"How badly do you want people to think you're good" - When PewDiePie called out Dream for cheating in his Minecraft speedrun

During the summer of 2021, Clay "Dream," the well-known Minecraft streamer, was embroiled in controversy within the gaming community due to his involvement in a cheating scandal during one of his Minecraft speed runs. In July, Felix "PewDiePie" shared a video where he reacted to Twitch streamers who had been caught cheating. In this video, he also made reference to the incident involving Clay's cheating controversy.

Although he admitted to the cheating through a Twitlonger post (now-deleted), PewDiePie expressed his view that the act had drained the fun out of the game. He added:

"It just takes out all the fun in the game. How badly do you want people to think you're good? I don't get it."

---

Did Dream cheat in Minecraft in 2021? PewDiePie reacts

Dream, the prominent Minecraft player, faced significant criticism when multiple content creators and websites refuted his speedrun, arguing that the exceptional drop rates he achieved were mathematically impossible.

On December 11, Geosquare, a member of the Speedrun.com verification team, shared a video that analyzed the speedrun alongside a 29-page report and rejected Dream's record.

Geosquare notably highlighted that there was a staggering one in 177 billion chance of achieving the results claimed by the streamer, further casting doubt on the authenticity of the speedrun.

Although Dream initially denied the allegations, he confessed to his actions in a Twitlonger post in May 2021. He admitted to having kept a mod running during the speedrun, which provided him with favorable drops. He explained:

"In our challenge videos, before 1.16, we always increased the enderman spawn rates and pearl drop rates out of convenience...It makes the videos better because we don’t spend hours looking for pearls or spend so much time farming blaze rods (a totally RNG thing, mostly pearls). When 1.16 came out...A server-side plugin was made for our videos that slightly increases the rates."

Continued:

"I had considered at the time that this potentially could have been a problem, but brushed it off because server-side and client-side are completely different and as far as I was aware nothing had been done client-side."

He added:

"When I realized this, I felt an extreme sense of guilt and I took down my response video not believing in what I said in the video at all anymore."

He also apologized:

"I’m sorry to anyone that I let down or disappointed. I always strive to be the best person that I can be and that whole debacle wasn’t the best that I can be or anywhere near it."

Reacting to the entire drama a month later, PewDiePie expressed:

"I still think it's interesting because Dream made this speed run. Submitted it..."

Explaining the ordeal, he said:

"Basically he cheated in his speedrun in Minecraft. You have to be extremely lucky to get a speed run in Minecraft and it became a whole deal of, 'Well he's just too lucky,' 'there's no way he was able to get these good drops,' and even mathematicians who have nothing to do with Minecraft made videos on it."

He stated that the drop-in chances were mathematically improbable:

"You do the math and you realize no, there's actually no way he could have done it."

---

Dream has been involved in additional controversies in recent times, one of which emerged in October 2022 when he was accused of engaging in grooming behavior. This incident garnered significant attention and was extensively documented.