Dream responds to the Minecraft cheating allegations against him

Dream has asserted his innocence and refuted the findings by moderators of the Minecraft Java Speedrunning Team in a recent YouTube video.

Dream, one of the most popular Minecraft YouTubers in the world, has been in hot water lately due to the official ruling that he likely cheated one of his Minecraft speedruns. For those not up to speed on the recent controversy, a full explanation of the verdict ruled by the moderator team can be found here.

As he promised he would, Dream has released a recent YouTube video that makes a solid case for his innocence. He commissioned a professional statistician with a PhD to a do a professional analysis of the math done by the moderators. As it turns out, the math was actually off by a considerable margin.

This article will be breaking down Dream's full argument for his defense, as well as discuss how this new information has changed collective understanding of the controversy.

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Dream responds to the Minecraft cheating allegations against him

The official report by the moderators indicated that the RNG that Dream experienced had a 1 in 7.5 trillion chance of occurring. The RNG in question was Dream's luck with successful piglin trading and blaze rod drops in the Nether.

This level of luck with regards to RNG was deemed as downright improbable. As a result, it was ruled that he must have cheated by manipulating the RNG in his Minecraft speedrun.

Well as it turns out, that might not be entirely true at all. Dream commissioned a highly qualified expert in statistics to create his own independent report and analysis of the math and findings by the moderator team.

The expert found that Dream could have had the luck he did in his Minecraft speedrun under normal conditions. (Image via DreamXD/YouTube)

The math done by the moderators was off by at least 7.4998 trillion, completely debunking the legitimacy of the math produced by the moderators. To show just how inaccurate the math done by the moderators was, Dream emphasizes the discrepancy visually in his YouTube video with the use of gold blocks.

He is able to present an over 20 minute verbal defense before all of the blocks run out, showing just how high the margin of error was. Seeing it visually has quiet a profound impact on understanding the gravity of the false findings.

The Minecraft moderator essentially unfairly cherry picked variables and used inaccurate corrections to produce their findings. The findings by the moderators did not take into account for trade stopping, did not include Dream's less lucky speedruns, had improper bias corrections, and even used a flawed lowest possible odds formula.

With further corrections, the probability of Dream's Minecraft speedrun is more like 1 in a million, rather than the 1 in 7.5 trillion that the moderators claimed. (Image via DreamXD/YouTube)

At the end of the document, the expert found that there are even further possible corrections for Dream's lucky streak that could be applied. That would make the the probability of Dream's RNG luck more like 1 in a million. In conclusion, the expert found that the numbers could not be asserting evidence that Dream cheated his speedrun by manipulating RNG.

Any interested parties can find the full report and math done by the qualified statistics expert here.

The report done by the expert from the online science consulting company Photoexcitation, "did not focus any effort on exonerating Dream" as a goal for the report. Dream even claims at the beginning of his defense video, that he agreed to publish the findings of the report regardless of whether or not they were in his favor.

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Other Information

An annoymous moderator from the Minecraft Java Speedrunning Team reveals that there was internal doubt regarding if the right decision was made. (Image via DreamXD/YouTube)

Taking a step back from the math, Dream offers a couple of additional arguments for his defense. In Geosquare's video, the claim was made that Dream regularly deletes the contents of his mod folder.

Dream on the other hand claims that he never specifically said that, and what he actually told the Minecraft moderator team was construed to make him appear as though he deleted evidence.

Geosquare admitted this mistake in a correction in the video description, but those description sections are not read all that often.

Moderator Willz confirmed that Dream provided everything the moderators requested and was fully cooperative during the investigation process.

Dream has also provided timestamped proof that there were no data packs and only allowed mods used in his speedrun.

An anonymous moderator who was part of the investigation told Dream, that there were still internal doubts about the decision right up until the very end. The moderator even then told Dream after the ruling, "for the record, I don't believe at all that you cheat" and that he would likely quit the moderator team as a result.

It really appears as though the moderator team was off base with their ruling of Dream's Minecraft speedrun.

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Conclusion

Statistics can be difficult and misleading as echoed in this quote by Benjamin Disraeli. (Image via DreamXD/YouTube)

There is no question that Dream experienced a lucky streak with some of his Minecraft speedruns. However, this new information reveals that Dream did not necessarily have to cheat in order to get that lucky. While a rare occurrence, it is possible for Dream to receive the RNG luck that he did.

The moderators of the Minecraft Java Speedrunning Team are composed of volunteers, not math experts. At the end of the day, they were simply trying to do their jobs. In this case however, it does appear that their findings were significantly incorrect.

Dream has publicly apologized to the Minecraft moderator team for how he initially expressed his frustration and the way this incident was handled.

All in all, the Minecraft community actually handled this with a level of grace. The Minecraft moderator team made their ruling, and then Dream was able to publicly defended his case for innocence.

With all the information that is now available, it is more than likely that Dream did not cheat his Minecraft speedrun by manipulating RNG.

Disclaimer: This article is now dated, as more information has become available. New findings can be found here