Twin Galaxies

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.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

On November 10, 1981, Day opened his arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, naming it Twin Galaxies.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

On February 9, 1982, Day's database of records was released publicly as the Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

Twin Galaxies' first event formed state teams from the top players in North Carolina and California, facing them off in a "California Challenges North Carolina All-Star Playoff." The teams played 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.[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1308 California Tops Carolina in Video Challenge - RePlay Magazine, October, 1982] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023173627/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1308 |date=2007-10-23 }}

In September, 1982, the book "Defending the Galaxy"{{ Cite book |last=Rubin |first=Michael |title=Defending the Galaxy |date=1982 |isbn=0-937404-17-9 | location=Triad Publishing, Gainesville, FL | pages=193–195 }} is released—and declaring Twin Galaxies as the "Video Game Capital of the World," and describing the California/North Carolina contest just held.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

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.[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1141 What is the Video Game Capital of the World? - Cashbox Magazine, April 2, 1983] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070313021159/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1141 |date=March 13, 2007 }}[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1055 The King of the Video Game Addicts - Toronto Sunday Star, March 27, 1983] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023183126/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1055 |date=October 23, 2007 }}[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1060 Video Game Capital Lies Amid Iowa Cornfields - St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 9, 1983] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070313021148/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1060 |date=March 13, 2007 }}

Beginning in the summer of 1982, Video Games magazine and Joystick published high-score tables taken from Twin Galaxies' data. Additional high-score charts also appeared in USA Today, Videogiochi (Milan, Italy), Computer Games, Video Game Player and Electronic Fun.[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=424 Seek Individual Excellence - Associated Press Wire Story in Miami Herald, August 21, 1982] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023174126/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=424 |date=October 23, 2007 }}[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=749 Records, like promises, are not always meant to be broken - USA Today, July 7, 1983] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070324082222/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=749 |date=March 24, 2007 }}[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=748 Video Game Records - USA Today, April 22, 1983] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070324082212/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=748 |date=March 24, 2007 }}

On January 8–9, 1983, Twin Galaxies organized its first world championship, which was filmed by ABC-TV's That's Incredible! and aired on February 21, 1983.[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1033 Twin Galaxies' Coronation Day Crowns Video's Best of '83 - RePlay Magazine, February 1, 1984] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311171236/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1033 |date=March 11, 2007 }}

In March 1983, Twin Galaxies was contracted by the Electronic Circus to assemble a professional troupe of video game high-scorers. Though the Circus was scheduled to visit 40 cities in North America, its Boston inaugural performance 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.[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1304 Video Hall of Fame - Blip Magazine, February 1, 1983] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023174423/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=1304 |date=October 23, 2007 }}

On July 25, 1983, Twin Galaxies established the first professional U.S. National Video Game Team. 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 US edition of Guinness World Records.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

In 1988, the Guinness Book of World records stopped publishing records from Twin Galaxies due to a decline in interest for arcade games.{{cite news|url=http://news.smh.com.au/technology/guinness-to-release-book-of-game-records-20080206-1qoy.html|title=Guinness to Release Book of Game Records|newspaper=Sidney Morning Herald|date=Feb 7, 2008|access-date=Oct 26, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141026122333/http://news.smh.com.au/technology/guinness-to-release-book-of-game-records-20080206-1qoy.html|archive-date=October 26, 2014|url-status=live}}

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.{{primary-inline|date=October 2023}}

Founder Walter Day left Twin Galaxies in 2010 to pursue a career in music,{{cite news|url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/walter-day-leaves-twin-galaxies|title=Walter Day leaves Twin Galaxies|newspaper=Eurogamer|date=August 3, 2010|access-date=Oct 25, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141026113446/http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/walter-day-leaves-twin-galaxies|archive-date=October 26, 2014|url-status=live}} and since then ownership of Twin Galaxies has changed hands several times.{{cite web|url=http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/twin-galaxies-sold-to-new-ownership.html|title=Twin Galaxies Sold to New Ownership?|date=Oct 4, 2012|access-date=Oct 25, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141026113731/http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/twin-galaxies-sold-to-new-ownership.html|archive-date=October 26, 2014|url-status=live}} In 2013, Twin Galaxies began charging a fee for score submissions.{{cite news|url=http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2013/04/22/twin-galaxies/1|newspaper=BitGamer|title=Twin Galaxies starts charging for score submissions|date=April 22, 2013|access-date=Oct 25, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141026113518/http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2013/04/22/twin-galaxies/1|archive-date=October 26, 2014|url-status=live}}

In March 2014, Jace Hall announced that he was the new "Head Custodian and Caretaker of the TWIN GALAXIES organization".{{cite magazine|url=http://www.gameinformer.com/themes/blogs/generic/post.aspx?WeblogApp=news&WeblogPostName=video-game-record-curator-twin-galaxies-comes-under-new-management|title=Video Game Record Curator Twin Galaxies Comes Under New Management|author=Kyle Hilliard|date=2014-03-30|magazine=Game Informer|access-date=2014-03-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140411191641/http://www.gameinformer.com/themes/blogs/generic/post.aspx?WeblogApp=news&WeblogPostName=video-game-record-curator-twin-galaxies-comes-under-new-management|archive-date=2014-04-11|url-status=dead}} On April 28, 2014, the full Twin Galaxies website, including the high score database and forum content, came back online.

File:Walter Day and his Business Partner from the early 1980's.jpg

File:Mark Hoff and Joel West.jpg

{{main|U.S. National Video Game Team}}

The US National Video Game Team was founded on July 25, 1983, in Ottumwa, Iowa, by Walter Day and the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard.{{Citation needed|date=September 2017}}

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.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

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.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

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.{{cite web|url=http://www.NintendoWorldReport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=5102|title=Register for Console Competition - News|website=Nintendo World Report}}[http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2001/2/16-96 Gaming-Age.com, February 16, 2001] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051126030741/http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2001/2/16-96 |date=November 26, 2005 }}[http://www.xgr.com/article.php?article=1016 XGR.com, February 16, 2001] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051214212507/http://www.xgr.com/article.php?article=1016 |date=December 14, 2005 }}[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=19&id=317 Video Game Festival at Mall of America, July 1, 2001] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071208034934/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=19&id=317 |date=December 8, 2007 }}{{cite web|url=http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Nov/bga20021111017252.htm|title=Geek.com, November 11, 2002|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051127194711/http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Nov/bga20021111017252.htm|archive-date=November 27, 2005}}

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.[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=19&id=315 Classic Video Game World Championship Set for New Hampshire May 8, 2001] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023174146/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=19&id=315 |date=October 23, 2007 }}[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=27&id=8 Classic Video Game World Championship Attracts the World's Best, May 26, 2002] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060219042042/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=27&id=8 |date=February 19, 2006 }}{{primary-inline|date=October 2023}}

In July 2001 and 2002, Twin Galaxies conducted the annual Twin Galaxies' Video Game Festivals at the Mall of America.[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18&id=455 Festival Marries Classics with CounterStrike, RePlay Magazine, Woodland Hills, CA, September 1, 2001] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071230052834/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=18 |date=December 30, 2007 }}{{primary-inline|date=October 2023}}

On August 15, 2005, Walter Day and the staff of Twin Galaxies led a contingent of US and UK video game players to Paris, where they delivered an eight-foot-tall (2.4 meters) proclamation that proposed a "London vs. Paris" Video Game Championship.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

On September 24, 2005, the US 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.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

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.{{fact|date=October 2023}}

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.{{cite web|last=Good|first=Owen|title=New World Record In Joust Awaiting Certification|url=http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/10/new-world-record-in-joust-awaiting-certification/|publisher=Kotaku|date=October 24, 2010|access-date=March 25, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101027084044/http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/10/new-world-record-in-joust-awaiting-certification/|archive-date=October 27, 2010|url-status=dead}}

In 2007, a film about Twin Galaxies and video game champions released 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, and the competition between Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe, in which Walter Day and Twin Galaxies feature prominently, 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.{{primary-inline|date=October 2023}}

Frag, a feature documentary about modern professional gamers, was released on DVD on August 1, 2008, by Cohesion Productions[http://www.cohesionproductions.com Cohesion Productions Releases FRAG - www.cohesionproductions.com] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724195132/http://www.cohesionproductions.com/ |date=2008-07-24 }} 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.

Records by both Todd Rogers and Billy Mitchell were invalidated by Twin Galaxies after investigations determined that the scores were not genuine.{{cite web|url=https://kotaku.com/doubt-and-drama-still-haunt-an-old-seemingly-impossibl-1796714894|title=Doubt And Drama Still Haunt An Old, Seemingly Impossible Atari World Record|first=Heather|last=Alexandra|date=July 7, 2017 |access-date=February 6, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180130121700/https://kotaku.com/doubt-and-drama-still-haunt-an-old-seemingly-impossibl-1796714894|archive-date=January 30, 2018|url-status=live}} Rogers was revealed to have entered fake records into the database either by himself or by his friend who was a referee at Twin Galaxies, whereas Mitchell was found to have used an emulator to reach certain scores despite claiming to have played on an original arcade machine, which is a violation of the Twin Galaxies rules.{{cite web|url=https://gamerant.com/video-game-cheater-record-documentary-todd-rogers/|title=Gaming Documentary Highlights the Biggest Cheater in Video Game History|date=24 January 2018|publisher=Gamerant|access-date=February 6, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180207005124/https://gamerant.com/video-game-cheater-record-documentary-todd-rogers/|archive-date=February 7, 2018|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/king-of-kong-stripped-of-title-1202751358/?replytocom=5818759#respond|title='King of Kong' Star Stripped of High Scores, Banned From Competition|first=Brian|last=Crecente|date=April 12, 2018}}

Since August 1, 1982, Twin Galaxies has been producing stylized posters to document gaming events.[http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=19&id=1191 Twin Galaxies' Gallery of Posters, 1982-2008] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080328112858/http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=19&id=1191 |date=2008-03-28 }}{{primary-inline|date=October 2023}} 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{{En dash}}24 copies produced.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}

• Time attack
• Speedrun

{{Reflist}}

• {{official website|www.twingalaxies.com}}
• [http://www.twitch.tv/twingalaxieslive Twitch channel]

{{Esports}}

{{Speedrunning}}

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