Cheating Scandal: Pokémon World Record Holding Speedrunner Exposed & Banned

In December 2023, a Speedrunner streamed his world record run of Pokémon Red, hitting an unbelievable time of 1:43:52. But he cheated, as it turns out.

Pokemon speedrun spliced
Cheated Pokémon Speedrun: The achieved time of 1:43.52 was proven to be a cheat. | © Nintendo/earlygame

You probably all have a fond memory or two of trying to complete levels in Mario World as quickly as possible, or beating your siblings' best time in Gran Turismo. This is spreedrunning, in its most casual form. But to some, it's much more than that. For some speedrunners, a new best time means everything.

Speedrunning in video games is an activity where players attempt to complete a video game as quickly as possible. This involves the so-called runners optimizing their path through a specific game to achieve the shortest time possible. No matter what game you can think of, the possibility for it having an own speedrun category is very high.

With over 500 submitted runs on speedrun.com, Pokémon Red (1996) is still a popular game among speedrunners. Which explains why we were all so impressed when a speedrunner dethroned the seemingly unbeatable world record of 1:44.52 h in December of last year. But then the truth came out.

Pokémon Red World Record Speedrun By Jadiwi Proven To Be Spliced

The previous record holder, Pokeguy, was able to run Pokémon Red in a mindblowing time of 1:44.03 due to very favorable RNG (Random Number Generation) conditions. Beating this time would require a very long grind, which raised suspicions that the speedrunner in question, Jadiwi, manipulated his attempt, streaming the game only a handful of times.

Jadiwi screenshot
Screenshot of Jadiwi’s cheated 1:43 at the end of the run. | © Pokémon Speedruns Moderation Team

To ensure that no submitted speedrun was accomplished using unauthorized methods, each game has a moderation team that examines the runs for their legitimacy, as happened in the case of Jadiwi.

The mod team was able to prove that Jadiwi wasn't actually playing live and had just been streaming a prerecorded run, and he maintained the lie that it was a genuine run for several days.

Jadiwi himself eventually released a statement, confessing to the allegations and explaining that he used a method called splicing, to achieve not only his "WR time." Splicing being a method, where the speedrunner cuts together recordings of individual segments of the game to create the impression that they completed the game in a faster time than they actually could have done.

I knew I was going to get caught sooner or later. I'm almost glad it's over now, because I just couldn't contain it any longer.

Jadiwis confession sealed his fate of being banned from the speedrun.com leaderboards, not being allowed to participate in the competition anymore.

With Jadiwis run proven to be cheated, Pokeguy remains the undefeated Pokémon Red World Record holder. Let's hope that the next contender, if there is one, doesn't resort to such methods. As for my part, I prefer sticking to winning casual Mario Kart tournaments. Okay, I admit, the other participants have never held a GameCube controller before.

Marie-Lena Höftmann

After a childhood full of videogames, Miffy devoted herself to her greatest passion within her academic studies. Aside from science, she has spent too many hours in Dead by Daylight, loves to shred through Souls-likes or chills in Animal Crossing....