Todd Rogers banned from Twin Galaxies and records removed

[Fr0st]

It would be funny if Guinness World records had a special "shame" section for notable cheaters holding former records, like Todd Rodgers, Lance Armstrong, et al...Previous world record holders and the how and why their records were scrubbed from the previous edition record books. Kinda like how some world class art meuseums have special "forgeries" exhibits showcasing famous fakes.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Fr0st

[Supergun]

I keep finding myself grabbing my head, wondering why the fuck anyone cares if these people cheated or not. Will it change your life? No!

 

Or is it the jealous part of you, wondering why you didn't monetize bullshit?

 

<majorly self censored>

I completely understand & agree to an extent with what your saying. And your right, it doesn't really matter at all. But for some reason, it's a topic that has different effects on different people.

 

For me, the main thing that concerns me is the permanent long term effect that it will now have.

 

As an example, everytime we get on an airplane in this country, we have to take off our shoes at security just because of some dumb ass. Well now, because of this (wether it's ever even proven to have been faked or not) only live scores, achieved on real hardware with real software and with witnesses and in controlled environments will ever be completely accepted.

[SIO2]

Yep, I am tired of the everybody gets treated like the bad actor approach. I think you get what you expect from people. Expect the worst and you will get more of that because, it really sets up a game. The rule maker is saying I bet you can't cheat now and some people view that as a challenge and say oh yeah?.... Lots of people these days think they are smarter than the other person. So, of course they could get away with what that idiot could not.

Edited February 3, 2018 by SIO2

[Northcoastgamer]

I keep finding myself grabbing my head, wondering why the fuck anyone cares if these people cheated or not. Will it change your life? No!

 

Or is it the jealous part of you, wondering why you didn't monetize bullshit?

 

For the same reason you get pissed off after finding out that a game you have helped to get on cartridge has now been dupped and on Ebay for sale. Many people for many years have been trying to beat or tie the "King of Lies" VCS scores. Now we find out it's been a buncha BS! Some of us have a burning passion for games from 35-40 years even still today, myself included. Some of the folks have passed away. Far from jealousy or envy. THAT"S WHY!

[+x=usr(1536)]

 

I keep finding myself grabbing my head, wondering why the fuck anyone cares if these people cheated or not. Will it change your life? No!

 

Or is it the jealous part of you, wondering why you didn't monetize bullshit?

 

For the same reason you get pissed off after finding out that a game you have helped to get on cartridge has now been dupped and on Ebay for sale. Many people for many years have been trying to beat or tie the "King of Lies" VCS scores. Now we find out it's been a buncha BS! Some of us have a burning passion for games from 35-40 years even still today, myself included. Some of the folks have passed away. Far from jealousy or envy. THAT"S WHY!

 

 

Please help me to understand something about this whole saga, and bear in mind that I'm asking this as someone who just plays games and has no interest in chasing high scores other than his own:

 

If it was known (or at least strongly-suspected) for years that Todd Rogers had posted unachieveable high scores, why, then, did people continue to try to beat them? What possible value could there be in investing time, emotion, and effort in taking them down?

 

This is something I genuinely do not understand. Clarification would be appreciated.

[Northcoastgamer]

It's not rocket science. It's something I and others enjoy doing. It's called self satisfaction.

[SIO2]

 

Please help me to understand something about this whole saga, and bear in mind that I'm asking this as someone who just plays games and has no interest in chasing high scores other than his own:

 

If it was known (or at least strongly-suspected) for years that Todd Rogers had posted unachieveable high scores, why, then, did people continue to try to beat them? What possible value could there be in investing time, emotion, and effort in taking them down?

 

This is something I genuinely do not understand. Clarification would be appreciated.

 

Well, if everyone accepts TG as THE official record keeper and TG endorses a fake score then the only way the person who rightly deserves to be listed there gets that opportunity is by besting the posted score - that is why.

 

I know I would be really ticked if with no proof TG gave Todd the record for highest number of plays attempts at the Royal Game of Ur PC version when that honor is rightly mine.

Edited February 3, 2018 by SIO2

[+x=usr(1536)]

It's not rocket science. It's something I and others enjoy doing. It's called self satisfaction.

 

Sure, that part of it makes sense. That's part of having hobbies and interests, and I get it.

 

But I'm really not understanding why anyone would want to go after a record that was known to be questionable at best. Not asking the question to be difficult; I just genuinely don't comprehend that part of it and, since you have the background to give some insight into that, would appreciate it if you would.

[Northcoastgamer]

Well, you are obviously not a gamer like myself, so not matter what I say, you'll never understand or get it.

[SIO2]

I just wanted to note that no matter what Todd or TG says, I hold the record for the largest number of plays of Pac-man without showing any significant improvement. This is no minor feat having been achieved on multiple hardware / software combos and spanning more than 30 years.

 

Seriously though, I do understand why it is a big deal to some people and I hope they get their long due recognition.

Edited February 3, 2018 by SIO2

[+x=usr(1536)]

Well, if everyone accepts TG as THE official record keeper and TG endorses a fake score then the only way the person who rightly deserves to be listed there gets that opportunity is by besting the posted score - that is why.

 

Sure, and that part makes sense. But from what I gather, Todd's scores on many games were - for a number of years - considered questionable at best. Certainly, this was something that I'd heard about years ago and I'm not even involved in chasing records, so it was evidently fairly open knowledge that some of the scores were likely unrealistic.

 

With this being the case, I'm not understanding why anyone would go after those scores. To see if it really could be done, sure - I can see that. But if there's enough suspicion over a score (or blatantly-obvious indicators that it's probably not genuine), what is the benefit in trying to better it beyond just practice, or establishing a score at a lower ranking on the board pending revocation of the questionable score?

 

I'll be completely up-front here in admitting that I don't really understand all the finer points of chasing record scores. It's just not something I've had any real involvement with outside of trying to better my own scores, so there are almost certainly aspects of doing so that I'm just completely unaware of. If my questions seem completely dense, it's just down to this being an area I'm trying to understand better than I do currently.

 

I know I would be really ticked if TG gave Todd the record for highest number of plays attempts at the Royal Game of Ur PC version when that honor is rightly mine.

Completely understandable; there's no confusion on my behalf regarding that point.

[Supergun]

Don't get me wrong, I love high scores. And I've been writing down my personal high scores since the early 80's. And one of the reasons I still enjoy playing Atari is trying to beat them & make them harder for others to beat.

 

Whenever guests play Atari with me, I show them my lists of scores, and at the top of the sheets it says: "beat these scores for bragging rights!" They rarely even come close.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Well, you are obviously not a gamer like myself, so not matter what I say, you'll never understand or get it.

 

Good job of explaining it to someone who doesn't get it so that they can better their understanding. Well done! Rest comfortably on your laurels; I'll be sure to cease caring about... Now.

Edited February 3, 2018 by x=usr(1536)

[Northcoastgamer]

It's like the Geico commercials. This is Jeff A. He has been playing video games for 40 years. Countless hours spent looking at a T.V. with a controller in hand chasing high scores. Why? Because if you are Jeff A. it's what you do.

[keepdreamin]

Some of those scores he had entered reminded me of Dr. Evil.

 

"So you got 58,078 in Centipede? How about 65 Millllliiioooooon!"

 

Edited February 3, 2018 by keepdreamin

[Supergun]

But you know, if you adjust it for a possible input error, it doesn't sound so crazy. Such as, what if it were 65,000 then at that point, it's believable when compared to 58,078

[Turbo-Torch]

If it was known (or at least strongly-suspected) for years that Todd Rogers had posted unachieveable high scores, why, then, did people continue to try to beat them?

 

Because the world is full of gullible people who believe anything. If you claimed you held your breath for 20 minutes and produced a doctored up video of it, some dumbass will try to outdo you, even if it means they die trying.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Turbo-Torch

[Cobra Kai]

 

Sure, that part of it makes sense. That's part of having hobbies and interests, and I get it.

 

But I'm really not understanding why anyone would want to go after a record that was known to be questionable at best. Not asking the question to be difficult; I just genuinely don't comprehend that part of it and, since you have the background to give some insight into that, would appreciate it if you would.

It was thought to be questionable, never proven to be fake no matter how much people protested it. Until it was proven that it's fake, it was worth it to try and match or beat the score. What's not to understand?

[+x=usr(1536)]

It was thought to be questionable, never proven to be fake no matter how much people protested it. Until it was proven that it's fake, it was worth it to try and match or beat the score. What's not to understand?

 

Actually, that does help my understanding rather a lot.

 

The difference between a suspected high score and a revoked one wasn't lost on me, but somehow I hadn't made the association that one that was just suspected was one that would continue to be competed against until it was revoked. Now I understand why people were putting effort into beating them even though there was good reason to believe them to be invalid.

 

Obvious on the face of it, really. Thanks for the clarification.

[+thegoldenband]

I keep finding myself grabbing my head, wondering why the fuck anyone cares if these people cheated or not.

That cuts both ways, though, doesn't it? The only reason anyone knows their names in the first place -- and the only reason they've reaped press attention, plus financial and other rewards -- is because of their achievements.

 

It's big news when we find out that an athlete was doping in past competitions, even ones that happened over a decade ago. Poker and chess cheats reliably get mainstream media interest. So we seem to care as a culture about integrity in sports and gaming, which makes sense. Lots of us feel like we got screwed and treated unfairly somewhere along the way, or cheated out of something that was rightfully ours, so stories like those strike a chord.

 

I suppose the next question is whether video gaming achievements deserve any attention in the first place. Last I checked, the video gaming industry is now generating more revenue than the NFL, MLB, and NHL combined, so -- if money is power -- it can't be that video gaming itself is too weak and marginal to count, or that we should be embarrassed to care about it.

 

So is it retrogaming -- is it stupid or embarrassing to care about old games, then? Well, pretty much every teenager I know can hum the Super Mario Bros. theme and knows what Atari is, and tons of them watch Twitch religiously, including streams of old games. Plus records like Darbian's in SMB seem to have gotten a lot of press attention; people appreciate his virtuosity. So that doesn't seem to compute.

 

Of course it's totally reasonable to argue that gaming itself shouldn't be taken seriously, that it's frivolous and doesn't deserve respect because it's not "real", just entertainment. Problem is, when you take away everything in life that can quite reasonably be described that way -- film, literature, art, music -- you take away a lot of people's favorite reasons to get out of bed in the morning!

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

 

VCRs were somewhat common in '82. My aunt and uncle had one, and they were far from rich. I remember watching the movie Airplane on videotape at their house in the early '80s when I was 6 or 7 years old; it was the first movie I ever saw on videotape. VCRs didn't become something that "everyone" had until the mid to late '80s when the cheapest ones got down to about $200.

 

However, VCRs capable of a perfect still-frame were always rare. 4-head models had a much better still-frame function than standard 2-head models, but even those weren't usually perfect. The VCR we had when I was a kid happened to be one of the very few that had a perfect still frame function (General Electric VG-7720, 4-head, HQ, manufactured by Panasonic). It wasn't even an expensive one; $250 at Sears, Christmas 1988. You can see how perfect the still-frame function on that particular model is here - https://youtu.be/7PRm0CLb1vg?t=1m17s

 

I don't know if there were any models available in '82 that had a perfect still-frame, though there were probably some with a good enough still-frame.

 

 

 

 

Having $1000+ of disposable income to toss at the latest "fad" piece of unproven technology may not have labeled you as "rich", but certainly above the station the people in my neighborhood were in. IIRC- I paid $350(on sale) for one of the cheaper models in '86, and even that was a "bank account buster" for me.

 

So, yeah.... in '82, the only people who had them were "well off", or highly subsidizing the porn industry.

 

Not trying to argue with you, but these were my teen years, and I still remember them well.

 

Kevin remembering a 5.43 and then thinking it had been listed in Activision magazine is a good example of false memory syndrome. I find it interesting how in the modern era when you no longer have to rely on memory, nobody can get below 5.57, and code analysis also only goes to 5.57.

 

But in all honesty I've spent entirely too much energy worrying about Todd's lack of proof. With the ENTIRE world effectively thinking he's a cheater/liar/fraud, the first item on his agenda would be to conclusively prove he can pull off a 5.51 legit. I mean, think about how much of an 'in your face' moment that would be. Guinness would have to apologize, TG would have to apologize, thousands of 'haters' would have to apologize, omingamer and myself would have to apologize, etc. It would truly be the most triumphant moment in his entire life. Yet what does Todd do? He pulls a "well now I'm never going to prove it because haters were mean to me". That's not something an innocent person says. That's something a guilty person does to prevent from ever admitting the truth. The man is disgraced, banned, and forever tarnished. He can ride off into the sunset having never proven anyone wrong about the 5.57 limit. That's the last I have to say about him, and I'm not going to waste any more time or energy on him

 

I agree. If it were ME, I'd be marathon practicing just to shove it in everyone's faces. But that's the difference in mentality between people, I guess.

 

 

You don't even need to go that far. You can open the ROM in the Stella debugger and change the values directly, and have it display whatever you want. So you don't need to hack the ROM, or edit any pictures. This has been possible (in Stella at least) for over 10 years.

 

EDIT: Here's one directly from Stella:

Dragster (1980) (Activision).png

 

Edit $B3 for seconds, $B5 for subseconds in the RIOT RAM. Took 5.51 seconds (no pun intended).

 

I fixed that for you.

 

 

Because the world is full of gullible people who believe anything. If you claimed you held your breath for 20 minutes and produced a doctored up video of it, some dumbass will try to outdo you, even if it means they die trying.

 

Two words: Tide. Pods.

[MaximRecoil]

 

Having $1000+ of disposable income to toss at the latest "fad" piece of unproven technology may not have labeled you as "rich", but certainly above the station the people in my neighborhood were in. IIRC- I paid $350(on sale) for one of the cheaper models in '86, and even that was a "bank account buster" for me.

 

VCRs could be had for a lot less than $1,000 in 1982. There's one on page 16 of the 1982 Sears Wish Book catalog for $788, and that's a 4-head Betamax machine. VHS machines were typically cheaper than Betamax machines, and standard 2-head VCRs were typically cheaper than 4-head VCRs.

 

According to this New York Times article from 1984, the average price of a VCR in 1982 was $640; that being the average price means they could be had new for cheaper than that; probably around $500, maybe even $450. Also, VCRs had been on the market since the mid 1970s, so there would have been used ones out there as well. A pawn shop would have been a likely place to find one, or in the classified ads (especially those weekly publications that are full of classified ads such as the "Uncle Henry's" here in Maine).

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

 

VCRs could be had for a lot less than $1,000 in 1982. There's one on page 16 of the 1982 Sears Wish Book catalog for $788, and that's a 4-head Betamax machine. VHS machines were typically cheaper than Betamax machines, and standard 2-head VCRs were typically cheaper than 4-head VCRs.

 

According to this New York Times article from 1984, the average price of a VCR in 1982 was $640; that being the average price means they could be had new for cheaper than that; probably around $500, maybe even $450. Also, VCRs had been on the market since the mid 1970s, so there would have been used ones out there as well. A pawn shop would have been a likely place to find one, or in the classified ads (especially those weekly publications that are full of classified ads such as the "Uncle Henry's" here in Maine).

 

Could be a difference in locales. We weren't really that close to "pawn shops", so we didn't frequent them. Also didn't read those "local" papers much, as you had to go looking for them(unlike the "pay" papers that got delivered). I'm only saying that they weren't super common, at least in my area. In fact, the first "video store" that popped up locally to us, didn't open until '87. There was one semi-local(within driving distance)... but damned if I can remember the name of it. It was a major "chain", pre-Blockbuster. I want to say it opened in '85, but I can't swear to it.

 

In the early 80s, I was working on building up my home computer set up(Commodore 64, for reference).... which was pricey as Hell(even on discounts). It's funny, thinking back to the prices of the day... I didn't get a "brand new" monitor until I bought my first Amiga in '91. Mostly because they were so expensive.

[MaximRecoil]

 

Could be a difference in locales. We weren't really that close to "pawn shops", so we didn't frequent them. Also didn't read those "local" papers much, as you had to go looking for them(unlike the "pay" papers that got delivered). I'm only saying that they weren't super common, at least in my area.

 

They weren't super common here either, but neither were they rare. I've always pegged '82 as the year that VCRs were just starting to become mainstream. Also, keep in mind that VCRs could be rented as well, and that only cost $5 a night at my local video store in the '80s.

 

In fact, the first "video store" that popped up locally to us, didn't open until '87. There was one semi-local(within driving distance)... but damned if I can remember the name of it. It was a major "chain", pre-Blockbuster. I want to say it opened in '85, but I can't swear to it.

 

Our first video store, See Zee Video, opened in '81 in my small town (population of approximately 5,000 people at the time). By '87 I was renting movies all the time (watching them at friends' houses; my family didn't get a VCR until Christmas of '88), and there were 5 places in town where you could rent movies. See Zee Video was still the only dedicated video rental store in town, but you could also rent them at the grocery store, the drug store, and at two different convenience stores.

Edited February 4, 2018 by MaximRecoil

[R.Cade]

Now Billy Mitchell has been caught cheating and was removed from Donkey Kong scoreboard.

 

I wonder why he gets to keep his other records and it not banned?