Simply put, if two (or more) people submit requests for the same game, who is made mod? Both?

Say one person requests with a "blind speedrun" (a concept I've never quite believed in) of the game attached, and on the very day it launches. A 10 hour "speedrun" of a game that might settle at 45 minutes once it's optimized. Another spends a day routing and practicing, and on day 2 after launch that person requests with a run that's 80% shorter.

Does the first person get mod because he submitted first? Or does the second, because what he submitted was a truer speedrun?

Is this sort of thing factored in at all?

In a perfect world, both would become moderators of a thriving community, but things don't always work out that way.

Also... In the past I know of one case where the board was added twice with a slight game name/url variation. Are there any steps taken by staff specifically to avoid this?

longer answer:

"Well-known users or moderators of other games in a series may request unreleased games two weeks prior to launch." (quoted from the game request page)

gives you an idea how such situations are usually approached. If there are multiple concurrent requests for the same game we try to ascertain who's best suited to moderate it, If the game in question can be related to an existing series, we try to favor established runners/moderators from that. Of course, there are always factors that we could miss in the process, especially in cases of lesser-known games.

short answer:

It is not "first come, first served". Game request approval is not an automated process and we actually look into every submission.