A YouTuber with nearly 23 million subscribers known as Dream is a Minecraft speedrunner who has experienced a great surge in popularity over the past year. As often happens as a person’s following on social media increases, Dream came under greater scrutiny and many viewers began to suspect that the gamer’s record-setting speedruns weren’t completed legitimately.
Many speedrunners rely on two specific endgame items used in crafting: ender pearls, which are obtained from Minecraft's Piglins, and blaze rods that are earned from killing mobs. Dream seemed to have an unnatural amount of luck when it came to obtaining these drops, and a team of moderators that oversees Minecraft speedruns released a 29-page paper in December 2020, after two months of investigation. It revealed that they believed it statistically unlikely that Dream could obtain such a high number of ender pearls and blaze rods without cheating.
More specifically, the paper specified that “Dream’s game was modified in order to manipulate the pearl and rod drop rates.” Dream’s name was removed from the Minecraft speedrun record and many of his videos were deleted, as is standard practice when somebody is caught cheating. Initially, Dream denied the accusations, citing bad math and requesting that the moderators examine the files he had used during the speedruns. A back and forth between supporters on both sides ensued on social media. But eventually, Dream apologized and accepted the moderators’ conclusion, although he didn’t seem to agree with it or admit guilt.
Then in May 2021, Dream admitted that he had been using mods to adjust the drop rates of ender pearls and blaze rods, explaining that he had done so in order to not waste a lot of streaming time hunting for the items. Dream explained that the consideration that such behavior might be a problem fleetingly crossed his mind, but he “brushed it off” because he was “99% sure” that the mod wasn’t even running and, if it was, it was entirely server-side and not impacting the game client.
Apparently, this presumption was wrong, which Dream discovered a few months ago when speaking with the Minecraft mod developer, who clarified that updates to the mod had been made that rendered Dream’s assumptions about the mod’s impact inaccurate. At the time of the discovery, Dream decided to keep quiet in order to not reignite the drama surrounding the controversy, which had for the most part died down.
However, last week, more of Dream’s Minecraft speedrun videos were removed and the YouTuber took the opportunity to fully apologize for his behavior, the resulting controversy, and for misleading his fans. “I wish that I could go back and do things differently,” Dream stated. “I’m sorry to anyone that I let down or disappointed. … I hope this brings some closure to anyone who needed it.” He made peace with one of the Minecraft speedrun moderators, Geosquare, with whom he had had a particularly acrimonious interaction, and also asked his supporters to not hate on any of the moderators.
Minecraft is available on Mobile, New Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One.
Source: PC Gamer
