I've been looking at IL leaderboards in many games, and I noticed that all of them are significantly less crowded than the full-game categories, to the point where sometimes there's only 2 submitted runs per IL. Some games don't even have an IL leaderboard. Why is it like this? I personally would choose IL's over a full-game run any day.
When you see two restaurants side by side, and one is packed with lively people and the other one is empty, which one would you go to for dinner? I believe most people would go with the packed one, and I think it's similar to what's happening here.
It's not that IL's are so unpopular: there are indeed games where the reverse is true, and I'm not talking about some obscure indie games, having prominent speedrun communities like GoldenEye and Doom running primarily on ILs.
What I think it boils down to is that people like to run what most people are running, be it ILs or full game runs. Perhaps it's because they like to compete and gain internet points, perhaps it's because they're more likely to get help as new runners for a category with more people in it rather than the opposite. That doesn't mean that other categories can't have a spot, but people just tend to gravitate towards the center of attention.
Furthermore, I honestly think this effect doesn't only apply to full-game runs vs ILs, given that I also see it when runners are even choosing a game to run: you'll see more people eager to run SM64 and Minecraft rather than other games with smaller speedrun communities, even when the games themselves are popular amongst casual players.
Honestly I'd have thought it would've been the opposite because a) lots of runners wouldn't have ~2 hours of uninterrupted gameplay for a full-game, compared to maybe a 2-3 minute average of some IL times and b.) with IL's you have the power to choose which levels you want to run. There's always that one stage you're going to hate and is a part of any%, but in IL's you can just run your favorite stages over and over again.
[quote=SnarkySceptile]a) lots of runners wouldn't have ~2 hours of uninterrupted gameplay for a full-game, compared to maybe a 2-3 minute average of some IL times[/quote]
While I agree that a single IL run will be several magnitudes of times quicker than a full game run, you also have to take into account that ILs are also in general more finely optimized than full game runs as well, meaning that in order to get a good time you'll probably also end up doing several more IL runs than you would have with full game runs (so additively they kinda end up averaging out in time spent). That's not to say unoptimized ILs don't exist, but riddle me this: where do you think you're more likely to make a 10 second mistake, a 2 hour long run or a 2-3 minute run?
Also, often times people pull riskier and more complex stunts on ILs in order to go for those increasingly marginal time saves (since they kinda become mandatory when going for WR on ILs at some point), which can get frustrating when they start relying on RNG or frame perfect execution.
Personally I feel more burnt out when doing shorter runs than I do with long ones (be it ILs or full game) due to these reasons, but I can clearly see why some runners would prefer to run games in that fashion.
Many games don't have a decent IL support as well. Most games that have popular IL categories are those with in-game timers or time attack modes included in them, but if a stage in the game doesn't have a timer it's an extra hassle to keep track of times since they need to be RTA and IGT is way more convenient.
In addition to all of this, some games are just made in a way that doesn't lend itself well to defining IL's either. They'd end up being incredibly arbitrary and hard to make rules for, compared to games like GoldenEye which are strictly level based, have built-in timers, and guarantee what each player starts with.
That, and some of us just prefer full-game runs- a lot of it really is just a matter of preference. While you and other runners may enjoy shorter runs, there's just as many, (if not more, given the topic of this discussion,) that would rather have those longer runs.
I don't get much enjoyment from grinding tiny, super-optimized categories, even when I get an excellent time. For me, even 30 minutes is very short- I prefer runs to usually be about 2-3 hours. My enjoyment in speedrunning is the routing and the occasional mid-run improvisation, maintaining consistency as you roll with the punches the game throws at you.
I won't deny that the hyper-precise inputs of IL's are a spectacle to behold, it's just not my spectacle.
When you do full game runs, it's much easier to make quick progress. You can lower your sob, improve by tens of seconds, even minutes in single runs, and compete with more people. When you run ILs, you might have to use frustrating strats, compete with less people, and make slow progress. When you do manage to save time, its often very small. One game I do ILs for is optimized, and I usually only save 1 or 2 frames each time I pb.
One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet is that this site is not really optimized for IL leaderboards, as others have discussed at length, so some heavily IL-focused communities mostly track things elsewhere. That makes the number of IL runners less visible here, which can have the compounding effect @MrMonsh pointed out. See the number of IL players on Everybody Edits here vs. the community Google doc leaderboard for an example of how large the discrepancy can be.
This is also true to a lesser extent on player profiles. As there's no way on the profile page to check a player's obsolete IL runs, the IL tab gives less info than the full game tab as to how many runs the player has submitted.
Another thing which might play a role is the extent to which the audience for full game runs is larger than the audience for ILs. While plenty of players run games without much regard for how popular they are, at least some people make some of their decisions based on expected popularity with the viewers. From what I've seen, full game runs tend to be 1-2 orders of magnitude more popular on youtube, so that's slanted toward full game, too.
In short, there's a bunch of factors favoring full game. Some can be worked on, others are probably here to stay.
I love and (prefer) doing ILs, but I think the biggest thing is that they just didn't benefit from the boost that the twitch era as much as full game RTA ---
It's MUCH harder to get an audience to crowd around a half hour of the same 2 minutes of gameplay than it is to see something they can relate to their casual playthrough
IL speedruns also reach hardcore level even in small communities, while RTA runs of new games can be in the fun/discovery space before becoming a competetive grind.