A glitchrun is no speedrun; it´s like remake and remaster: Often confused, but totally different goal!

Why developers should worry about someone doing a "speed run"?

Meh! The Witcher 3 will probably be a good game, but these kinds of news are really unneccessary. First of all, what average user cares about speedruns in RPGs? Most people will never play The Witcher 3 like this, and it isn't even recommended in such a game. Then we also do not know anything about the game yet, at least nothing that allows us to grade a speedrun correctly.

Bottom line: There are easier ways to tell us that The Witcher 3 will be a huge game. ;)

Course giving a high number as a speedrun-limit is a good way to show several points:
1. Your game got much content.
2. Your game got much "unevadeable" content
3. Your game is hard enough that you cannot simply run through it.
4. Your world is big!
Example:
Gothic I-speedruns (of course only talking glitch-free runs) do take round three hours---that´s a good value to take as a reference. You know something about complexity with this number...

Considering Fallout 3 speedrun record now is under 24 minutes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT4t9EHIneo) and Skyrim under 40 min, (http://www.twitch.tv/drtchops/c/5480491), I seriously doubt this claim will last for long.

I think it was more a reassurance on the length of the campaign... I thought that was pretty obvious.

Nope, it's just a type of speedrun.
I prefer the normal ones, but some glitchruns are incredible, like that Super Mario 64 without stars :O
"The Order 1886" effect.
Anyway, I would just add some little easter egg for speedrunners, instead of worrying ; )

I thought it was obvious that I stated the obvious under 'Bottom line'...

Anyways, my point still stands: How 'valuable' is such an isolated speedrun-statement, especially regarding the length of the campaign? Without any additional information about the exact circumstances the speedrun was done and how the game actually 'works', we can't bring it in line with anything.

I'll try to replay:

1. Most game just present impossible combat that oblige you to grind for so many hours, that it'll take days to just tackle the main quest.

2. I see the point. But that doesn't say quality of the contents. 90% of RPGs today are fetch this/deliver that, often plagued by endless travel (and random encounter). It's boring. It's bad.

3. How you achive this "difficulty" is the point. Again, combat difficulty: you got 10HP and deliver 1HP, just the weak monster got 20HP and deliver 5HP. This is not a good difficulty.
I can't see "difficulty" in a ARPG like these.

4. Not really. I can keep going back and forth, doing endless, unavoidable, quests.

The point is that all these new "parameters" that gamers use are just non-sense.
You buy a game to play it, not say that I've beat it in 3 hours.
This will not help with girls, not help feeling better or enjoying a potentially interesting story.

It's true today that game delive less and less contents, but we gamers doesn't help them doing their job, if they have to be evaluated with silliness.

Can't wait to see footage.. Well i can wait since i don't want to spoil myself haha

Agree on every point. But do remember, it´s a single digit number! Compressing a games quality into a single number is hard enough for reviewers---but for the devs?!
They cannot tell you "this is a 90+ game", you wouldn´t believe! Getting another number as a replacement, something about how big the world is, how many polygons a charakter has, how many different skills, how many endings
All these parameters have one weakness, one thing in common: It´s possible to design a game with Ultra-High-Numbers in these slots and it can still suck. So yes, your criticism is right!

Well, TAS are still entertaining, but they're non-legit speedruns (basically cheating, not just using game glitches).

Maybe it takes 25 hours because there's a "realtime" clock/timer delay on something needed to "complete" it (without which a speedrun would be far quicker)..

Morrowind isn't the best example because it doesn't require following the main quest at all, you can just grab Kagrenac's Tools and run straight to the final boss. If you had to do it in a linear fashion, it would take a fair bit longer. I suspect Witcher 3 is designed this way, with few skippable main quests. Still, I don't believe for one moment that experienced speedrunners will take 25 hours to finish the game, it's extremely long for a speedrun. Although there could be some arbitrary limits like "wait X days" or "do Y quests" before some part can be completed...