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>What’s wild here is that Schmooey was a really good Guitar Hero player! This wasn’t a case of some kid sitting alone in his room faking his way to the top thro

>What’s wild here is that Schmooey was a really good Guitar Hero player! This wasn’t a case of some kid sitting alone in his room faking his way to the top through video alone. Schmooey had been an active member of the community, and had even attended live events and played alongside fellow players like CarneyJared (whose exploits we featured last year). In many competitive sports, the top players will all plateau at nearly the same level of performance. Distinguishing competitors any further becomes impossible, with what is effectively random chance deciding (honest) winners. The search for an "edge" - some split-second advantage to go from being effectively tied at #2 with 30 other competitors to being consistently #1 - leads competitors to do one of two things: - Embrace superstition - Cheat Schmooey's actions are explainable purely as a way for an otherwise amazing competitor to get their "edge" by cheating "just a little". The same mechanics are why many sports not only have problems with doping[0], but organized doping rings that expend lots of time and energy on figuring out how to beat anti-doping tests. The face of sport is great athletes either making themselves very slightly superhuman with damaging drug abuse, or, if they can, lying about their performance to make it look like they did the former. [0] For the record, doping is not purely a physical athletics problem; e-sports have already been roiled by allegations of Adderall abuse.

xurukefi 5y ago
That is also why cheating done by actually skilled people is really dificult to detect. Schmooey is a skilled guitar hero player and therefore he very well knows the limitations in terms of the results the competitive gh community will believe him. A random kid with no skill would have no idea of what he is actually doing and would just perform some absolutely unreal run that nobody would buy into. It's a bit like cheating in chess where a grandmaster using an engine would not blindly play the best moves but rather the ones that seem barely within human capabilities. Or like a professional runner on EPO who breaks the world record in the 10000m just by a few seconds although he would have had much more left in the tank.
- jbjohns 5y ago
  The reminds me of a very interesting story I read about "King" Richard Petty back in his NASCAR days. It was just one of many stories in some racing history book. In any case, Petty apparently always won his races pretty closely. So he obviously only had a slight advantage over his competition... except that there were cases where some mishap (e.g. in the pits) left him multiple laps down (I believe as much as 7). He'd recover every single lap and then still barely win the race. No one ever thought to check his car for cheating because he didn't appear to be crushing the competition if you didn't realise he would have been capable of winning by probably dozens of laps or more.
jancsika 5y ago
> Schmooey's actions are explainable purely as a way for an otherwise amazing competitor to get their "edge" by cheating "just a little". Playing slower and then playing a sped-up video to pretend it is live is the epitome of cheating, not "just a little" cheating to get an "edge." What's refreshing here is the fact that he seems not at all interested in attempting to rationalize his own behavior. The article says he refunded the bounties he collected. Someone who admits to this kind of public mistake like this has a good opportunity to come out the other side a better person.
- taeric 5y ago
  Sadly, I don't think we do enough to actually celebrate coming clean. I can hope this is a situation where I'm wrong on that. And to be fair, I get why it can be hard to celebrate the admission of something without celebrating that something. So, celebrate is probably not the right word.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Everybody sees the perverse incentives in celebrating ex-cheaters while non-cheaters are ignored.
    - taeric 5y ago
      I think my problem is in the excommunication style of dealing with cheating. Reparation and nullification of cheat wins makes sense. Beyond that? You wind up encouraging scorched earth defence of celebrities. Or worse, when the stakes start to outweigh the actual costs. Note that I'm not clear there is any path free of ego based hiding of behavior. Not do I really have actionable ideas. About the only faith item that I still have is redemption. And it is crazy to me how hard the modern world seems to try to block that off. Worse still, when allowing for redemption is mistaken for endorsing the previous behavior. Often in bad faith discussions.
- pirate787 5y ago
  Agreed, especially since he was so young when he cheated.
mc4ndr3 5y ago
Yeah, the Donkey Kong guy was the same way. No love of the sport. People living for empty achievements.
HideousKojima 5y ago
Billy Mitchell (the guy from King of Kong) was also actually genuinely good at Donkey Kong, definitely in the top 1% of players. But like you said, that isn't always enough to get to the top, and he resorted to cheating.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  In Counter Strike, there are cheats that will adjust your crosshair to enemy head (aimbot) its very obvious when a player is snap aiming 90 deg to enemy head, but pros who cheat will adjust it to only snap at 1 pixel distance, they are good enough for it to make a difference while making it extremely difficult to detect via replays
  - PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
    I was cheating in War Thunder a year ago. Strangely enough, there were some players who could aim and hit targets incredibly far away just as well as I could, if not better. We’re talking tanks just a few pixels in size. There’s many cheaters.
donalhunt 5y ago
This reminds me of how F1 teams will look for any ambiguity in the regulations to allow them to take advantage over fellow teams. Mercedes with their "not rigid enough" rear wing springs to mind. The sporting rule makers later clarified exactly what was and was not allowed. And yes - I note the other responses mentioning the difference between bending the rules and breaking them.
- walton_simons 5y ago
  My favourite instance of this is the Brabham BT46B, which used fans to suck the car down onto the track. Not cheating by any means — they never tried to hide it — but nevertheless a very creative interpretation of the rules! https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/gordon-murray-looks-back-notorious-brabham-fan-car https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f...
- thomas_tank 5y ago
  They are not comparable at all. The guitar hero guy was outright cheating - speeding footage up etc. Mercedes rear wings were 100% legal.
mocha_nate 5y ago
I was at a family house party and an 8 year old came up to his mom asking for Admin rights in Roblox (we found out -- so he could cheat). He was very upset because EVERYBODY DOES IT and he felt left behind.

xurukefi 5y ago

That is also why cheating done by actually skilled people is really dificult to detect. Schmooey is a skilled guitar hero player and therefore he very well knows the limitations in terms of the results the competitive gh community will believe him. A random kid with no skill would have no idea of what he is actually doing and would just perform some absolutely unreal run that nobody would buy into. It's a bit like cheating in chess where a grandmaster using an engine would not blindly play the best moves but rather the ones that seem barely within human capabilities. Or like a professional runner on EPO who breaks the world record in the 10000m just by a few seconds although he would have had much more left in the tank.

jbjohns 5y ago
The reminds me of a very interesting story I read about "King" Richard Petty back in his NASCAR days. It was just one of many stories in some racing history book. In any case, Petty apparently always won his races pretty closely. So he obviously only had a slight advantage over his competition... except that there were cases where some mishap (e.g. in the pits) left him multiple laps down (I believe as much as 7). He'd recover every single lap and then still barely win the race. No one ever thought to check his car for cheating because he didn't appear to be crushing the competition if you didn't realise he would have been capable of winning by probably dozens of laps or more.

jancsika 5y ago

> Schmooey's actions are explainable purely as a way for an otherwise amazing competitor to get their "edge" by cheating "just a little". Playing slower and then playing a sped-up video to pretend it is live is the epitome of cheating, not "just a little" cheating to get an "edge." What's refreshing here is the fact that he seems not at all interested in attempting to rationalize his own behavior. The article says he refunded the bounties he collected. Someone who admits to this kind of public mistake like this has a good opportunity to come out the other side a better person.

taeric 5y ago
Sadly, I don't think we do enough to actually celebrate coming clean. I can hope this is a situation where I'm wrong on that. And to be fair, I get why it can be hard to celebrate the admission of something without celebrating that something. So, celebrate is probably not the right word.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Everybody sees the perverse incentives in celebrating ex-cheaters while non-cheaters are ignored.
  - taeric 5y ago
    I think my problem is in the excommunication style of dealing with cheating. Reparation and nullification of cheat wins makes sense. Beyond that? You wind up encouraging scorched earth defence of celebrities. Or worse, when the stakes start to outweigh the actual costs. Note that I'm not clear there is any path free of ego based hiding of behavior. Not do I really have actionable ideas. About the only faith item that I still have is redemption. And it is crazy to me how hard the modern world seems to try to block that off. Worse still, when allowing for redemption is mistaken for endorsing the previous behavior. Often in bad faith discussions.
pirate787 5y ago
Agreed, especially since he was so young when he cheated.

mc4ndr3 5y ago

Yeah, the Donkey Kong guy was the same way. No love of the sport. People living for empty achievements.

HideousKojima 5y ago

Billy Mitchell (the guy from King of Kong) was also actually genuinely good at Donkey Kong, definitely in the top 1% of players. But like you said, that isn't always enough to get to the top, and he resorted to cheating.

me_me_me 5y ago
In Counter Strike, there are cheats that will adjust your crosshair to enemy head (aimbot) its very obvious when a player is snap aiming 90 deg to enemy head, but pros who cheat will adjust it to only snap at 1 pixel distance, they are good enough for it to make a difference while making it extremely difficult to detect via replays
- PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
  I was cheating in War Thunder a year ago. Strangely enough, there were some players who could aim and hit targets incredibly far away just as well as I could, if not better. We’re talking tanks just a few pixels in size. There’s many cheaters.

donalhunt 5y ago

This reminds me of how F1 teams will look for any ambiguity in the regulations to allow them to take advantage over fellow teams. Mercedes with their "not rigid enough" rear wing springs to mind. The sporting rule makers later clarified exactly what was and was not allowed. And yes - I note the other responses mentioning the difference between bending the rules and breaking them.

walton_simons 5y ago
My favourite instance of this is the Brabham BT46B, which used fans to suck the car down onto the track. Not cheating by any means — they never tried to hide it — but nevertheless a very creative interpretation of the rules! https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f1/gordon-murray-looks-back-notorious-brabham-fan-car https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single-seaters/f...
thomas_tank 5y ago
They are not comparable at all. The guitar hero guy was outright cheating - speeding footage up etc. Mercedes rear wings were 100% legal.

mocha_nate 5y ago

I was at a family house party and an 8 year old came up to his mom asking for Admin rights in Roblox (we found out -- so he could cheat). He was very upset because EVERYBODY DOES IT and he felt left behind.