All Proof of Work But No Proof of Play

TL;DR

This paper explores the challenges of cryptographically verifying the authenticity of speedruns, highlighting the difficulties in authenticating live human input and the limitations of cryptographic schemes in this context.

Contribution

It presents attempted solutions and discusses the inherent difficulties and limitations in cryptographically proving the authenticity of human gameplay in speedrunning.

Findings

Cryptographic methods face significant challenges in verifying live human input.

Authenticating interactive human play remains a complex problem.

The paper demonstrates the limits of current signature schemes in this domain.

Abstract

Speedrunning is a competition that emerged from communities of early video games such as Doom (1993). Speedrunners try to finish a game in minimal time. Provably verifying the authenticity of submitted speedruns is an open problem. Traditionally, best-effort speedrun verification is conducted by on-site human observers, forensic audio analysis, or a rigorous mathematical analysis of the game mechanics. Such methods are tedious, fallible, and, perhaps worst of all, not cryptographic. Motivated by naivety and the Dunning-Kruger effect, we attempt to build a system that cryptographically proves the authenticity of speedruns. This paper describes our attempted solutions and ways to circumvent them. Through a narration of our failures, we attempt to demonstrate the difficulty of authenticating live and interactive human input in untrusted environments, as well as the limits of signature schemes, game integrity, and provable play.