This post is about two things. The completely ridiculous game scoring system that Twin Galaxies uses to track world wide game scores and the reviews of arcade and gamer documentaries in which the reviewer proposes that these people live in their own world when in reality that is what we all do.

Let’s start with this scoring system. I have been going over a lot of stuff at the Twin Galaxies site and truthfully I think their system is totally fucked. First off they track too many games. Do we really need to track every single Atari 2600 game and really who gives a shit about the Atari 7200? There are people boasting they have 400+ records but you will find that many of the games have only one person listed. If only one country shows up at the Olympics is it even worth recording the score. They need to narrow it down because this is just crazy. Then they actually have the scores for MAME games. You don’t even have to send in a video(More on video later). MAME can record the game and play it back. You really don’t know who played the game so this makes score keeping irrelevant. Why track it when it’s not trackable?

Now on to videos. I am totally against sending in videos and having them count as a world record. This is completely retarded. What sport (and people in twin galaxies love to compare game playing to athleticism) let’s you turn in a video? You can’t do your best pole vault and send a video tape to the Olympics. How utterly and crazy that would be. I’m sorry but some of the highest scores are video and the gap between the highest score and the second is huge. I’m not saying that they are cheating but if you don’t do it live then there is always suspicion. The rules are all over the place. If you turn in a video tape on a popular game and they don’t know you they say they may question how you got the score. Well if the fucking video isn’t good enough don’t question someone’s honor. I was looking at one high score and the verification was “witness”. What the hell does that mean? Either a referee saw it or he didn’t. Who decides who is trustworthy enough to be a witness? Sounds like an inclusive little club if you ask me. Here is a good example of weird scoring. Dig Dug has three records. One for Marathon, one for something, and one for the playing on the anniversary machines. Ok look what the hell do you need a marathon for? Dig Dug has a kill screen (Yes I know Atari fixed it later) Pick a machine and stick with it. You don’t have two pole vault scores depending on the type of pole used do you? The second record has one record holder and I can’t figure out how it’s different than the first which leads me to my other bitch. An explanation on their site that lays out what the different things mean on the records. Like wtf is “witness”?

The most ideal way is to ONLY accept scores done live at a competition. If they want to talk about how these scores are all important and so hard to get then start treating it like a world class organization. The only reason Guinness accepts these scores is because it’s the only source. Live scores only with a Guiness rep is the solution. Once a year have a competition. Don’t tell me you can’t get some sponsors in the industry.This should be the Olympics of gaming not some irrelevant scoreboard full of hodgepodge scoring that makes little sense and cause confusion. I have seen a lot of great players not submitting because they system is so fucked.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is all these reviews of movies like King of Kong in which the reviewer points out that these guys competing and spending an inordinate amount of time playing old arcade games live in a bubble of self importance. Well I hate to break it to all your wanna be reviewers but EVERYONE lives in some sort of bubble where they want to feel important. Most of these reviewers live in the Blogoshpere bubble where they want to feel important but in the scheme of things they are never going to be Siskel and Ebert so if you want to review the movie remember that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

PS: If you got the high score on Adventure for the 2600 good for you but there is a reason why hackey sack isn’t an Olympic sport.