Congrats to all the 2nd place record holders that just moved up to 1st!

[jperryss]

Infamous Atari Player Disqualified From World Record After 35 Years (https://kotaku.com/infamous-atari-player-gets-world-record-removed-after-3-1822511777)

"In addition to the Dragster record, Rogers held records in multiple games, many of which were thousands of points greater than anyone else on Twin Galaxies’ leaderboards. These included a 15 million-point score in Atari 2600’s Donkey Kong and a score of 65 million points on Centipede for Atari 5200. These scores drew criticism in the past, although Twin Galaxies had allowed them to stand until today’s decision"

[Koa Zo]

Wow. I just also watched that youtube video (https://youtu.be/8e-H4sEHB54) that's been trending today. It's a pretty wild story really.

[8bitgamer]

I had an interesting encounter with Todd Rogers at the 2015 Classic Game Fest in Austin. Check it out here:


http://www.brettweisswords.com/2018/01/todd-rogers-funny-thing-happened-at.html

[jperryss]

I had an interesting encounter with Todd Rogers at the 2015 Classic Game Fest in Austin.

You should've told him you were a famous author and autographed his face.

[jb143]

It's odd that Dragster was the score that pushed them over the edge when not even David Crane thought it was impossible, since many of the others scores are much easier to prove impossible.

[Aussie2B]

Maybe it's just because I don't take this stuff very seriously, but I find a lot of this stuff pretty cringey. Like I followed the link in the Kotaku article to the article on Twin Galaxies, and when I got to this part "There was a (very wrong) general consensus that video games wouldn’t make much of a mark on history, thus the need to keep silly records would be unnecessary. Good job, Activision, on making your own mark on history by throwing away historical records! This may be the video game equivalent to the Great Library of Alexandria being burned." I was just like "......really? You're making THAT comparison?"

For as long as I've known of Twin Galaxies, they've just seemed like a joke to me. I associate them with (admittedly entertaining) mockumentaries like The King of Kong and a community of middle-aged men getting into obsessive, petty dramas like children. Video games are about having fun. Pursuing high scores can be fun too, but as soon as you get people claiming to be "authorities" and "world record holders" and other over-inflated egos involved, it turns into a big silly mess.

[goldenband]

Video games are about having fun.

I don't 100% agree, in that I don't think video games are only about having fun. Of course they can be incredibly fun, and it's great when they are; multiplayer is especially good for that.

But some of the most satisfying experiences I've had playing games (video or otherwise) are when I've overcome a challenge that, at first, I didn't think I'd ever succeed at overcoming. Getting to that point hasn't always been fun; more often than not it's been frustrating, wearying, or infuriating -- but when I finally succeed, it's rewarding in a way that goes beyond fun. "Fun" is ephemeral for me, and unpredictable; mastery is always rewarding.

I think that's true anytime we push ourselves beyond our "default" abilities, whether it's climbing a mountain, getting really good at throwing a ball, learning to play chess or a musical instrument at a high level, or becoming virtuosic at a video game. It doesn't really matter what field of endeavor it is (unless you believe any activity that doesn't yield fame and money is a joke and a waste of time, which some people actually do believe).

Sure, maybe not all activities are equally worthy, but the act of mastering anything that's hard to master is, in the most literal sense, character-building. You learn new things about yourself, find out you have capabilities you didn't know you had, and come to understand basic realities about the world you can't get except through the direct experience of doing something difficult and eventually succeeding.

[Aussie2B]

Well, I mean the end goal is to have fun. I think few would say the act of getting a Game Over itself is fun, but some degree of challenge usually makes the experience as a whole more fun than if it were a total breeze.

If I wanted to be particularly pedantic, I should be saying that video games are supposed to be about entertainment or enjoyment or a perceived worthwhile experience. There are plenty of games that aren't what people would traditionally describe as "fun" despite considering them good games, especially now that we have lots of games that deal with heavy, dark subjects. But quibbling over such minute details isn't really necessary to the point I was making.

[goldenband]

I should be saying that video games are supposed to be about entertainment or enjoyment or a perceived worthwhile experience.

I think my point is that they can also be about achievement -- which is a worthwhile experience, yes, but one that potentially goes beyond the entertainment or attention of just one person. I find it exciting when Roger Federer wins his 20th Grand Slam; I find it exciting when a speedrunner can beat a game in a fraction of the time anyone believed possible. In both cases, it's extending our definition of the possible.

We often talk about video games as though they're inherently a silly waste of time and shouldn't be taken seriously -- something that real men (and women) should outgrow. But I don't immediately see what's less admirable about a Darbian speedrun in SMB vs. Roger Bannister running a sub-4-minute mile. And video games are a multibillion dollar industry that generated more revenue in 2017 than the NFL, NHL, and MLB put together...

[8bitgamer]

you should've told him you were a famous author and autographed his face.

lolololol

[Koa Zo]

I had an interesting encounter with Todd Rogers at the 2015 Classic Game Fest in Austin. Check it out here:


http://www.brettweisswords.com/2018/01/todd-rogers-funny-thing-happened-at.html

Geeze that sure is an interesting experience with the guy. The guy must be genuinely full of himself. I'd love to have a behind the scenes look at his reactions to getting removed from the record books. Like, does he still think he's legit, and now a great wrong has been done to him, or is he accepting that the gig is up?

And I see your eBay auction for one of those Dragster carts. It's looks like his new infamy might be rather profitable for you!

[jperryss]

And here we go.

https://kotaku.com/former-world-record-donkey-kong-score-now-in-dispute-1822736797

"On July 31, 2010 Mitchell recorded world record scores for Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. after a session at Boomers Arcade in Dania, Florida. He supposedly logged a score of 1,062,800 points in Donkey Kong and 1,270,900 in Donkey Kong Jr. Last week a dispute over Mitchell’s scores came to a boil on the forums for Twin Galaxies, an organization that tracks world records and where Mitchell long ago served as a referee. On the forum poster Jeremy “Xelnia” Young accused Mitchell of using the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) to record his scores instead of an arcade cabinet. Young announced that he was removing Mitchell’s scores from the Donkey Kong Forum, a long standing community site dedicated to the arcade games."

"The referee for Mitchell’s 2010 scores was infamous Atari score-setter Todd Rogers who has been in the middle of a score dispute of his own. Last week, following a case built against his alleged score in the Atari 2600 game Dragster, Twin Galaxies concluded the score was “impossible” and removed all of Rogers scores from their records, banning him from further participation."

[Koa Zo]

I had an interesting encounter with Todd Rogers at the 2015 Classic Game Fest in Austin. Check it out here:

Holy shit. $830 for his autographed cart (https://www.ebay.com/itm/222816859431?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649). LOL Todd better get to selling his junk on eBay before his infamy fades!