Mario Kart 64 speedrunner Matthias Rustemeyer has retired from speedrunning the game following the recent victory of his rival, Dan Burbank.
Dan Burbank and Matthias Rusemeyer have been rivals in the Super Mario 64 speedrunning community for the good part of the last decade, both trying to achieve the goal of having the world record on all 32 of the game's courses. Both speedrunners have almost held the record at several points, but the other would always claw back one or two and keep the fight going.
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That has now ended as, earlier this week, Dan Burbank claimed the record of having the world record on all 32 courses at the same time. The victory has been considered somewhat controversial as Dan Burbank hid times for 15 courses and then suddenly revealed the new records that he'd set all at once, making it difficult for anyone to keep up with the sudden changes and try and fight back.
As reported by Kotaku, Burbank's overall victory in speedrunning Mario Kart 64 has caused Rustemeyer to quit speedrunning the game entirely. In a blog post announcing the news, he said, "It's a decision I had almost already made last year, now the time has come for me to retire from competitive time trials because I completely lost the key value to go on: Fun. For 12 of the last 13 years, this community with its forum and later Discord gave me a great place to visit, come back to on a regular basis and chat with fellow karters."
He continued, "You must enjoy the [world record] grind to some extent in order to sacrifice time and put energy into it, I simply didn't like pushing myself anymore against an opponent I lost respect for. I don't care if some people will call me a bad loser, I'm a guy who treats fair players with much respect and who doesn't forget the ones that go against the code of honour to lift their own ego above an entire community with such a rich history."
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