Renaming any% to "Beat the game"
7 years ago

There was lately some discussion on this on twitter about this, so I'm gonna make this thread to maybe get this in my opinion fairly obvious change to take effect.

Why "Beat the game" is better than Any%?

Any% doesn't imply completion of the game. http://i.imgur.com/oW4RG28.png "Beat the game" defines the category perfectly as it's literally all you do in the run.

Clarity. Newcomers can grasp the idea behind the category much faster, as Any% might be fairly vague and confusing.

Why Any% is better than "Beat the game"?

"Beat the game is too long to say." Invalid as "Beat the game" has 3 syllables and Any% has 4.

"It's traditional." We shouldn't care for this as it's a bad habit to hold onto bad traditions and sacrifice the clarity of the leaderboard.

I don't think voting is the best option in resolving this sort of matter, I would like for the leaderboard mods to discuss this and make the change if they agree with my opinion. In any case I'm still gonna give the option to vote:

A - Beat the game/("Complete the game" as suggested by Powdinet) B - Any% C - Other (explain why)

Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

B

Havi likes this

I prefer using RTA for the main speedrunning category of a game (Grand Theft Auto: Vice City RTA) and other categories to be named (Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 100% ...) it's been this way since the dawn of time in the japanese speedrunning community way before SDA gave dumb name to everything.

Portugal

A, but name it Complete the Game.

Beat the Game doesn't directly imply its completion, for example, crashing the game is another way to "beat" it, since the players actions have made the game give up on its own execution.

South Georgia

A

@gael not all gta runs are rta. LCS and VCS for example use ingame time and not real time.

Slovenia

B If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Chivu, Redlof and 3 others like this

A.

Another alternative could be "Beat [insert final mission name]" although that could get confused w/ IL stuff.

Russia

Yeah, I kind of agree with Powdi on this one, "complete the game" sounds a little bit better.

Moreover, those can be used as abbreviations instead of saying all three words, like CTG or BTG if "beat the game" is getting approved.

England

B.

Havi likes this
Portugal

B. All options are dumb in their own way, so might as well stick with what every other game uses instead of being different for no good reason.

"Complete the game" is bad, as in some eyes completion could mean getting to the credits as for others it could mean 100% (completing everything)

Derpeth likes this
Friesland, Netherlands

[quote]"Beat the game is too long to say." Invalid as "Beat the game" has 3 syllables and Any% has 4. [/quote] Any percent flows off the tongue better than beat the game, to me. But that could just because I'm used to it/muscle memory (tongue memory?) Similar to how saying double-udouble-udouble-u has become so ingrained in my brain it's quicker to say than world wide web.

[quote]"It's traditional." We shouldn't care for this as it's a bad habit to hold onto bad traditions and sacrifice the clarity of the leaderboard. [/quote]Im all for dumping bad habits. Any% is another one of these SDA things that is just weird and might apply in some cases, but usually doesn't (remember when we used their timing method for VC and it came with all sorts of issues?). However, one could argue that GTA (at least 3D) actually IS one of the cases where any% as a term makes sense. I'm not going to though.

Beat The Game does make a lot more sense than any% as a name. I feel that people will abbreviate it to BTG though, at which point the questions "what does it mean?" still come in anyway, solving nothing. I've already seen numerous "what does hundo mean?". There's numerous other issues with calling it "beat the game" that I don't care to sum up here. Check my recent Twitter discussions if you want to know.

However, all these problems apply to interpersonal communication. Leaderboards are mass communication, so are marathon schedules. (Well, technically streams are mass communication as well, but they feel a lot more interpersonal). I prefer mass communication to be understandable, and we've seen there's a good amount of people who get confused at first by the phrase any%. It is debatable how many people are introduced to speedrunning via speedrun.com's leaderboards, but if even one person's confusion can be avoided by changing any% to beat the game on the leaderboards, that's good. No newcomer will ever ask what 'beat the game' means, unless they're one of the 'glitchrun so u no play game' people. Hence, I'm going to vote for

~~ A ~~ actually no, I'm abstaining

Friesland, Netherlands

"instead of being different for no good reason. "

Tbh this should apply to all games, especially the super linear ones. Everyone should stop calling it any%, not just GTA people, thus resulting in GTA not being different at all. But before everyone can be the same in a good way, a difference has to be made first to stop people from being the same in a bad way.

Slovenia

I'll repeat something I said in chat earlier. Most activities, be they hobbies or professions, have their own lingo, and becoming part of the community involves learning the lingo too. Any% by itself doesn't imply you beat the game, but the term was invented to signify just that, beat the game, but you don't need to achieve 100%. A different example would be this, should ski jumping change the name "telemark" to "land with one foot in front of the other"? Hell no, it's the name given to the landing technique, it's been in use for ages, and that's the exact way I feel about the term "any%".

Derpeth, S. and 3 others like this

Probably the silliest thread I've seen on speedrun.com

badoshk, Molotok, and BosZz like this

Sorry for seeming silly to you. But this subject has generated sides and opinions from 17 different individuals. Which makes me a lot more informed about this annoyance in the leaderboard that I have. Also the vote seems to be quite close which means there is something to discuss, which makes it not silly to me. In my opinion your gloating and useless input is the silliest thing in this thread.

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