Paper 2025/1212

All Proof of Work But No Proof of Play

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 mechanics1. 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.