The world of competitive video gaming is strange and unusual, and no corner of the competitive gaming world is stranger and more unusual than vintage video game records. You know, those greybearded dudes who invest shitloads of time into decades-old video games trying to break records? Yeah, those guys.
Well, the oldest video game record currently standing – which has stood since 1982 – has been officially struck down after arbiters determined that it was literally impossible.
The record in question is for the Atari 2600 racing game Dragster, and was until this morning held by Todd Rogers. This is Dragster, by the way. Yes, it looks boring as fuck.
Rogers’ record was 5.51 seconds. As you can see in the above video – which finishes the race in 5.57 seconds – there isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room there. Twin Galaxies, the organisation which tracks video game records and high scores, agreed that Rogers’ record was bullshit:
Based on the complete body of evidence presented in this official dispute thread, Twin Galaxies administrative staff has unanimously decided to remove all of Todd Rogers’ scores as well as ban him from participating in our competitive leaderboards. The presented software analysis model concluded that achieving score times of less than 5.57 seconds is not possible under standard and normal play conditions.
Sad! So how did Rogers’ record hold – and even land in the Guinness Book of World Records? In 1982, Rogers submitted his fantastic score to Activision’s official fan newsletter, which the company recognised in print. Two other people in that same newsletter claimed to have hit that elusive 5.51 second score, though no one has been able to find them.
It’s not known exactly how Activision certified his score back then, but it’s probably reasonably unlikely that a fan newsletter had the same kind of obsessive evaluation metrics as something like Twin Galaxies.
Todd Rogers is currently not commenting on the situation – possibly because in the grand scheme of things absolutely nobody gives a shit about 35-year-old Dragster records. Just know: if you lie about your video game high score, nerds will find out. Even if it’s decades later.
