After YouTuber Dream hired an astrophysicist to write a report disproving claims he cheated on his 1.16 speedrun, the Minecraft Speedrunning mod team has rejected it, saying there is “no feasible, legitimate way” that the YouTuber experienced the drops he got.
On December 11 2020, YouTuber Dream revealed on his second Twitter account that his 1.16 Minecraft speedrun had been rejected on account of it being “too unlikely to verify.”
The moderators’ verdict, compiled into a video by YouTuber Geosquare, was that the drop rates of certain significant items within the game were so unlikely that it could not simply be chalked down to luck.
In the weeks following, Dream set about making his own comprehensive response to the accusations, and hired an astrophysicist from online science consulting company Photoexcitation. They put together a scientific report ‘proving’ that the drop rates were possible, and that the moderator team were skewing their data.
While Dream still has a huge amount of support, there were some online who were less than convinced by the math, and a Reddit user who described themself as a “particle physicist with a PhD in physics,” said that the astrophysicist’s report was full of “absurd errors” and “amateur mistakes.”
On December 31, the Minecraft Speedrunning team released their final report and a statement on Twitter, revealing that they would not reinstate Dream’s 1.16 record despite having read his response report.
Rebuttal to Photoexcitation's report can be found here: https://t.co/Vo6VEewyUw pic.twitter.com/3taiGZS7Qv
— Minecraft Speedrunning (@mcspeedrunning) December 31, 2020
“Following the report released by Photoexcitation that was commissioned by Dream, numerous qualified sources have examined Photoexcitation’s math and found considerable flaws, both in the methodology, and accuracy of calculations used,” they said.
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“We continue to stand by the conclusion that there is no feasible, legitimate way Dream experienced his rates in his October 1.16 speedrun attempts.”
YouTuber Geosquare also tweeted: “We aren’t making a video, we don’t want drama. Some math Photoexcitation did was wrong, that’s it.”
Team's response
(We aren't making a video, we don't want drama. Some math Photoexcitation did was wrong, that's it) https://t.co/6XfW6yVMyE
— Geosquare🇵🇸🍉 (@Geosquare_) December 31, 2020
After the final verdict was released, Dream joked about YouTubers who make him out to be a “scumbag.”
“I don’t care about my run being verified, the mods decision is respectable, sorry for my behavior originally, at the end of the day I understand their POV,” he tweeted.
me: I don’t care about my run being verified, the mods decision is respectable, sorry for my behavior originally, at the end of the day I understand their POV.
mods: respond respectfully, decide not to make a video to not prolong drama
youtubers: here’s why dream is a SCUMBAG
— dream (@dreamwastaken) December 31, 2020
The saga has been ongoing for a while now and it seems like at this point both parties are ready to lay the dispute to rest, even if it wasn’t a perfect outcome for all involved.