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 Galaxies is the official supplier of video game records to Guinness World Records.

History

In mid-1981, Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies, Inc., visited more than 100 video game arcades over four months, recording the high scores that he found on each game.

On November 10, 1981 he opened his arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, naming it Twin Galaxies.

On February 9, 1982, his database of records was released publicly as the Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard.

Twin Galaxies became known as the official scoreboard, arranging contests between top players. Twin Galaxies' first event attracted international media attention for gathering the first teams of video game stars. Top players in North Carolina and California were formed into state teams that faced off in a "California Challenges North Carolina All-Star Playoff", playing in 17 different games in Lakewood, California, and Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. California defeated North Carolina 10–7 over the weekend of August 27–30, 1982.

Similar competitions were also conducted during the summers of 1983 and 1984 when Day organized the players in many U.S. states to form teams and compete in high-score contests for the ''Guinness Book of World Records''. The states included California, North Carolina, Washington, Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan, Idaho, Florida, New York, Oklahoma, Alaska, Iowa and Kansas.

On November 30, 1982, Ottumwa mayor Jerry Parker declared the town "Video Game Capital of the World", a claim that was backed up by Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, Atari and the Amusement Game Manufacturers Association in a ceremony at Twin Galaxies on March 19, 1983.

Twin Galaxies' status as the official scorekeeper was further enhanced by support from the major video game publications of the early 1980s. Beginning in the summer of 1982, ''Video Games'' magazine and '' Joystik'' magazine published full-page high-score charts taken from Twin Galaxies' data. These high-score tables were published during the entire lives of these magazines. Additional high-score charts also appeared in "''Videogiochi"'' (Milan, Italy), '' Computer Games'', ''Video Game Player'' magazine and ''Electronic Fun'' magazine. Twin Galaxies' high-score charts also appeared in ''USA Today'' (April 22, 1983), ''Games'' magazine and were distributed sporadically in 1982 and 1983 by the Knight-Ridder news service as an occasional news feature, originating from the ''Charlotte Observer''.

Twin Galaxies brought top players together on November 7, 1982, to be photographed by ''Life'' magazine. This photo session is the subject of a documentary film, '' Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade'', which was screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. On January 8–9, 1983, Twin Galaxies organized the first significant video-game championship, to crown a world champion. This event was filmed in Ottumwa by ABC-TV's ''That's Incredible!'' and was aired on the night of February 21, 1983.Twin Galaxies' Coronation Day Crowns Video's Best of '83 - RePlay Magazine, February 1, 1984

In March 1983, Twin Galaxies was contracted by the Electronic Circus to assemble a professional troupe of video game superstars who would travel with the Circus as an "act." With Walter Day hired as the "Circus Ringmaster", Twin Galaxies supplied a squad of 15 world-record holders on Twin Galaxies' high-score tables. Though the Circus was scheduled to visit 40 cities in North America, its Boston inaugural performance, opening in the Bayside Exposition Ctr. on July 15, 1983, lasted only five days, closing on July 19. The players selected by Twin Galaxies for the Circus are believed to be history's first professionally contracted video game players.

On July 25, 1983, Twin Galaxies established the professional U.S. National Video Game Team, the first such, with Walter Day as team captain. The USNVGT toured the United States during the summer of 1983 in a 44-foot GMC bus filled with arcade games, appearing at arcades around the nation and conducting the 1983 Video Game Masters Tournament, the results of which were published in the 1984 U.S. edition of ''Guinness World Records''. Under the direction of Day, functioning as an assistant editor for the ''Guinness Book'' in charge of video-game scores, the USNVGT gathered annual contest results that were published in the 1984—1986 U.S. editions.

In September 1983, the USNVGT visited the Italian and Japanese Embassies in Washington D.C. to issue challenges for an international video game championship.

In 1987, the USNVGT toured Europe where it defeated a team of UK video game superstars. Every month between 1991 and 1994, the U.S. publication ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM''), published a full-page high-score table titled "The U.S. National Video Game Team's International Scoreboard".

In 1988, the Guinness Book of World records stopped publishing records from Twin Galaxies due to a decline in interest for arcade games.

On February 8, 1998, ''Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records'' was published. It is a 984-page book containing scores compiled since 1981. A second edition was published as a three-volume set in 2007. A third edition was published in 2009.

In December of 2009, Owner Pete Bouvier promoted Richard Booth to Director of Business Development, Matthew Bradford to Director of Editorial, and alongside David Nelson, Director of Adjudication, Twin Galaxies began to rebuild its brand as Twin Galaxies International. The company proceeded to partner with 2K Games, Microsoft, Nintendo, and G4TV.

Founder Walter Day left Twin Galaxies in 2010 to pursue a career in music, and since then ownership of Twin Galaxies has changed hands several times. In 2013, Twin Galaxies began charging a fee for score submissions.

In March 2014, Jace Hall announced that he was the new "Head Custodian and Caretaker of the TWIN GALAXIES organization". On April 28, 2014, the full Twin Galaxies website, including the high score database and forum content, came back online.

U.S. National Video Game Team

The U.S. National Video Game Team was founded on July 25, 1983, in Ottumwa, Iowa by Walter Day and the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard.

Timeline

* July 25, 1983; The Team was founded in Ottumwa, Iowa by the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard with Walter Day as Team Captain.
* August 11, 1983; Embarked on a national tour to conduct the 1983 Video Game Masters Tournament.
* Cystic Fibrosis Video Game Challenge Week in Ottumwa, August 8, 1983
* Letter from Michigan House of Representatives. Harold Sawyer to USNVGT, August 16, 1983
* August 24, 1983; U.S. National Video Game Team inspired Civic Proclamations around the USA.
* September 15, 1983; Conducted a tour of the East Coast of the United States on behalf of ''Video Game Player Magazine'' to verify excessive high-score claims submitted by players.
* September 24, 1983; Hand-delivered official documents to the Japanese and Italian Embassies in Washington, D.C., challenging these countries to an International Video Championship.
* November 15, 1983; Ottumwa Proclamation to the People of the Country of Italy, November 15, 1983
* January 14, 1984; Working with the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, the USNVGT conducted the 1984 Coronation Day to crown the 1983 players, manufacturers, and magazines of the past year.
* February 12, 1984; The U.S. National Video Game Team attends the February 1984 AMOA Expo in New Orleans, beginning a long tradition of reviewing new games for the video game industry.
* February 10-February 12, 1984; Canada-USA Video Game Team Conference is organized by USNVGT.
* April 12, 1985; The Red Cross Video Game Team Invites President Ronald Reagan to Join The Team
* April 8, 1986; The U.S. National Video Game Team is authorized by the Guinness Book of World Records to organize contests.
* April 1, 1987; U.S. National Video Game Team Announces its 1987 "Best Games" at the ACME.
* April 1, 1987; U.S. National Video Game Team Conducts 1987 Video Game Masters Tournament for Guinness.
* July 12, 1987; The U.S. National Video Game Team organizes the 1987 Video Game Masters Tournament for Guinness Record Book.

Events

Video Game Film Festival

Twin Galaxies organized the first Video Game Film Festival on June 2, 2001, at the Funspot Family Fun Center in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire as a vehicle to document the cultural impact that video games have exerted on society.

Console Video Game World Championships

Twin Galaxies conducted the first Console Video Game World Championship during Twin Galaxies' 1st Annual Twin Galaxies' Video Game Festival at the Mall of America, Bloomington, Minnesota, on the weekend of July 20–22, 2001. This event is also known as the Console Game World Championship and had originally been planned for March 24–25, 2001 at the Sheraton Dallas Brookhollow Hotel in Dallas, Texas, but was moved forward to the Mall of America event.

The second Console Video Game World Championship was held the weekend of July 12–14, 2002, at the 2nd Annual Twin Galaxies' Video Game Festival at the Mall of America.

Classic Video Game World Championship

Twin Galaxies conducted the first "Classic Video Game World Championship" on June 2–4, 2001 at the Funspot Family Fun Center in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. The winner of this renewed video game contest was Dwayne Richard with Donald Hayes coming in second place. This event was descended from the Coronation Day Championships that were conducted by Twin Galaxies in 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, and 2000. The 2nd "Classic Video Game World Championship" was conducted on the weekend of June 30–July 2, 2002. The winner was Dwayne Richard with Donald Hayes again coming in second place. This was the last year the contest was in this format. The following years had the Funspot location organizing and running the contest in a more informal arcade "Player of the Year," format.

In July 2001 and 2002, Twin Galaxies conducted the annual Twin Galaxies' Video Game Festivals at the Mall of America, attracting approximately 50,000–75,000 attendees each year.

On August 15, 2005, Walter Day and the staff of Twin Galaxies led a contingent of USA and UK video game players to Paris, France, where they delivered an eight-foot (2.4 meters) tall Proclamation that proposed a "London vs. Paris" Video Game Championship.

On September 24, 2005, The U.S. National Video Game Team revived and formed a New England Chapter with Walter Day as the national team captain and David Nelson of Derry, New Hampshire, as the chapter captain.

Iron Man Contest

In the first week of July 1985, Twin Galaxies conducted the 1st Twin Galaxies Iron Man Contest. The goal of the Iron Man competition was simple: competitors had to continue playing their game for as long as they could. If anyone passed 100 hours, they would be awarded a $10,000 prize from the Sports Achievement Association.

The winner of the contest was 18-year-old James Vollandt, who carried his ''Joust'' game for 67½ hours. The game malfunctioned at around 58 hours, wiping out all of his 210 extra lives. However, he earned back forty of them. He left the game voluntarily with a record-breaking score of 107,216,700 points, a record that stood until 2010 when John McAllister broke the record over a live streaming video on justin.tv.

In film

In 2007, a film about Twin Galaxies and video game champions in the 1980s, '' Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade'', was screened at the Sundance Film Festival.

'' The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters'', a feature documentary about retro arcade gamers, featuring Twin Galaxies, was released in theaters on August 24, 2007. The documentary was critical of Twin Galaxies' handling of challenges to long-established top scores and suggested that its organizational structure is rife with conflicts of interest.

''Frag'', a feature documentary about modern professional gamers, was released on DVD on August 1, 2008, by Cohesion Productions of Cedar Falls, Iowa. The first ten minutes of the documentary covered Twin Galaxies' role as the pioneers of organized video game playing back in the early 1980s.

'' Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler'', a feature documentary about the video game Nibbler, was released worldwide in 2016. The film includes Twin Galaxies' history and the competition for high scores. Walter Day is featured throughout the film.

Cheating controversies

Records by both Todd Rogers and Billy Mitchell have been invalidated by Twin Galaxies after investigations that determined the scores were not genuine. Rogers was revealed to have entered bogus records into the database either by himself or his friend who was a referee at Twin Galaxies, whereas Mitchell was found to have used an emulator to reach certain scores while claiming to have played on an original arcade machine in violation of the Twin Galaxies rules.

Poster gallery

Since August 1, 1982, Twin Galaxies has been producing stylized posters to document gaming events.Twin Galaxies' Gallery of Posters, 1982-2008
Though the first dozen posters issued in the early 1980s had printing runs of 500 – 1,000 copies each, the posters created in later years have been issued as limited editions with only 20-24 copies produced.

Twin Galaxies Contests and Events

See also

* Time attack
* Speedrun

References

External links

*

Twitch channel

{{Speedrunning

Esports teams based in the United States
Online game databases
World record databases
Video game culture
Video game organizations
Companies based in Iowa
Ottumwa, Iowa
Esports organizations
Speedrunning communities
Organizations established in 1981
Esports websites