Todd Rogers (born December 1, 1964) is an American video game player who has been described as the first professional video game player.
[ In 1986, he was invited to be part of the U.S. National Video Game Team. He had previously been recognized by ]Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...
for having achieved many record-setting high scores, but many of his records were later disputed for a lack of verifying evidence or found to be impossible to achieve. In January 2018, the Twin Galaxies
Twin Galaxies is an organization and social media platform for people involved in the culture and activity of playing video games. It facilitates their interaction as well as their competition and recognizes their achievements.
Twin Galaxie ...
record database removed all of his scores from their leaderboards and banned him permanently, and Guinness World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
stripped his records.[
]
Disputed records
Several of Todd Rogers' records have come under scrutiny for being seemingly impossible or lacking sufficient proof. In 2002, Robert Mruczek, then chief referee at Twin Galaxies, officially rescinded Todd's record time in ''Barnstorming'' after other players pointed out that his time of 32.04 seconds did not appear to be possible, even when the game was hacked to remove all obstacles. Upon further investigation, Twin Galaxies referees were unable to find independent verification for this time, having instead been relying on erroneous information from Activision.[
As listed on the Twin Galaxies leaderboard until January 2018, Rogers's record in the 1980 Activision game '' Dragster'' was a time of 5.51 seconds from 1982.][ At the time, Activision verified high scores by ]Polaroid
Polaroid may refer to:
* Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras
* Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation
* Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs
* Polar ...
. According to Rogers, after he submitted a photo of this time, he was called by Activision who asked him to verify how he achieved such a score, because they had programmed a 'perfect run' of the game and were unable to achieve better than a 5.54. The game's programmer David Crane would later confirm that he had a vague recollection of programming test runs, but didn't remember the results. In 2012, Todd received a Guinness World Record
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
for the longest-standing video game score record, for his 1982 Dragster record. In 2017, a speedrun
Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and can exploit glit ...
ner named Eric "Omnigamer" Koziel disassembled the game's code and concluded that the fastest possible time was 5.57 seconds. With a tick time of 0.03s the record claim is two ticks faster than Omnigamer's data and one tick faster than the reported Activision 'perfect run'.[
Prior to 2018, several other Todd Rogers scores had been individually disputed or removed as well, including his score of 15 million points in the Atari 2600 port of '']Donkey Kong
is a video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and owned by Nintendo. It follows the adventures of a gorilla named Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong and his clan of other Ape, apes and monkeys. The franchise primarily consists of plat ...
'' (the record at the time was only 1.4 million) or his score on ''Centipede
Centipedes (from New Latin , "hundred", and Latin , " foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', lip, and New Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, an ...
'' for the Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200 is a home video game console introduced in 1982 by Atari, Inc. as a higher-end complement for the popular Atari Video Computer System. The VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600 at the time of the 5200' ...
, for which he claimed a score of exactly 65,000,000, with the next-best-recorded score being 58,078.[ Other disputed scores included '' Wabbit'' (where he had a recorded score of 1,698, but the score only increases in increments of 5, and the game normally ends when the player reaches 1,300 points), ''Fathom'' (where, based upon other players' verified scores and playtimes, his claimed record would have taken over 325 hours of play to achieve),][ and ]Legendary Axe
''The Legendary Axe'' (魔境伝説 ''Makyō Densetsu'' in Japan) is a horizontal platform video game for the TurboGrafx-16. It was developed and published by Victor Musical Industries in Japan and by NEC in North America. It was released in Japa ...
, in which his claimed score is 99,999,990 but the game score only progresses in increments of 50.
On January 23, 2018, Twin Galaxies posted an interview with Activision's David Crane, programmer of ''Dragster'', who expressed that he had no "doubt that ogersachieved the scores he claims". Around the same time, YouTuber Apollo Legend posted a video of evidence they had gathered from multiple sources and called upon Twin Galaxies to take action against Rogers's scores, while Twin Galaxies had an ongoing investigation. On January 29, 2018, in the wake of many disputes being raised and several scores being proven impossible, Twin Galaxies decided to remove all of his scores and ban him from the site entirely. They notified ''Guinness World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'' regarding their decision. The next day, Guinness stripped all of Rogers' records.
See also
* Billy Mitchell
William Lendrum Mitchell (December 29, 1879 – February 19, 1936) was a United States Army officer who is regarded as the father of the United States Air Force.
Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, command ...
* Cheating in video games
Cheating in video games involves a video game player using various methods to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay, usually in order to make the game easier. Cheats may be activated from within the game itself (a cheat code implemented by ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogers, Todd
1964 births
Living people
People from Brooksville, Florida
School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
People from Chicago
Video game controversies
American confidence tricksters