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[Valter]

http://speeddemosarchive.com/ is a site dedicated to maintaining videos of world-record video game completion. Do you want to see how to beat Legend of Zelda in 30 minutes or less? This is your place.

Anyway, the speed-runner leave comments about their videos, which explain what they did to make their run the fastest. Many of them spend months in preparation for their main run. The interesting thing is that it's not just for achievement. People go to the forums there and post bounties (cash rewards) for speed runs they want to see, or challenges they want to make. In other words, beating video games quickly is now a professional sport!

Anyway, it can't be too bad, because it spawned this. 

[Melly]

Speed demos is awesome. It's also called that because it started as a purely quake-related speedrunning website. The demos are the files that you load into Quake to see the run. Now there are speedruns for a lot of stuff there, some of which blow your mind.

[cyber95]

http://speeddemosarchive.com/Portal.html#PCscripts
Holy jesus! This is nuts! I had to yell out "HOLY SHIT!" multiple times for them.

[muku]

To be honest, I never understood the appeal of these speed runs. How bored do you have to be to sit down for weeks or months with a single game in order to get that elusive, perfect time?

[Valter]

Muku: As I mentioned earlier, people offer rewards, usually up to 100$ for completing certain runs. Most people are doing these runs not only because they enjoy the game they're playing, but also because there's a reward waiting for them if they can complete it fast enough.

[Melly]

Also because some people have unusual tastes for hobbies, or love a game enough to do it.