Guinness to legitimize couch potatoes with video game records
by Tony Carnevale 
{ Apr 11th 2007 at 5:21PM }
Guinness is poised to release a new series of record books with specific themes, and the first one is titled Guinness World Records Videogame Edition 2008. The tome will include stats on "which pro gamers earn the most money," "fastest times," "sales figures," and this perplexing nugget: "the single highest score ever achieved in a game." Really? It seems like anyone could easily beat that record by creating their own game with ridiculous scoring. ("Press 'x' to score eleventy bajillion points, to the power of infinity.") But who are we to criticize? We should just be psyched that somebody's making us feel like we're achieving something by spending the next month with a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels and Super Paper Mario.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mccomber @ Apr 11th 2007 5:26PM
Did anyone else get excited about thoughts of free beer when they saw that headline?
Shmil @ Apr 11th 2007 5:33PM
yes, yes i did
Tommy Morris @ Apr 11th 2007 5:36PM
DDR for XBOX has obnoxious extremely scoring. Step on the pad once and your score is well into 7 digit land. Easy world record material.
wackychan @ Apr 11th 2007 5:41PM
Too bad guiness tastes like diluted ass sweat.
Shmil @ Apr 11th 2007 5:46PM
wackychan your taste buds must be fucked up
that or you're too young to enjoy the taste of good beer
i feel sorry for you
enjoy your smirnoff ices
TheDonAndMikeShow @ Apr 11th 2007 5:47PM
Guinness has allowed their video game section to be filled by the poorly run and glaringly unfair group known as Twin Galaxies. Twin Galaxies is a closed membership society that disallows video game scores of players that they have personality differences with. Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day, in recent interviews, seems to have lost his mental capabilities and those that work under him have shown themselves to hold grudges against players that refuse to fall in line under Twin Galaxies social mess.
Quando @ Apr 11th 2007 6:14PM
Like I said, the Nobel Prize for Gaming cannot be far behind.
Judd @ Apr 11th 2007 6:14PM
I thought that Twin Galaxies already published a book like this: http://www.amazon.com/Twin-Galaxies-Official-Video-Pinball/dp/1887472258
The biggest score ever? Hmm... http://www.flickr.com/photos/12379136@N00/369308235/
He says 609 quintillion, when it's actually 60.9 quadrillion. Still an insane number.
wackychan @ Apr 11th 2007 6:27PM
"wackychan your taste buds must be fucked up
that or you're too young to enjoy the taste of good beer
i feel sorry for you
enjoy your smirnoff ices"
Ah, so you enjoy the taste of overpriced ass sweat. Good for you buddy. And no, I dont drink "smirnoff ices". Thats for the effeminate wussies.
thordis @ Apr 11th 2007 6:56PM
wackychan you douchebag... maybe if you cleared your mouth of all your daddy's cum you could taste the beer.
now go troll somewhere else, thank you.
wackychan @ Apr 11th 2007 7:43PM
"wackychan you douchebag... maybe if you cleared your mouth of all your daddy's cum you could taste the beer.
now go troll somewhere else, thank you."
Ah, so you fantasize about father/son incest while your sitting in the hot sun drinking ass sweat. Take your fantasies elsewhere please.
Rubang B @ Apr 11th 2007 11:18PM
Guinness the beer became popular across the north coast of Africa because it was the only beer that they could ship all the way across the Mediterranean without it going bad. This is because it is not liquid; it is muddy chocolate bread. It's still the most popular beer there to this day.
So what's the deal with this? Is Guinness the records just putting their name on the world records that Twin Galaxies has been compiling for decades?
All I know is this:
Nintendo has the Guinness world record for the largest bowl of spaghetti: 3,265 pounds.
http://games.ign.com/articles/368/368789p1.html
baby sea tuna @ Apr 12th 2007 9:24AM
Holy shit! That McCrary-io Bros. pic is pretty much genius. Good show!
Tim Balderramos @ Apr 12th 2007 5:09PM
Truth be told, Guinness and Twin Galaxies have a history of working together in the past. Guinness had largely resisted publishing high scores due to the ever-growing number of games, platforms, variations, etc. of video games (they had published tournament results in the 1980’s). Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies, was himself a contributing editor for Guinness before taking on the daunting task of building an “international recording house” of high scores dating back to 1981.
In response to the claims that TG is a closed society known for disallowing scores from those not within their circle, I would say this: Mr. Day and those who have worked with him have made extensive efforts to ensure the validity of high scores that appear in their database. TG has always been a non-profit organization and its staff have worked countless hours without compensation. Despite this, said staff has time and again gone the extra mile – figuratively and literally – to check on scores to ensure their legitimacy.
Given my experience with TG I would say that anyone who accuses TG of being “poorly run” or “unfair” is either unaware of the lengths some have gone to lay claim to a high score, or is among those whom have been called on a fraudulent score. Case in point: In 1983, a player was credited in the media with a Pac-Man high score of over 12 million before it was discovered that such a score was not possible (Pac-Man has a maximum possible score of 3,333,360). This player’s score was listed in a USA Today article – disenfranchising the legitimate scores of the day.
This is just one of the many cases which have led TG to have stringent submission and review policies. While said policies can be time-consuming, it is better than the alternative: Dooming other players to countless hours of trying to attain the unattainable when someone posts an inflated score.
With Mr. Day’s history with Guinness, I would imagine there’s some residual rapport there. I for one am interested in seeing this book when it comes out.