5
Video • Twitch • YouTubeDonkey Kong Country (All Stages: SNES) in 00:29:59.000 by lovebird920
Video • TwitchSpyro Reignited Trilogy (PC) (Spyro the Dragon: Any% NBS) in 00:29:19.000 by groxu (He/Him)
Video • TwitchResident Evil 4 (2023) (Any%: PC, Standard, Full Game) in 01:35:20.000 by LoboDeUmSoBraco
Video • YouTubeLEGO Star Wars: The Video Game (Any%: Console, Solo) in 00:57:15.000 by coolestto
Video • Twitch • YouTubeBatman: Arkham Asylum (No Major Skips: PC, Easy) in 01:32:51.000 by JamesPavlic (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeDay of the Tentacle Remastered (Any%) in 00:16:31.000 by finness_ (He/Him, They/Them)
Video • Twitch • YouTube
🥈 Second Place
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Any%: pre-v1.2.1) in 00:40:21.000 by slush077 (He/Him)
VideoLEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (PC/Console) (Any%: PC, Solo) in 02:19:31.000 by Frost_Byte
Video • Twitch • YouTubeSonic Frontiers (Any%: PC) in 00:54:33.920 by snrZora (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeDark Souls II (Any% Current Patch: Restricted) in 00:48:48.000 by cellar
Video • Twitch • YouTube
🥉 Third Place
Super Mario 64 (120 Star: N64) in 01:36:02.000 by Karin
Video • TwitchNoita (Any%: 1.0, Random) in 00:02:04.480 by Failed_Username
VideoFinal Fantasy XIII (Any%: PC) in 04:25:20.000 by MMM (He/Him)
Video • Twitch • YouTubeMarioKart2D (Any%: Glitchless) in 00:00:43.130 by skyywaffle (She/Her)
Video • Twitch • YouTube
Fun Stat of the Week 📈
Relatively consistently, about 15% of all the top three leaderboard times I look at each week are linked to a Twitch Highlight. Considering these are usually more recent and Twitch videos used to be more prevalent when it comes to leaderboard submissions, I expect the percentage among the rest to be much higher.
From April 19th 2025, a majority of these would just become completely inaccessible, creating a significant gap in our archives.
Reddit Choice 🔝
The r/speedrun choice of the week is… this thread, showcasing the unique approach of basketball players Victor Wembanyama and Chris Paul to the NBA Skills Challenge at the All Star Weekend 2025. They succeeded in achieving the fastest time, but were ultimately (wrongfully) disqualified.
👋🏻 And that’s it for this week! See you next Thursday, February 27th 2025. 👋🏻
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