Conspiracy between G4 and twingalaxies

[SegaAges]

I take it I am not the only person here that watches G4, but there is a conspiracy that seems to only go ignored, even after my numerous attempts to make it surface. This may seem like something that is a small deal for many, but for a true gamer, its more than most think. Anyone that watches G4 has more than likely seen the small promo part called Hi Score, in which supposedly "ordinary" gamers send in there high scores and their scores get put on television alongside an interview with the person. I noticed something about the high scores, there are 4 of them getting shown right now, and after the very first high score shown (crazy taxi I think it was) every single other score that was put up was done by actual employees of twingalaxies.

Now you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with anything, maybe the employees at twingalaxies are good enough to get their scores put up. Here is an answer to your question, all high scores that are sent to G4 are confirmed and done through a middleman, twingalaixes. If this is all done through a middleman, it is safe to say that twingalaxies says who's score goes to G4 for the segment.

Also, did you ever notice what the high scores were for? Pay close attention. The obstacle course in Tomb Raider 2. Being fast at an obstacle course (essentially the training mission) in a game does not show how good you are. It would have been nice to see how fast that guy got through the actual game, I bet he couldn't get it done as fast as some of the scores that are already up there.

What about the one for Crazy Taxi? I am sorry, I don't have the names by me, so everything besides the names will be used, and I am sure that the people would appreciate that (and besides, if anyone agrees with me, I can always find the names) Now with Crazy Taxi, the guy did the most crazy through combos in a mini game, but I remember bluntly that the guy did not win the Crazy Taxi Competition altogether, just the mini game. I do remember that this high score was the only one that was not done by a twinagalxies member.

18-wheeler? Same Scenario. It was a parking mini game, but yet, the guy is not all that great at the main game. Enough said on him.

Now the last score, the million point run in the first level of SSX. He is not the only person to acheive that score according to the twingalaxies scoreboard.

Now the thing you may be asking is this, why are you ranting about mini games that people got put up on television for? These people found out how to do good in one small part of a mini game or level. The only person that had any skill in the main game instead of a mini game worked for twinagalxies. Only mini games, no main game scores. Main game scores done by employees. Employees handle all scores that get sent to G4.

Now, here is the last question I am sure all of you may be asking, who cares? With all those games all of us have, wouldn't it be awesome to get somekind of recognition for our skill. Let's face it, I know for a fact that I don't have near as many games as many of you, and I know for a fact that there are numerous people out there that play more games a day than I do (I am at at least 5 or 6 hours a day, everyday). The best recognition us gamers could get is actually being interviewed for how well we are at a game, and get our high score put up on television.

I hope this all does not sound biased, it is just that I have had multiple (unbiased) posts deleted by moderators at the G4 forums. I may have one left up in there, but thats about it, and we are all gamers here, we can have opinions. Please people, let me know what you all think on this matter. And anyone else that watches G4, tell me I am not alone in noticing this.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Actually, quite a few of the Twin Galaxies employees are the proper record holders for a variety of things.

Fact of the matter is, Twin Galaxies is pretty much the authority on video game high scores, so it's no surprise that they also play quite a few games themselves. I don't know the whole peanuts gang there, but Walter Day's a helluva nice guy and does a lot to promote video games as both hobby and way-of-life. So I don't think there's that much of a "conspiracy." At least not until Joe Pesci and Donald Sutherland show up in quick succession to tell me otherwise.

With that, I'll bump this to the Video Games form.

[SegaAges]

I agree, Walter Day is an awesome man, but I do believe he is so nice to the point that he would be completely blind to things like this. Walter Day started it, but the people that work for twingalaxies accept the scores, and send them to where they need to go after they have been confirmed.

Basically, I figured, since people don't know much about me, I figured I could help you guys find out who I am.

And when it comes to them being the authority in high scores, right now, according to their rules, I can't send in my super uber high score for Simpsons: Road Rage, just because they have not posted it up for Gamecube yet. The person I was supposed to e-mail (not Walter Day, but another person from twinagalxies) who is supposed to be the person that would put this game up, his e-mail filled up. That means that he doesn't check his e-mail oftem enough, and since it filled, nobody could send him anything. Now this kind of thing happens. It has happened to me before, but for two months straight. This right here is straying away from the main point, I know, but it is helping to prove a point that Walter Day could have no idea what is going on with his website.

So does Walter Day realize this is going on? Probably not. Will G4 ever put restrictions on who can send in high scores for the segment? possibly, with enough effort. Do these people that work for twingalaxies have true skill in some parts of games? absolutely.

Everyone sees how nice Walter Day is, and how enthusiastic he is about games and gaming itself, so they could easily be blinded by him in thinking that there is nothing going on. I guarentee there are over 1000 scores that have been sent into twingalaxies using a vhs, yet only 4 scores, 1st one was a high score from a random person, and the last 3 were from employees.

This is something that 99% of everyone reading will either jump on 1 side or the other, and its pretty obvious which one i decided to go to. What do you guys think?

P.S. - I have nothing against Walter Day. He is cool with me.

[digitalpress]

It's interesting to read this from an objective point of view, and I can definitely see where you might perceive this as a bias, but as PDF stated, many of the Twin Galaxies crew ARE the high score holders, across many eras. For example, Billy Mitchell and Todd Rogers: two fellas who are simply MACHINES themselves when placed in front of a videogame most likely represent themselves as "Twin Galaxies" (Todd is one of their referees).

These guys have been at Classic Gaming Expo for years and I can tell you that everything they do IS on the up and up. I haven't seen the G4 program but my guess is that if Twin Galaxies is supplying the scores, then Twin Galaxies is probably recommending the games to run, which means they're most likely going to appear at the top of the lists.

I'll forward this thread along to Ron Corcoran and Todd Rogers, both of whom are Twin Galaxies representatives. Perhaps they can elaborate on this a little more.

[Dangerboy]

The only beef I ever had with Twin Galaxies (I don't get G4, nor care to) was their decision to post scores for nearly every game, including those that are 'randomized'.


Case in point: Haunted House 2600. They post times that people have beaten it, except that the items are always randomized. So, there was no skill involved, they just kept playing until all the pieces appeared in one room.

I even did it myself to prove the point. First two times, about 2 minutes. On the third, 25 seconds.

That's not skill, that's patience.

Jason

[SegaAges]

Now I don't want to come off as a person that hates twingalaxies, I am just hoping to get some discussion and maybe get some answers to questions I have. I don't hate twinagalxies, or the people that work there, I don't even hate G4, I just noticed something, and then more and more things started to pop up and happen to be "just coincidence". I mean, I am not trying to start a thread just to get my high score put on television, it would just be nice to see average people (or collectors for that matter) get a high score up, instead of it being all people that work for twingalaxies. This may sound a little too American for some of you that do not live here in the states, but it should only be fair that there are restrictions on things like this, such as people that work for twingalaxies are not eligible, for the simple fact that they can send in their own high scores to G4. Now if I worked for twingalaxies, I could honestly see people doing this, but it is not right.

[toddrogers]

Dear Fellow Gamers
I wanted to comment about the recent posting BY SegaAges and their related topic of G4/TwinGalaxies the "Alleged Conspiracy between G4 and Twingalaxies".
First off I want to clairify that the segment of the Hi-Score that is aired of G4 between shows featuring "ORDINARY" players did in fact feature ordinary players like yourself but there was one difference these ordinary players had an Extrordinary ability and that was they made Hi-Scores and good number of them.This is why they were featured on this particular mini commercial where hence HI-SCORE because they had Hi Scores on some select titles that were short in length to entail the amount of time that G4 was alloting for their commercial time. The players in question that you say are Twingalaxies employees now at that time were NOT twingalaxies employees in fact they were among the vast population like yourself. These players played games like yourself setting scores to be sent in like any other player in the hopes of recognition for their hard work and when Colin Barton then of G4 contacted Robert Mruczek the senior Twingalaxies referee about their ideas Robert was happy to respond with a complilation of scores from all sorts of players. There was a duration of time between when these taped scores were submitted to G4 and when the mini "Hi Scores" commercials were aired on G4. Not all tape submissions were used by G4 infact they sort of put hold on the Hi-Score mini commercial due to inside personel changes.

Second: The Tomb Raider2 segment that you saw was infact the obstacle course mode and was played by one of the worlds top ranked Tomb Raider2 players Wolffe Morrow. Yes it would have been nice to see Wolffe play a whole game but again due to the time length of a Mini commercial what can you possiably play in 1 minute or less, unless you are playing the Atari 2600's DRAGSTER a mid 5 second game for players like me .

Third: The Crazy Taxi mini game you mentioned is played by Mat Leto he is the current record holder on the Crazy Trough at 232. No one was saying that he won a Crazy Taxi Competition or not , just that he holds the current world record on that event and thats what G4 used for their 60 second or under Hi-Score segment.

Fourth: 18-Wheeler same as above we had no control over what material G4 used and what games that they selected and by whom Robert sent in a box of Hi-Score tapes with various Hi-Scores on many platforms by a number of players that held the current Hi-Scores at that time.

Fifth: SSX Ok so Laurent DuBois may not be the only player with this particular score but yet again we had little control over what G4 put together out of that Hi-Score box remember, G4 is running the show here Twingalaxies is just suppling G4 with the material that they want to pick from sent in by "ORDINARY" players.

Sixth: I disagree with your statement about "these players only found out how to do good in one small part of a mini game or level". Many of these players are talented and focus in on a particular game or title/event that they are good at and that how the ball is put in motion. This is how I got my start I started out with ONE Hi-Score and now look im over 1000+. There are other players that have followed in this tradition besides me like Billy Mitchell, Donald Hayes, Ron Corcoran research the Twingalaxies data base and you will see there are many players with multipal listings.

RE: Only mini games, no main game scores. Main game scores done by employees. Employees handle all scores that get sent to G4 .

TR: Again above like I said we had no control over what G4 is going to air, they ask for taped score submissions and then they put together a mini commercial for your viewing.

RE: With all those games all of us have, wouldn't it be awesome to get some kind of recognition for our skill.

TR: Yes this is why we at Twingalaxies have a data base this is how I got startd I had to submit scores just like anyone else and beat out the next best player to achieve the title of world record holder on what ever game it was that I was playing. G4 was looking for the theme "Hi-Scores" and if an Ordinary player was good enough and had a high score their score would be used if we had it among our pile of submissions

RE: The best recognition us gamers could get is actually being interviewed for how well we are at a game, and get our high score put up on television.

TR: Is not that what we are doing already? I mean this is the purpose of a Hi-Score data base that Twin Galaxies has persued for over 23yrs and the interviews that G4 and other notiable media's have done in the past with player like yourself that have achieved great scores and have recieved the recognition for their skills.
In 2001 323 different events were held and only a select few games qualified for G4's request.These games that were given had to be in the time constraints that were relatively short in lenght according to G4.
TwinGalaxies has a data base of over 30,000 unique players and there is just not enough time in the day to interview all the gamers entered into the data base on a one on one basis so we do the best we can in lieu of whats at hand to make sure all players get recognized.


Todd Mr Activision Rogers

[RMRUCZEK]

Greetings fellow gamers:

Being that this is my first official posting on the Digital Press site, let me introduce myself as Walter Day's appointed chief referee. I've been servicing Twin Galaxies faithfully since approx Apr/01 on staff, and have contributed high scores some of which date back to Jan/84. I now serve on the Twin Galaxies Board of Directors alongside Walter Day.

In early 2001, I proposed to Walter that I would like to "host" on behalf of Twin Galaxies a special competiiton on the Sega DC title "Crazy Taxi", and Walter was thrilled with the idea. At the time I was a contributing editor who had the dedication to Walter to really pitch in on a title that I believed had great PR value.

Within a few weeks of what would later become the "Summer Competitions", I discussed with Walter the possibility that I simultaneously host a few other titles that I was intimately familiar with at the time..."Crazy Taxi 2", "Wacky Races" and "18 Wheeler" for the Sega DC, and "Diddy Kong Racing", "Wave Race", "F-Zero X" and "Doom 64" for the N64.

Walter was ecstatic, to say the least. That made for seven new competitions, and an even ten would be awesome, so we collaberated with fellow TG referees Kevin Booth ("Mario Kart 64") and interested TG contributors Tom Herrera ("SSX Tricky" for the PS2) and Laurent Daubas ("Ace COmbat 04" for the PS2). Walter Day himself stewarded the "THPS2" competition for the PS1.

Thus, a first for Twin Galaxies was created...a massive summer competition blitz with awarded certificates galore...over 80 in fact...and over 400 individual records to compete on. I personally stewarded approx 323 individual records and wrote dozens of lengthy articles detailing the progress of the event.

The publicity and resultant scores was enormous, and widely popular. Gamers from over 20 countries participated that event, and I watched more videotapes in a 90 day period than ever before from the seven events I handled that period.

After the competition was over, at some point Walter Day made contact with Colin Barton from the G4 site. Colin wanted to do a feature of some of the greatest score accomplishments from the recent year in Twin Galaxies, so naturally some of the best performances came from the competitions.

Inclusive on what I sent Colin with Walter's request were runs on "Doom 64" by Wolff Morrow and Martin Bedard, the marathon 13-hour "New Tetris" performance by Martin, selected runs on "Crazy Taxi 1 & 2" by Matt Leto, Stuart Morrison and the "Metroid Team" from Brazil, dave Cramer's outstanding parking challenge runs on "18 Wheeler", the awesome performances on "F-Zero X" by the top three players in the title (Jimmy Thai, Dustin Andrews and Dave Van Moer) and some of the awesome runs on "Diddy Kong Racing" by gamers John Mitrou, Jason Whalls and Louis Phillipe Sabbagh. Also, a few "Wacky Races" runs by both Matt Leto and myself as we were the only players of the title at the time.

Now then, Colin was sent about a dozen tapes, all indexed to the proper starting places, and was entrusted with safe guarding our property. Colin and G4 were trusted with using the data contained within for the purpose of their special on modern home console gaming. It is my understanding that they produced some form of decent special as at least a few gamers from who I had just mentioned were included, as well as their performances.

I had no control over how much of the tapes they used, of which performances, but gave them a wide array of what we felt were the best performances submitted and verified in the year in question.

Now then...after the summer competitions of 2001, at some point I was promoted by Walter to "Chief Referee", a very responsible mantle that I take seriously as I deal with thousands of gamers worldwide daily thru my forum postings and private replies, as well as verifying their submissions on videotape, digital medium or if need be in person. And I do this without pay, mind you, in addition to my full-time 60 hour/week job. Not easy.

Okay, backto after the competition. Walter and I discussed expanding TG into the next level in anticipation of the newer systems and the 2nd Book of Records which is muchdelayed but still in progress. Basically we needed some help.

My first recommendations were a couple of dedicated and skillful gamers from the summer 2001 compettion whom I trusted...Mike and Wolff Morrow, and Matthew Leto.

Since their initial appointment, Matt has resigned due to inability to juggle personal and work with TG, which is okay as we're all human and he did us a good deal of service during his short tenure as Gamecube/Xbox referee. Mike Morrow accepted a position as "Contributor and technical advisor", and his brother Wolff is still with us as a valued platform referee in charge of the Sega Genesis and Sony PS1/2 platforms.

So, as it stands, the top performances were effectively accomplished by players who were not at-the-time true Twin Galaxies staffers. Their appointments are well documented on the Twin Galaxies "Breaking News" section of our site for those interested.

I am hopeful that this appearance is seen as being understandable under the circumstances and considering the timing of the situation. Further, teh reality is that a great many world records are held by Twin Galaxies staff members. I personally hold several myself, one of which is the arcade marathon world record on "Star Wars", the classic Atari title from 1983, as well as many others. One fellow staff member, Todd Rogers who has already replied, is the owner of nearly 1,500-2,000 records at a minimum, hundreds of which are top-ranked or 1st place scores.

It is inevitable that a great performance might be turned in by a Twin Galaxies staff member from time to time. And although we are honour-bound not to display favouritism towards our fellow staff members, we are not in control of circumstances that transpire outside of our site jurisdiction, nor can we possibly be aware of the impact of every referee and staff member change with respect to recent media interaction, considering how many medias we interact with on a regular basis.

Please feel free to E-MAIL me if you have any questions or concerns, as it is among my functions as Chief Refereree, and as a Twin Galaxies Board of Directors member, to promote harmony and fair treatment with gamers and score submissions. Thank you.

Robert

[digitalpress]

There is also a reply from Walter Day himself regarding this issue, you can find it right here:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27659

[FirebrandX]

This is Wolff Morrow (no "e" in there, Todd ;-). I just want to explain a few points in my defense, though it is a little strange I'm having to "defend" myself about having been featured on G4 if you ask me...

1. I was contacted by G4's promo director, whom wanted proven record accomplishments for short features. He let me know that the features would only be about a minute long, so the videos would have to be edited or of a very short stage. That's why I used my Tomb Raider 2 video. It was the perfect time length for the slot.

2. Yes, I am VERY well-skilled at all the other Tomb Raider stages for games 1 - 5 (I've not played part 6). I apologize for that information not being stated in the video, as I see it has cast doubt on my abilities as a gamer. In retrospect, it is not my best gaming effort. I have done much more difficult records for the SSX snowboarding series, of which I was rewarded with getting to design my own snowboard for SSX 3 (Mac's Galaxy board).

3. Shortly after supplying those videos, I had a bit of a falling-out with one of G4's employees (similar to what Wil Wheaton described in his falling-out) and discontinued my relations with them as a result. So, quite the contrary, I am not in a conspiracy with G4 and in fact have not even visited their web site in over a year.

4. I suspect the problem here is that G4 was unable to find more quality videos on their own and have been recycling those old ones from TG. I could be wrong about this, but I figured my videos would have been long-since taken off the air, or this entire debate would not be happening right now.

That's about all I care to say on the subject. I hope this sheds some light on what the agreement was back then.

[Sniderman]

I know I speak for many of thr Roundtable members when I say Thanks to Todd, Walter, Robert and Wolff for stopping by to share their side of the issue. I hope this clears everything up for everyone who had questions.

I'd also like to invite these TG stalwarts to stick around as DP members and regular posters. Yeah Todd, I'm talking to YOU pal-o-mine!

[RCM]

I don't pay attention to Twin Galaxies much. I swear I saw on G4 certain dates that were meant to be a cut off as to when you could submit your high score. It obviously doesn't apply to older games b/c records are broken every once in a while and it's all over the net. I think it was for Crazy Taxi. If this is true and there are cut off dates, I am wondering why? If i am remembering wrong sorry!

THE ONE, THE ONLY- RCM

[RMRUCZEK]

Hello RCM:

Speaking on behalf of Twin Galaxies, our 1st "Book of Records" was issued nearly 5+ years ago, an astounding amount of time in that thousands of scores have been submitted since then, on hundreds or even low-thousands of new titles and tracks.

In good faith TG has tried numerous times to adhere to a cutoff date due to pending efforts towards getting information out of our database and into a manageable format for publishing, while simultaneously keeping pace with the new scores and players. Not an easy task for the few of us that there are (less than 5 people actually upload scores to the database).

Compounded by the fact that the designers of the previous architecture have long since left the TG staff, we were in an administrative lurch for the longest time until at least some modicum of procedure existed for us to upload scores and/or titles. It worked...passably...and took a long period of time inbetween uploads.

A more robust architecture has been designed and is finally in the beta testing stages. Upon release to the gaming community and TG staff, scores will start flying in, and when we're finally caught up, then we download to a manageable format for publishing and go to the proofreading and editting stages.

Previous cutoffs had to be rescinded and postponed due to administrative delays, some of which were completely unavoidable. In all fairness, the "cutoffs" were intended to allow the TG staff a fixed point in time to accept and collate scores thru for the book, but as we're still in the data entry stages, the cutoffs are wide open, and now it's a matter of beta-test, crunch the data, then download, format and proofread.

Simultaneous to all of this is keeping pace with current submissions. In theory, so long as we do not reach the download phase, we can add new titles, tracks and 1st-time scores. Once we reached formatting, at most we can only change existing scores that were beaten by the same player, if time permits. But when the proofreading stage begins, the scores are completely locked barring an editorial override by Walter Day himself.

Thus, I understand your concern over the cutoffs. I am not sure how many of you know the TG staff, but we're again only a couple of hobbyists that service the thousands of participating gamers worldwide and also answer reams of incoming E-MAILs and various forum postings on a daily basis. It's not an easy task, let me tell you.

As for your initial concern that older scores are broken, you should be aware that newer scores are also set on the modern systems. However, not every gamer chooses to submit their scores to TG. That is a gamer's decision. Of course we appreciate when gamers take the time to do so, but cannot force a gamer if they wish to keep their gaming private.

Best wishes and happy gaming.

Robert

[SegaAges]

I am actually the original poster of this topic. I have started this topic in G4 as well, but I never thought I would get such a good answer. I mean, I got a personal e-mail from Walter Day which was completely unexpected.

I found out much, and as I was the one that was blind, hey, it happens.

I mean, everything was just fitting together perfectly in order for me to say what I said, but than again, I did not know much about how they decided to start the segment.

The only reason why I put any doubt into your gaming abilities was mainly from the Crazy Taxi competition, seeing as Matt Leto did not win Point wise (if I remember right).

Ok, so there isn't a conspiracy, oh well, but out of me even starting the thread, I managed to actually talk to and meet multiple staff member of tg as well as Walter Day himself and got them to be members of digital press. Sometimes mistakes end up for the good.

Robert, I also need to talk to you about the bounties. Is there any possible way you could extend the Simpsons: Road Rage to Gamecube as well? It is the same exact game, just different platform. I got a score of over $46,000 on it taped.

[KevinBooth]

Just figured I'd drop in here via the link Jason Whalls gave me. The thing with Twin Galaxies is that they grossly underestmiated what it takes to make things work in the console gamers era, vs the golden age of gaming. That has led to a lot of things that happened as a result that I'm not going to get into, but it was things that you have to do legailly to make this work, and it was a pain. It is clear that communication is poor, and that has led to a lot of problems. I do have contact with them, so if there is a score you'd like considered, I'll make sure to get a hold of them.

Outside of that, I'll ask about the G4 thing. I was originally asked to give them some footage for it, but I got like only 3 days warning, and that isn't enough time, so I didn't end up doing it.

[Berserker]

There is another man who believes that this was, IN FACT, a conspiracy.


Kevin Costner, presumably watching G4.

This man has spoken with several witnesses who say they heard (high-scores) on the grassy knoll BEHIND the picket fence.


"Congratulations! You have just achieved a High Score!"

Much of this information has been co-oberated by a man known as "X", but whom recent experts have been able to identify as DONALD SUTHERLAND.


"Look at all the defense budgets over the last year. We're talking big (scores) here!"

This evidence cannot be ignored. It speaks for itself. We cannot, nay, MUSTN'T let the American dream die!... for high scores.

[Ed Oscuro]

+1 G4 - Twingalaxies Complex

A very enlightening topic! Just reading this has given me a better idea of what TwinGalaxies is about (not to mention reminded me that they're around). Here's to hoping for many more tens of thousands of high scores in the future.

[Raedon]

Back and to the right... Back and to the right... Back and to the right..

[Raedon]

+1 G4 - Twingalaxies Complex

A very enlightening topic! Just reading this has given me a better idea of what TwinGalaxies is about (not to mention reminded me that they're around). Here's to hoping for many more tens of thousands of high scores in the future.

Agreed.. G4 was poorly run during it's non-techtv/g4 days. Lets hope they both get better in the future..

Though if times are hard for them, Morgan Webb can stay at my place..

[Berserker]

Back and to the right... Back and to the right... Back and to the right..