I haven't watched this movie yet, but I think I can contribute to the resolution of this dispute. I'll quote some comments from #2985: x2poet's Arcade Metal Slug X in 18:24.47 as well as those on this thread.

However, the biggest issue is the use of continues, ... So, essentially, you use money to buy a stronger position, which I would equate to the use of a cheat code.

The game developer, who sets the rules of the very game, permits and expects you (and everyone else) to use money to buy that position! But of course, you can boycott this rule by not taking any advantage from it or even quiting the game.

As much as I like this run otherwise, I have to vote no because it uses continues, and as such cannot be qualified as beating the game.

I believe your problem here is about the definition of a game's ending.

As it was said, a TASer is a super-human, so he obviously has unlimited money :D

Unlike healthbar, coins are unlimited (unless player makes decision to limit the number to some arguable value, like 4 coins per game), so there's little of management skill in distributing coins.

Coins can't be unlimited in any finite TAS, as the player can only feed a limited number of coins due to logical and physical limitations. So a form of distribution of coins will always exist and the player will manage it there. Also, it is just because being able to feed more than the minimal number of coins required to play the game that there is the coin management skill in a TAS. That's to say, that adds something to the TAS.

If coin-feeding is accepted, this will mean that coin-using must be as effective as possible.

I say it's more that the continue was badly planned and executed than the fact itself that you used one. I'd say the following would increase the entertaining value of a continue in such run:

• Add all credits you plan to use at the beginning of the run. Doing so when the "Continue?" screen appears makes it look like "Oh shit, I've out of lives! Where's my extra coin?".

This can be analogized with ammo management. We expect the player to forsee how many ammo he will need and to collect only the necesary amount, but we don't require the player to finish the collection as soon as possible. Couldn't we see it the way that the player forsees running out of lives and just feed the coins at the last moment without wasting time?

Against use of coins: * Humans judge their skill at arcade games by how many credits they need to complete the game. TASes are superhuman gameplay. Requiring the use of multiple credits is not superhuman.

I think humans also judge their skill at console games by how little they need to use emulator tools to complete the game. Requiring the use of savestates is not superhuman. By the way, is someone superhuman still human?

Yes you do. Using continues will make it look far, far more foolish.

In my opinion, avoid killing the enemies in a action game, shooting game, etc. is even more foolish (and hypocritical). But there are people who enjoy "pacificist" runs of them. And people can stick to their own opinions. Nothing's wrong.

In an arcade game, especially one such as this, 1CCing it (even better if you didn't die) is far more entertaining to watch than sloppy death and continuing, even if there is a speed tradeoff.

not in my opinion, that's subjective

I agree with ALAKTORN on this. See the examples above.

So I foresee arcade runs using enormous amounts of coins every level.

But not for every game, I could fortell that, as what has happened to some other categories.

Nevertheless I think coin-abusing should have its own category, allowing to have at least 2 TASes for any arcade game (one that uses coins and one that doesn't).

Maybe per-game.