Factorio SpeedRunners and Videos

[blazespinnaker]

This is a somewhat long post, but it's a discussion of several relevant things. How the game is played by most people, what's interesting to watch, what invites us to purchase the game, and importantly- how to better leverage for community growth, the Twitch/YouTube streaming of games.

The last point is important because Video streaming of games is huge - 364B views and 15% of all video views on the internet[1]. And for some games, Speedrunning videos is a big chunk of those views. 1.6M runs have been submitted to speedrun.com.[2] 1220 runs for factorio have been submitted to speedrun[4]

Critically, 588 of those factorio runs happened in the last 6 months alone. This means an area of recent growth in engagement for Factorio.

Ignoring that last factorio run stat would be a shame in all sorts of ways, as for some, these videos may be how they make a decision to buy a game. I know from my own experience, that one of the early multiplayer factorio speedruns got me interested enough to buy the game a couple of years ago and it was watching a speedrun that renewed my recent interest.

And by recent interest, I mean near super fan. And so as a devoted factorio gamer interested in speedruns, I was wondering how the SpeedRunner mods were optimizing the group and its videos to get more people interested in the game, or at least how they were trying to encourage engagement.

After all, the more engagement, the more Wube can invest in Factorio, and the more fun for all.

Normally this kind of thing could be done by the marketing department, but that's a sensitive area with speedruns, which are more community driven. That is generally just fine, as gamers love to do their best to promote their favorite games and I couldn't imagine speedrunners would be any different.

However, when I went to the speedrun.com subsection for Factorio, the categories didn't seem very reflective of how the game is played or seemed particularly inspiring. I didn't see how it was optimized for community growth at all.

I went in to the speedrun chat channel and listened in for a couple of weeks. Mostly it was just idle chatter about specific optimizations, though some speedrunners were complaining about the priority the mods were using for runs. They mostly were being oblique about their complaints and obviously didn't want to alienate themselves with the community.

The complaints make sense though, as run submittals don't align with how the categories are arranged and the categories don't seem to be that beneficial to the community at large either. If I had to guess, as these things often go when you're not using objective metrics with clearly articulated goals, it's a small group pressuring others to fall in line with their personal preferences.

When I asked for explanation on how they were arranged, it was by 'vote', which kind of sounded like some kind of a popularity contest. Those sorts of popularity contests can easily go awry. For example, when you're in the channel, you hear a lot of condescension about others people submittal categories, which is rather sad, especially since the ones condescending are hardly doing anything to write home about. Guys and Games can be a volatile mix sometimes.

So neither did it seemed optimized for promoting factorio, it didnt seem optimized along the lines of how speedrunners were using it either.

Anyways, once I thought I had a handle on what the group was about, I made the case for using statistical analysis in hopes of improving things.

Perhaps I was a bit verbose in introducing the concept, but I was rather surprised when one of the runners reacted abruptly after I presented some hard stats from the speedrun.com API[3]. Others in the channel started asking smart questions at that point about deeper analysis, but this one guy wanted to put a stop to it. Maybe it was all just weird timing, but shutting down the conversation at that point just seemed odd.

But, giving the benefit of the doubt is always good, so maybe it would have just all gone over better if I went straight to the point, which I'll do now:

Last 6 months of runs submitted:

1. ('Any%', 337)
2. ('Steelaxe%', 95)
3. ('Any% Duo', 51)
4. ('New Game+ Massive Multiplayer', 34)
5. ('Getting on track like a pro', 20)
6. ('Default Settings', 17)
7. ('Any% Multiplayer', 14)
8. ('Any% Botless', 8)
9. ('100%', 6)
10. ('Default Settings Multiplayer', 4)

All time Speed Runs:

1. ('Any%', 549)
2. ('Steelaxe%', 202)
3. ('Default Settings', 101)
4. ('Getting on track like a pro', 93)
5. ('Any% Multiplayer', 87)
6. ('Any% Duo', 81)
7. ('New Game+ Massive Multiplayer', 36)
8. ('Default Settings Multiplayer', 30)
9. ('100%', 21)
10. ('New Game+', 15)
11. ('Any% Botless', 8)

Top Line Factorio Cats at the moment:[5]

1. Any% (Peaceful / Very very rich resources, launch rocket)
2. Default Settings (Launch Rocket)
3. 100% (Any%, but all achievements,
4. Any% Multiplayer (Any% + multiplayer + Launch Rocket)
5. Default Settings Multiplayer (Default + Multiplayer)
6. Steelaxe% (Just get to steelaxe)

Organizing these cats along objective metrics that could enhance this as a vector for Factorio engagement seems like a worthy goal. What those metrics are exactly, I don't know, but it'd be good to think them through.

I also have some subjective, personal observations:

I don't (rather, can't, at least competitively,) speedrun but as an observer, I find Any% the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. Weirdly though, the category doesn't allow for blueprint import - but a fixed seed with massively unrealistic resource fields is OK? Obviously they are memorizing/practicing the blueprints ad nauseum or have them on printouts next to their computers. If it attracts views, I guess that's fine, but not exactly showcasing the interesting challenges of Factorio and is a little deceptive. That sort of thing can leave a bad taste in your mouth I think when you discover the truth of the matter. Strangely, some of these runners talk down about the other run types. Warning: I could be pushing back a little here on the unnecessary condescension I saw in the chat channel.

Default Settings, is how the game is played. I think it's more exciting and honest than Any%, but haven't yet done a proper views analysis. I think using a fixed seed would be nice but seed difficulty distribution is all over the place, so that's tricky. Better would be for the community to agree on a set of very challenging seeds and that becomes the standard for the category for awhile. Create new categories over time with new fixed seeds when the previous ones become stale.

100% is next - that doesn't seem right at all. only 6 submissions and if you total up the video views for this category it comes to a small number. Probably because the videos are so long, pain to upload to youtube. Twitch views are tiny. Not sure what's going on here, but could be an experiment which is fine. Doesn't look like it's working out.

Any% Multiplayer - I think this should be #1 or #2. Multiplayer Factorio is a lot of fun and is a really awesome way to get new players into the game. It plays to all the strengths of what Wube has built so wonderfully. Yes, it is shooting fish in a barrel, but with new players you're going to want to be gentle. Allowing Blueprint import makes sense as it helps guide the new players. It used to be #1 submittals, not sure what happened. Yes, it probably won't attract the same amount of post-game views, but I think if this gets really pushed it could bring in a lot of new players.

Default Settings Multiplayer (Default + Multiplayer), # of submittals/views are way to small lately, and frankly it makes sense to drop this off the list. Not a great way to introduce the game to new players and clearly not popular for people to run.

Steelaxe% - This and GOTLAP are my personal favorites for sure by far. It speaks to hardcore/intense optimization in a way none of the other categories do. Views seem OK, but drop off quickly after the top 2 or 3 ranked runners.

Here's what I'd like to see instead for the current categories. Purely for discussion, obviously the point is that more stats are needed.

1. Default Settings with fixed community seed(s) that is challenging.
2. Any% MP (no limits on players) With Blueprint Import
3. Any%
4. Any% Duo
5. SteelAxe
6. Deathworld (with fixed challenging seeds)

The last is a bit funny to some as really nobody does Deathworld speedruns, but I think that's OK. It's good have something that really challenges people. Challenges can be inspiring. It's also honest in that it keeps us all humble and stops us from kidding ourselves too much because we can launch a rocket in a couple of hours on a Monty Hall map. It's all relative.


To do, if someone has time (there is potentially $$ here as well):

• An anonymous survey of the runners, written by an impartial 3rd party group with an interest in growing factorio
• Does factorio have a good affiliate program that can be utilized with the videos? It should help measure conversions, do A/B testing and what makes sense to optimize for
• Having links to various resources that help measure engagement / conversions (factorio forums, wikis, starting up the game, etc)
• Analyze the above based on views. Draw in YouTube / Twitch APIs. For this, I think adjusting based on position in the top categories makes sense as above the fold positioning can artificially inflate numbers

And of course, you have to be sensitive here. You don't want to kill off this nascent growth area with too much micromanaging. Sometimes things will grow organically in the most unexpected ways.

1. https://www.tubefilter.com/2014/12/19/1 ... ideo-game/
2. https://www.speedrun.com/statistics/runs
3. https://github.com/speedruncomorg/api/t ... r/version1
4. https://www.speedrun.com/api/v1/runs?game=9d35xw1l
5. https://www.speedrun.com/factorio

[DaveMcW]

If you are discussing how speedrun.com works, this is not the right place to make suggestions.

If you are trying to start a competitor to speedrun.com, good luck.

[Koub]

The speedrunning community is a tiny part of game's community in general. It doesn't make them less important, but this forum is dedicated to Factorio in all its broadness, and its whole community.
There are a few known speedrunners lurking here, but you won't change the speedrunning game from here.

I see speedrunning as a competition for something that wasn't specifically designed for competition. Like competitive eating, or deadlifting for example. I'm fine with people having fun the way suits them best, and I salute the performance, but I don't feel I have the right (or the will) to change anything on how people who enjoy themselves should enjoy themselves when I'm not involved personally in that way of enjoying myself. Well that was convoluted.
In other words : I think one has to be a speedrunner to have an influence on the speedrunning community.

As in all competition, speedrunning has to set common rules so that people can compete against each others (and against themselves). All runs within a category must be as strictly comparable as possible, leaving only the runner's performance to make the difference. Any variability in initial conditions will have a significant impact on the outcome. I totally understand there are so many categories with little starting variability.

And lastly, I'm not sure broadening the game's audience is the main driver for the speedrunners. I'm not a speedrunner myself, so this is more an intuition, but I guess if I were a speedrunner, I'd do it for the challenge, the adrenaline rush, the sense of accomplishment, maybe even for the small community who would share my bizarre fetish for speedrunning, but not as a fanboy dedicated to promoting the game.

TL;DR : If you want to change the speedrunning community and its rules :
Become a speed runner. Earn their consideration by being one of them. And maybe, maybe will you be able to convince them to at least try your way. You can't force a community you're not a part of to adopt your point of view.
Also do things for the pleasure. I'd hate if someone came and instrumentalized my own way of enjoying a game into a way to market the game to others. If Wube wants to invest time and effort into official speedrun leaderboards, then why not, but until then, let people enjoy themselves the way they want.
This is my opinion on the subject.

[eradicator]

I didn't see how it was optimized for community growth at all.

This might be suprising to you but... have you considered that "community growth" might not be their main goal?

Maybe it was all just weird timing, but shutting down the conversation at that point just seemed odd.

From personal experience: When someone completely new suddently jumps into the community and goes "Hey all, i'm new, and you've all been doing it wrong! I'm the only one who knows the real truth!!11" then ignoring is a quite natural reaction. [Disclainer: I wasn't there, i don't know how you did it. So this is just an exaggerated example of a pattern that i've observed numerous times. Where the "new guy" was utterly oblivious to how his actions looked.]

I've skimmed over your post and it seems that you think "increasing engagement" is the true final ultimate goal that everyone should optimize towards. And you're totally forgetting that not everybody will agree with even that premise, let alone your proposed methods. Too fast growth destroys most things. And some people might even prefer a small community where they "know everyone". Are you a marketing person in real life?

[zombieroboninja]

Speedrunning a game means starting a game from the beginning and completing it as quickly as possible. So it makes sense that easy mode (big resource fields, biters far away or biters off) is the preferred choice. As far as not having blueprints, one could argue that if blueprints were allowed, it's no longer a new game, but a new game+ sort of deal, starting a new world with stuff from previous runs.

I'm not sure exactly what you're arguing for, but what I got from it is that you want to rearrange the order of the categories on speedrun.com. The categories on speedrun.com are ordered: any%, default settings, 100%, any% multiplayer, default settings multiplayer, steelaxe%, misc (with a bunch of niche categories). IMO, the order on speedrun.com makes sense. The first category is any%, aka beat the game, which to me is obvious to be the first one considering that's what vanilla speedrunning is all about, using skill and knowledge of a game to complete it as quickly as possible. Then default settings which is beat the game but not easy mode. Then 100%, which after beating the game as fast as possible is the only other non-arbitrary category. Then you move into multiplayer categories, which makes sense that it's after single player considering almost all speedruns, including factorio, are usually run by 1 player, with multiplayer being less common. At the end are the miscellaneous, more arbitrary categories. Also, I feel like this is a really weird thing to complain over. I mean it's not like the categories that you like the most are in the misc tab, so I don't see the problem even if your preferred category isn't the one farthest to the left on the website.

You also mentioned having a deathworld category... I mean, if you want to submit runs in the category, I'm sure you could contact nef or anti and see if they'll add it, but I don't see the point of having a category on the website with 0 submitted runs.

Speedrunning is about having fun, playing your favorite video game in a new way to get more fun and different challenges from it. I don't understand why you're making it sound like people only speedrun in order to promote a video game or they do it specifically to get more views or money. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people do it how they want to because it is fun, and they organize their leaderboard based on how the people who speedrun want it set up. It's weird to me that you, someone who says they don't speedrun, are telling the factorio forum how a group of speedrunners on another website have their leaderboard set up incorrectly. You already talked to some of the runners, they told you why things are the way they are.

[blazespinnaker]

I think this is basically a discussion about how the game is played by most people, what's interesting to watch, what invites us to purchase the game, and importantly- how to better leverage for community growth, the Twitch/YouTube streaming of games.

For those downplaying speedrunning, you're making statements based on hunches and guesses with no statistical data to back that up. You're ignoring recent statistical growth, though part of that is likely the excellent effort of Nefrums, who is obviously a talented ambassador for the game.

But the growth makes sense. The game is in many ways perfectly built for speedrunning. Speedrunning as a category of game play does not have many entries like Factorio. Optimizing is a big part of the factorio game play and unlike other games, it invites and rewards serious efforts in a deeply satisfactory way. I am willing to bet, especially if this is leveraged properly, that as speedrunning grows as a mode of game play, so will the attention paid to Factorio.

It would be a significant wasted opportunity not to recognize this.

And I think it's not just the community that should look at this, Wube should look at it as well, by thinking through what makes speedrunning attractive and how the game can be tweaked to ensure we don't hit unnecessary ceilings in terms of timing of gameplay. The recent change to wave defense for launching rockets was a good example of this, but I think more can be done.

The speedrunning folks should think beyond their personal preferences and see the advantages in growing the community. Growth in the community will grow their views on their youtube channels and they can earn more $$$.

There are ways to support promotion efforts on youtube without losing control of the brand.

Why wube is so adverse to promotion, I'm unclear. However, I have seen the story play out over and over again where someone builds something, and then someone builds the same thing but promotes themselves better, and the former are relegated to the dust bin of history.

[Deadlock989]

I don't even know where to start with this stream of marketing-speak.

This is a completely open form game. That is one of its main selling points. It is many things to many people. It should stay that way.

I have no interest in speedrunning or speedrunners. I absolutely prefer to play with zero time pressure. I would prefer that as small a percentage of any future game "tweaks" as possible are made for the specific benefit of randoms off of social media.

[blazespinnaker]

Sure, it's not for everyone. But to say it's not relevant, is to ignore the evidence.

Let me ask you though, do you enjoy optimizing your builds? That's a primary speedrunning activity, tweaks to support it, would also support your game play.

[Deadlock989]

Should I leverage that evidence with a nascent onboarding of gated content, going forward, towards a blue skies implementation of lead flow nurturing?

[blazespinnaker]

Sure, you're not interested in discussing ways to grow the community. That's fine. Let me just say that there are ways to promote oneself without being intrusive, however.

Let me repeat my question though, do you enjoy optimizing your builds? That is a primary speedrunning activity.

[valneq]

Let me repeat my question though, do you enjoy optimizing your builds? That is a primary speedrunning activity.

Sure, but optimize for what? I like to optimize for symmetry / aesthetics. Speedrunners most likely don't care about that.

[blazespinnaker]

Aesthetics, yeah not so much, but symmetry and simplicity absolutely.

If you look at the various game modes, wave defense, rocket rush, deathworld, they are all speedruns of a sort. deathworld is really good that way, I think. It's like speedrun or die (though there are hacks around that)

Likewise, several of the achievement are focused on time based skills.

Also, my experience in these forums is that about 80% of the forum posts here are discussions on how optimal different aspects of the game are.

Seriously though, to a degree, this should all be tautological. I mean, it's a factory building game.

[blazespinnaker]

Most popular factorio video this year: deathworld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjc6I3DLcAE

[Koub]

Most popular factorio video this year: deathworld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjc6I3DLcAE

A few observations of my own ...

Concerning the link you provided :

I can't stand the guy. I've stumbled across some of his vids a few years ago, and I felt irreparable brain damage watching them.
Therefore, the more people seem interested in what he posts, the more I feel compelled to get away from the flock of sheep.

I have an intuition that most of the views on this video are from people actually not playing Factorio. I Might be wrong, but I can't imagine such a significant part of Factorio player base (which I overall consider above average) enjoying losing brain cells watching his videos.

Concerning speedrunning Factorio in general :

Some of the achievements are there to give a hint to people of different ways to play the game, that doesn't make the game directed towards one of them.

I watched quite a few speedrunning videos to learn how to play the game fast enough to achieve "there is no spoon". And I have noticed that my ability to play normal games has decreased because I have the tendancy to build too big too fast, and pollute too much, which makes me regularly trampled by the first biter waves. If I had an advice for new Factorio players, it would be not to try and mimic speedrunner play style more than the opposite.

I'm still totally fine that speedrunning the game is possible, and some people enjoy it, but It's by no way representative of the way the average player plays the game, and I neither want a driver that pushes me to play more speedrunning style, nor want to get involved into influencing the way speedrunners should practise their preferred way of playing the game.

[SKKiro]

I'm also of the opinion that the speedrunning scene for this game is a very small percentage. At least compared to a lot of other games out there.
The achievements don't mean that they are promoting a way of play above the others, but rather to make you play in a different way and make you learn about the game. I cleared all the achievements on my side and here's the ones that stood out to me:

"Steam all the way" Made me realize how little electricity you need to launch a rocket. And made me aware of minute details like electricity drains and the power usage of stuff like various inserters.

"Raining bullets" Made me appreciate bullet ammo more and made me realize that flamethrower turrets aren't expensive and are good.

"Lazy bastard" Made me realize how good shopping malls are.

"There is no spoon" Was an eye opener on little you need to launch a single rocket.

"Logistic network embargo" Is the only one that never did anything to me; an anomaly really. When I was new to the game I never touched logistic bot stuff so I...just got that achievement.

Most popular factorio video this year: deathworld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjc6I3DLcAE

I feel like this is a really sad thing, not because of the channel itself but because this let's play was 100% made on a whim for potential big views and got dropped right off the bat when it didn't. Feels really bad.

[blazespinnaker]

"I have an intuition"

I find that sort of reasoning to be generally unproductive. Perhaps if you were a game producer with a long track record of world class games, it would be considered expert testimony - but until then, I think it's better to reason with data and statistics.

Whenever I have used data in my career, I have been successful. I've also seen the superiority of data by observing prediction markets - when participants use data, their predictions are correct, and when they use 'intuition' and 'hunches' and 'gut instinct', their predictions are rarely correct.

Yes, some people who have spent 1000s of hours seriously thinking about (60 hrs per week sort of thinking) and building video games can work by intuition. They are experts. I can do the same about certain problems that I have worked on for a very long time throughout my career, though I still prefer data as things change and it is inevitably much more reliable.

"I feel like this is a really sad thing, not because of the channel itself but because this let's play was 100% made on a whim for potential big views and got dropped right off the bat when it didn't. Feels really bad."

Not sure you understand Markiplier. He does a wide variety of videos and games and keeps his ears to the ground on what's recently popular. He's very successful at what he does. He is obviously an expert at growing and reaching mass audiences.

And I understand the statistical popularity of death world. It makes sense. The race against time, the suspense and excitement, all combined with the intellectual complexity of factorio is very very compelling.

I would argue that the next evolution in factorio should be a 'big brain biter' that more intelligently deploys the biters. This could be done in a compute efficient manner by making normal biters/spitters more stupid, and they just rally at points guided by the big brain.

The emergent game problems and their permutations to solve by defending against a big brain biter could be massive if done thoughtfully.

There is one possibility in all of this, though, that the producers of factorio have no desire to grow the community. Which is sad, I think everyone should be encouraged to play a little factorio at least once in their lives. I think it says a lot about resource usages, efficiency, production, automation and AI - useful things for everyone to have some appreciation for.

[jodokus31]

It seems, that Deathworlds are more fun to watch than to play. Esp. For speedrunning. So, if a Streamer is willing to suffer, he/she gets more successful and makes factorio more popular

Im sure, the producers want to grow the community and it works slowly but surely. Factorio is already legendary imo. But it wont reach the mainstream market so much...

[Koub]

Not sure you understand Markiplier. He does a wide variety of videos and games and keeps his ears to the ground on what's recently popular. He's very successful at what he does. He is obviously an expert at growing and reaching mass audiences.

That's exactly the point. Reaching mass audiences is not a finality in itself. The most stupid TV shows are specialised in reaching mass audiences, that doesn't make them admiration worthy.
I'm not saying he's not talented, just that I don't like what he does with his talent.

Anyway you want to make the community grow, which is not a bad intention, however we have a saying in French : Hell is paved with good intentions. The way you have imagined to make that happen is bad. If I may point you to what I think is a good way, have a look at KoS' channel (but also Xterminator's, Nefrum's, and probably more than I can enumerate). They make the community grow indirectly by sharing their passion for the game. Their main goal is to share their passion, the community growth being the cherry on top. When your goal is primarily to sell something and you look for the most efficient way to do so, you've fallen on the dark side of the marketing.

[Khagan]

we have a saying in French : Hell is paved with good intentions.

A subtle but interesting difference from the English version, which has ''The road to Hell" instead of just "Hell".