My Opinion on banning disk eject for PMW1

With Joe having just done his amazing AGDQ run, talk has once again risen regarding the validity of ejecting the disc out of the console in down the tubes, as well as for gate skip (and, if you're like me, in corsair's cove as well). The point of this pastebin is not to convince anyone which answer is the correct one, it is more so people understand why I have come to the conclusion that I have, which is that disk ejecting (henceforth referred to as DE) should not be banned.

I have various reasons for having that belief, but in order to fully understand them, first we need to understand the following - what exactly are the problems people seem to have in regards to DE? The problems essentially come down to two things. First off, many consider ejecting the disk hardware manipulation, equal to cartridge tilting on the N64. Secondly, not all platforms can perform DE skips, specifically PSTV, the PS Store version, and the emulator version has a harder time doing it. However, it is my belief that these two problems do not warrant a banning of DE.

First off, people tend to complain that DE is hardware manipulation. While I do agree that it is a form of hardwware manipulation, I fail to see the problem with that. Picture for a moment the one guy who yells at speedrunners for using in-game glitches during a speedrun. While it is a minority of people that tend to have a problem with using glitches, they are a vocal minority. As a result of that, along with just for fun, many games have both a glitched and glitchless speedrun category.

What if the game has only a small glitch though, that only saves a minute? Does that constitute a whole new category? Usually, no. In those situations, it tends to be that the glitch is allowed. As an example, pokemon black and white speedruns feature a single glitch that allows you to skip a single trainer by clipping into a wall. This is allowed in the run, and there is no category which bans this clip, but is otherwise the same, as that would be foolish.

Likewise, lets look at DE in PMW. As stated before, disk-eject iis only useful in three places, and most runners only do two of those places. In Corsair's Cove, it is not too clear which is faster, DE or doing the barrel jumps, however regardless, they are within a few seconds of each other. In regards to gate clip, with a new glitch being found that allows gate clip to be done without DE, doing DE ends up being a few seconds slower than normally. Finally, we have DTT skip. Once again, there is a way to skip through the door without DE. While theoretically, that way is much faster, it is also less consistant, whereas with DE, it is completely free.

What does all this mean? DE seems to only save a few seconds at most, and losing a few seconds at least. If DE did a huge skip that was otherwise unable to be done, then perhaps there could be separate categories.

Secondly, we have the issue that this can't be done on PSTV or PSN. While this may be true, I find it hard for that to warrant banning it and here's why. First off, PSTV in itself has much faster loads for playstation games than any other console. Yet, most playstation games don't seem to have separate categories for consoles. In fact, this is true for any console for any game. Most games can be played on more than one console, and each console even has many different variations on it. For example, PS2 has a 30K, 50K, 70k, 90k, and more differing versions, each with different load times for games. Most speedruns however, do not time out loads.

Similarly, there are some games which feature glitches that are only possible on one console. Portal 2 for example has a single category for console and PC users, despite it having a bunch of glitches that are PC only. Is it fair that I can't get WR for portal 2 if I own it for xbox 360 instead of PC? Of course not! Therefore, I would argue to making them separate categories, except for one problem. Like I stated above, DE saves maybe a few seconds. Not much time at all.

In the end, I believe that banning DE is something that may need to be done in the future if different circumstances rise, however for now, it is unnecessary. However, I am open to discussion regarding this and I hope that, as a community, we can reach an agreement that pleases most, if not all, people.