Speedrun.com is under new ownership
3 years ago

Hi folks. This is a bittersweet post for me to make, but I'm also bringing you some big and exciting news that's going to benefit the entire speedrunning community.

Back in 2013 when I first started making this site, I ran it as a hobby, and I never expected it to take off as much as it has. As it grew and grew, so did the requirement for new features and development, which eventually became more than I alone could keep up with, even with the part-time help from SgtKabukiman, Lighnat0r, Volvagia, and Kirkq. After seven years the responsibility and stress started to burn me out, and even though I loved being a part of helping this community grow, I knew that it had become something larger than one person could run.

Now I've had various offers for the site over the years, but most didn't give the impression the site would be in good hands. However late last year I was approached by a company called Elo, who run other gaming record-keeping websites like Dotabuff, Overbuff, and Valorbuff. They not only seemed competent in the industry, but they also seemed to care about the community aspect. After hearing their ideas and plans, and about all of the resources they would be able to pump into the site, I was convinced that this was the way to go, and that these were the right people for the site.

Elo and I talked for months and eventually we reached an agreement for acquisition in August. Since then we worked together to make this a smooth transition over to them, and today we're finally ready to make the announcement public. They have already begun making some developments, such as upgrading the server (you may have noticed you've seen the error page far less lately). They have also taken on dedicated developers for the site, and a product manager who will make sure you're heard.

Your leaderboards will remain unchanged, and Elo’s first priority is to facilitate community growth and preserve the community aspect as much as possible. I’m excited for them to be better able to meet the community's needs for upgrades and new features, and I feel comfortable knowing you're in capable hands. If you want to learn more specifics about the transition and their road map, they will be introducing themselves below and letting you know about their exciting plans for the site.

As for me, I'm going to take some time away from online life and social media, and move on to other personal goals in life. I might still catch a livestream here and there though. I want to thank everybody who made this site grow over the years, all of the moderators who helped out, and all of the friends I made through speedrunning, be it in streams or at events. I'll always wish the best for you.

flashhh, SuperGamer64 and 262 others like this
United States
Site AdminLawliepop
He/Him, She/Her, They/Them
3 years ago

If you’re not familiar with Elo, we’re a small company that was founded back in 2012. All three of our founders have a passion for games, and we started this company trying to build authentic and useful products for gamers. None of our founders have college degrees or formal business backgrounds, just an eye for problem-solving some of the issues players face when they’re trying to dive deeper into a game. We’re excited to start supporting the speedrun community.

At Elo, we have historically aimed to do two things. First, we want to empower players to make better decisions with data, the way we have with sites like Overbuff and Dotabuff. We hope that we can make speedrunning more approachable and accessible to a wider audience by making information easier to find. Second, we want to preserve history and memories. We take it very seriously that speedrun.com has an important role in gaming history and want to support that.

On a personal note, I am continually inspired by the speedrunning community’s ability to be collaborative and positive. I‘ve spent a lifetime in love with games, and speedrunning is one of the highest expressions of love for a game. It’s always a joy to watch a speedrun where there is such an intimate understanding of a game. I am so excited to see the speedrunning community grow.

You can read more about our plans for SR.C here: https://www.speedrun.com/news

Sabina Cofounder and CEO Elo Entertainment

Gaming_64, jackzfiml and 72 others like this
United States

Hi everyone! I’m Jason, a co-founder and current CTO at Elo. I have been a fan of speedrunning for a long time, usually watching runs of older RPG games, randomizers, and some newer titles as well - current favorites are FF4 Free Enterprise, BOTW 100%, and Factorio. We’re incredibly excited to be involved with Speedrun.com, and are thankful to Pac and the team for all of their hard work over the years.

Speedrun.com wouldn’t be what it is without the efforts of thousands of people investing untold hours of time into games and communities that they’re passionate about. We recognize the importance and responsibility of properly maintaining the site and are humbled and grateful to be given the opportunity.

Initially we’re focused on performance, reliability, and quality of life improvements - hopefully you’ve noticed the site feeling a bit faster and more reliable lately. We’re just getting started and plan to build out a roadmap of additional improvements over time.

PS - We’re currently hiring software engineers! If you’d enjoy working on gaming related projects (like Speedrun.com!) that handle lots of data and serve millions of players, check out our openings at https://apply.workable.com/elo/.

Gaming_64, jackzfiml and 56 others like this

Hi all! I’m LewisAndSpark (Alicen Lewis), and I recently jumped ship from Twitch to take on the position of product manager for Speedrun.com. (If you hang out in paper mario speedrun or ZOOTR streams, you might have seen my staff badge around). I’ve been working with Pac and the f/cmods the last few months on this transition, and I’m really excited to be able to finally announce.

I’ll be the go-between for the community and Elo to make sure that we hear all of your SR.C needs and develop accordingly. I’m the product manager for tech/infrastructure as Elo provides us engineers, but we want to make sure we’re really listening to the community when it comes to discovering what we should be working on. Some of our goals include making the site more accessible and stable than ever, building out the infrastructure to make it even easier for communities to organize, and figuring out potential ways to help provide rewards and funding to the community. Our announcement post (written by me!) covers more of what we’re hoping to do in the future, including some of our first priorities.

As a huge speedrunning fan this has been the opportunity of a lifetime, and I’m really excited to see how I can build out features to help the community thrive :)

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Gaming_64, jackzfiml and 55 others like this
French Southern Territories

:’) We’ll miss you! You’ve been great

Edited by the author 2 years ago
YUMmy_Bacon5, Gaming_64 and 13 others like this
United States

We'll miss you Pac!

Gaming_64, jackzfiml and 22 others like this
Italy

Oh, performance has improved, even tho there are still some issues from time to time, today I got the "Site under pressure" thing for 10 minutes.

Hope for the best !!!

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Zanum, YUMmy_Bacon5 and 6 others like this
Turkey

Good to hear that your taking time for yourself. I never liked the type who pushed themselves out of obligation.

YUMmy_Bacon5, Gaming_64 and 4 others like this
Canada

Welcome to speedrun.com, Elo! Can't wait to see what you have in store for the community! And thank you so much for all your years of hard work, Pac. Wishing you all the best!

<3

Gaming_64, jackzfiml and 5 others like this
Canada

So long Pac, it's been fantastic working with you and you've done so much for this community over the years. Best of luck on your future endeavors!

As for our new owners, I know people probably have some concerns, but based on my conversations with Elo staff I can say that I am very optimistic and I see this change being extremely good for the site going forward, especially from a development perspective. Looking forward to finally seeing the ball start rolling on these plans!

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Gaming_64, jackzfiml and 25 others like this
Utah, USA

you may have noticed you've seen the error page far less lately

I've noticed it's been fine other than a couple days ago when we got JaidenAnimationed, though the site worked fine when logged out.

Gaming_64, jackzfiml and 6 others like this
Pays de la Loire, France

Thanks Pac for all the hard work you've put into this website. That was a pleasure to work arround with you. I wish you the best for your goals in life 😄

Edited by the author 3 years ago
grnts, Gaming_64 and 17 others like this
United States

God bless ya, Pac. Thank you for everything you've done, thank you for your hard work to bring this from nothing to where it is now, and here's to moving forward and making this even better. Enjoy your life, you've sure as hell earned it. <3

grnts, Gaming_64 and 17 others like this
South Korea

Thank you, Pac, for all the hard works you've done for this community! <3 We wish you best lucks for you. I am looking forward to all the positive changes that Elo will bring to this community, :D

grnts, Gaming_64 and 4 others like this
Netherlands

Thanks for everything you have done for the site Pac. You were the backbone of the site for a very long time, handling support@speedrun.com basically all by yourself and just being at the heart of it all for years. Not just during the implementation of various features, but also during the various issues the site has seen in the past, community feedback and lots of other things that users probably didn't see. Myself learned quite a few things from you while being a staff member and talking with you, things I won't forget and experience to take with me into the future so thank you for that. Good luck with everything in the future and again big thanks for all the time and work you have put into this site!

grnts, Gaming_64 and 14 others like this
Valhalla

Thanks Pac, good luck moving forward and don't forget to speedrun from time to time 🙃

grnts, Gaming_64 and 3 others like this
Norway

You were a great champion Pac!

grnts, Gaming_64 and 7 others like this
New York, USA

I'm concerned that, since now it is owned by a corporation/company, that emulation might be banned because of the liability of being sued by Nintendo and other companies. Can we get a confirmation that emulation won't be banned off of the site?

grnts, Gaming_64 and 5 others like this
United States

Here's hoping everything works out.

Personally I can only say that I hope there will be more tools for smaller communities or people trying to build communities around games where they may be the only runner or those that wish to try and start speedrunning.

But anyways here's hoping things work out. I'd offer to help but can't help in the areas needed. Again here's hoping things grow.

grnts, Gaming_64 and 5 others like this