Speedrun Analysis

TL;DR

What it is: Analyzing gameplay footage and strategies to help speedrunners optimize their times, either through coaching, content creation, or community moderation.

What you'll do:

• Break down game mechanics, routing, and optimization techniques
• Coach individual speedrunners on technique improvement
• Create tutorial content explaining strategies and route analysis
• Moderate speedrun submissions on community leaderboards (volunteer)

Time to learn: 6-18 months if you already have gaming experience and dedicate 10-15 hours weekly to learning a specific game's mechanics and speedrunning community.

What you need: Expert-level knowledge of specific games, analytical mindset, video recording/editing tools, understanding of speedrunning techniques and community standards.

What This Actually Is

Speedrun analysis involves breaking down how players complete games as quickly as possible, identifying optimization opportunities, and helping runners improve their times. This is not a traditional job market with open positions. Instead, people earn money through a combination of coaching individuals, creating educational content, and building an audience around speedrunning expertise.

The speedrunning community is highly specialized. Each game has its own tricks, glitches, routing strategies, and technical requirements. Becoming knowledgeable enough to provide valuable analysis means investing significant time into mastering specific games at a competitive level.

Most people doing this work are speedrunners themselves who monetize their expertise through coaching sessions, YouTube tutorials, Twitch streaming, or Patreon support. Some also become volunteer moderators for game leaderboards on sites like Speedrun.com, though this is unpaid community work.

This is supplementary income territory, not a career path. Most successful speedrun analysts maintain other income sources and treat this as a passion-driven side hustle that brings in extra money while staying engaged with games they love.

What You'll Actually Do

Your daily work depends on which income path you pursue, but generally includes:

Analysis and Research: Study world record runs frame-by-frame, identify new routing possibilities, test glitches and shortcuts, document optimal strategies for different game segments.

Coaching Sessions: Meet one-on-one with runners via Discord or video calls, review their gameplay footage, explain technique improvements, create custom practice strategies, track their progress over multiple sessions.

Content Creation: Record tutorial videos explaining specific tricks or routes, edit gameplay footage with commentary and annotations, write route guides or strategy documents for community forums, stream practice sessions with live analysis.

Community Participation: Verify submitted runs on leaderboard sites, participate in routing discussions on Discord servers, share optimization discoveries with other runners, help new runners understand category rules and techniques.

Technical Work: Use recording software to capture gameplay, edit videos highlighting specific techniques, create spreadsheets tracking frame-perfect inputs or RNG manipulation, sometimes use emulator tools for frame-by-frame analysis.

The work is research-heavy. You'll spend significant time testing theories, watching other runners, and staying updated on new discoveries in your game's speedrunning community.

Skills You Need

Game Expertise: Deep understanding of your chosen game's mechanics, glitches, physics engine, and routing options. Surface-level knowledge won't cut it. You need to understand frame data, hit detection, movement tech, and game-specific quirks at an advanced level.

Analytical Thinking: Ability to break down complex sequences into optimizable components, identify patterns in seemingly random game behavior, calculate time saves from different routing choices, troubleshoot why specific techniques fail.

Communication: Explain complex gaming concepts clearly to runners at different skill levels, provide constructive feedback on technique, articulate why specific strategies work better than alternatives. Written communication matters for guides and documentation.

Video Skills: Record clean gameplay footage, edit videos to highlight specific moments, add commentary or annotations, create watchable tutorial content. This doesn't need Hollywood production value, but must be clear and informative.

Community Knowledge: Understand speedrunning culture and etiquette, recognize legitimate versus cheated runs, stay current with category rules and verification standards, navigate community Discord servers and forums effectively.

Patience: Learning advanced speedrunning techniques takes hundreds of hours. Coaching requires repeatedly explaining similar concepts. Content creation involves significant time editing for potentially small audiences.

Getting Started

Start by becoming a competent speedrunner yourself. Pick a game you genuinely enjoy, join its speedrunning Discord or community forum, learn the route for a specific category, and practice until you can complete runs consistently.

Study existing resources. Watch tutorial videos from established runners, read routing documents, review world record runs, understand the history of optimization in your chosen game. Take notes on techniques and strategies.

Record your own practice runs. Get comfortable with recording software, learn basic video editing, start documenting your improvement process. This creates a foundation for future coaching or content creation.

Engage with the community actively. Ask questions, share discoveries, help newer runners, participate in routing discussions. Building reputation as a knowledgeable, helpful community member opens doors to coaching opportunities.

Test monetization paths gradually. Offer free coaching to a few runners and gather feedback, create a tutorial video and see if it provides value, stream practice sessions to gauge interest. Start small before investing heavily in any single approach.

Consider volunteer moderation on Speedrun.com to build verification experience. This unpaid role teaches you to evaluate runs critically, understand cheating detection, and engage deeper with your game's competitive scene.

Research existing coaches and content creators in your game. Understand what services they offer, how they present information, what gaps exist in available resources. Find opportunities to provide unique value rather than duplicating existing content.

Join multiple speedrunning communities, not just for your main game. Understanding how different communities operate helps you learn best practices and expand your network.

Income Reality

This is highly variable supplementary income, not a reliable salary replacement. Market rates and opportunities depend entirely on your chosen game's popularity, your reputation in the community, and which monetization paths you pursue.

Coaching: Individual gaming coaches charge $20-$100 per hour depending on expertise and demand. Speedrun coaching typically falls on the lower end unless you're a world-record holder or highly recognized community figure. Realistically, expect $25-$50 per hour, with inconsistent client volume. Some coaches report 2-5 clients per month, others struggle to find any.

Content Creation: YouTube and Twitch income varies dramatically. Small gaming channels might earn $50-$200 monthly from ads and subscriptions. Mid-tier creators with dedicated audiences can reach $500-$2,000 monthly through a combination of ads, subscriptions, donations, and sponsorships. Most speedrun content creators remain in the small category unless they cover extremely popular games or have exceptional entertainment value beyond pure analysis.

Patreon/Memberships: Supporters might contribute $3-$10 monthly. Established speedrunning analysts with strong community presence sometimes maintain 20-100 patrons, generating $100-$500 monthly. Building this support base takes years of consistent, valuable content creation.

Moderation: Volunteer work on sites like Speedrun.com is unpaid. Some volunteer roles exist but provide no income.

Realistic Monthly Total: Most people doing speedrun analysis as a side hustle earn $200-$800 monthly, combining several income sources. A smaller number with larger audiences or premium coaching clients reach $1,000-$1,500 monthly. Very few earn more unless they transition into full-time content creation with significant viewership.

Income depends heavily on game choice. Popular games like Minecraft or Super Mario 64 have larger audiences but more competition. Obscure games have smaller potential markets but less saturation.

Side hustle perspective: This is a supplementary income opportunity, not a full-time career replacement. Treat it as a side hustle-something that brings in extra money while you maintain other income sources. Don't expect this to replace a full-time salary.

Where to Find Work

Direct Coaching Platforms: Search for gaming coaching services where you can create profiles, though speedrun-specific demand is limited. Generic platforms exist for gaming coaches, but you'll need to market your specific speedrunning expertise.

Note: Platforms may charge fees or commissions. We don't track specific rates as they change frequently. Check each platform's current pricing before signing up.

Community Connections: Most coaching opportunities come through reputation in game-specific Discord servers. Runners seeking improvement often ask for recommendations, and established community members refer them to knowledgeable coaches.

Content Platforms: Build presence on YouTube for tutorial content, Twitch for live analysis and streaming, Twitter for community engagement and updates. Audience building is gradual but creates opportunities for coaching inquiries and support.

Reddit and Forums: Participate in subreddits like r/speedrun and game-specific forums. Share insights, answer questions, establish expertise. Some runners reach out privately for paid coaching after seeing helpful free advice.

Speedrun.com: Become a moderator for your game's leaderboards to build credibility and visibility. While unpaid, this positions you as an authority and can lead to coaching inquiries.

Discord Communities: Join servers for your specific games and general speedrunning communities. Many coaching arrangements happen through direct messages after runners see your expertise in discussions.

Social Media: Share optimization discoveries, technique breakdowns, and routing analysis on Twitter and YouTube. This demonstrates knowledge to potential coaching clients and builds audience for monetization.

Direct outreach rarely works. Success comes from becoming a recognized, helpful community member first, then offering paid services to people who already value your expertise.

Common Challenges

Market Limitations: The speedrunning audience is small and spread across thousands of games. Unless you specialize in extremely popular titles, your potential client and viewer base is tiny.

Time Investment vs. Return: Mastering a game well enough to coach or create valuable content requires hundreds of hours. The income return often doesn't justify the time investment from a purely financial perspective.

Community Gatekeeping: Established speedrunners may dominate the coaching and content space for popular games. Breaking in requires exceptional skill, unique insights, or focusing on underserved games.

Inconsistent Income: Coaching clients appear sporadically. Content revenue fluctuates based on algorithm changes and viewer interest. Building reliable monthly income takes years.

Technical Barriers: Recording quality gameplay requires decent hardware. Editing software has learning curves. Some games need specific capture equipment or emulators with particular configurations.

Burnout: Playing the same game intensively for months or years gets exhausting. Explaining similar concepts repeatedly to different students becomes mentally draining.

Cheating Detection: As a moderator or coach, you must identify spliced runs, tool-assisted cheating, and falsified times. This requires technical knowledge and creates uncomfortable community situations.

Meta Changes: Routing discoveries or glitch patches can invalidate your expertise overnight. You must constantly stay updated on community developments.

Competition from Free Content: Many top runners share strategies freely. Convincing people to pay for coaching or premium content when free alternatives exist requires demonstrating significant added value.

Tips That Actually Help

Focus on a specific niche within speedrunning rather than trying to cover everything. Become the expert for one game's Any% category, or specialize in glitch hunting, or focus on helping beginners learn their first speedgame.

Combine multiple income streams instead of relying on one. Mix coaching with content creation, add Patreon support, participate in racing events. Diversification helps smooth income inconsistency.

Document your learning process publicly. Create content showing your improvement journey, mistakes, and discoveries. This builds audience and demonstrates teaching ability without requiring world-record level skill.

Engage genuinely with communities before monetizing. Spend months helping runners for free, sharing knowledge, building relationships. Reputation opens opportunities that cold marketing never will.

Create evergreen tutorial content. Videos explaining fundamental techniques have longer value than commentary on specific world records. Build a library of resources that continue attracting viewers over time.

Use free or affordable tools initially. Recording software options exist at various price points, including free alternatives. Invest in better equipment only after validating income potential.

Be realistic about time commitment. If you're treating this as a side hustle, accept that growth will be slow. Consistency matters more than intensity. Regular small contributions beat sporadic large efforts.

Study successful speedrunning content creators and coaches. Analyze what makes their content valuable, how they engage communities, what services they offer. Learn from proven approaches while finding your unique angle.

Consider coaching newer runners rather than only advanced competitors. The market for helping people learn speedrunning basics is less saturated than elite-level optimization coaching.

Learning Timeline Reality

Learning speedrun analysis requires existing gaming competence. If you're starting from scratch with both speedrunning and your chosen game, expect 12-18 months before you're knowledgeable enough to provide paid coaching or create authoritative content. This assumes 10-15 hours weekly dedicated to learning, practicing, and community engagement.

If you're already an experienced speedrunner looking to monetize your expertise, you might start offering coaching or creating content within 3-6 months of focusing on building that side business.

Breaking into the field involves: 3-6 months learning a game's speedrun route and basic techniques, another 3-6 months mastering advanced strategies and understanding optimization theory, then 6-12 months building community reputation and testing monetization approaches.

These timelines assume consistent, focused effort. Casual participation extends them significantly. The timeline also depends on your chosen game's complexity and the depth of existing competition.

Remember, this isn't just learning to speedrun. You're learning to analyze and teach speedrunning, which requires deeper understanding than personal performance alone.

Is This For You?

This works for people who already love speedrunning and want to monetize expertise they're building anyway. If you're spending significant time on speedrunning regardless of income, adding coaching or content creation makes sense.

This doesn't work as a primary income strategy. The market is too niche, income too inconsistent, and time investment too high relative to earnings for most people. Approach this as a way to earn some money from a hobby, not as a business venture.

You need genuine passion for your chosen games. The learning curve and time commitment only make sense if you find the process inherently rewarding beyond the money.

Consider this if you're already involved in speedrunning communities, have strong analytical skills, can communicate complex concepts clearly, and want flexible supplementary income that aligns with gaming interests.

Skip this if you're looking for reliable income, don't enjoy repetitive gameplay, lack patience for community building, or aren't willing to invest months before seeing financial returns.

Note on specialization: This is a highly niche field that requires very specific knowledge and skills. Success depends heavily on understanding the technical details and nuances of specific games and speedrunning techniques. Consider this only if you have genuine interest and willingness to learn the specifics.

Ask yourself: Would I spend hundreds of hours mastering this game even without payment? If no, this probably isn't the right side hustle. The people who succeed here are passionate speedrunners first, entrepreneurs second.