Good read. Scandalous!
Go Twin Galaxies for getting this right.

Todd's response per his FB page:

"In light of recent events regarding my standing with Twin Galaxies, I have been asked by many to address the situation. As the saga has seemingly reached its conclusion, I thought now would be a good time to shed some light on a few topics and give my thoughts on the matter.

As many of you know, Twin Galaxies has made the decision to ban me from their database. Although I disagree with their decision, I must applaud them for their strong stance on the matter of cheating. For too long, gamers have tried to cheat the system and achieve recognition for scores they did not actually make. This is something I came across numerous times while serving as a Twin Galaxies referee. I have always maintained that stronger testing and punishment was needed for those trying to manipulate the system, perhaps even requiring live performances on more questionable scores. Simply put, even videotapes and DVDs are not enough in this technological age where it is becoming increasingly easy to cheat. While I do maintain that Twin Galaxies is wrong in my particular case, if the investigation into my score(s), and subsequent banning, can serve as a catalyst to clean the database of questionable scores and facilitate methods to catch future cheaters, this is a positive thing. In my opinion, it will not stop cheaters from cheating. There is an inherent problem with the system all together; so long as human beings are involved with the input of the data, true scores will come across as false and and false scores will come across as true.

On the topic of Dragster, there is much that needs to be said. While I will try to address as much of it as I can in my statement today, I doubt I will be able to cover it all, or say enough to appease inquiring minds. I will do my best to cover some of the most talked about topics. Perhaps the most heated debates stem from how my score was verified. As was the accepted means of verification back then, my first score was submitted via photograph, while the next two times were achieved in front of Activision staff, and at a live event respectively. While many question the validity of my claims of achieving 5:51 on Dragster in front of Activision's staff, and point to the fact that David Crane said "his position was very simple the high scores published by Activision in the 1980s were authenticated using the established methods at the time, by the governing authority at the time. I have no doubts, then or now, that Todd Rogers achieved the scores attributed to him", I ask this: Had I not achieved the score in their presence, why would Activision have acknowledged me beating their "perfect" run, and hired me to demonstrate their games? What also seems to get overlooked is that I was only sixteen, and really had nothing to gain by fabricating an unobtainable score. There was no Twin Galaxies database back then when I first started submitting photos to Activision, and the only real merit one could achieve was getting a patch and your name in Activision's news letter. I had already done this with slower times. While this score ultimately led to me working with Activision and other gaming companies, there was no way of knowing that would happen, as many like to theorize. It is also assumed by many that all three times I achieved my score it was on my own hardware, and that it was somehow modded. This is completely untrue. The idea that I would be able to bring my own console and game to Activision, and demand to only play on my system, is preposterous. Any consoles, games, joysticks, etc. that I played on, were always provided by the company or event where I was playing. In fact, one thing that is constantly overlooked is that many of my more "controversial" scores were made at live events, using the developers hardware, and were recognized by the developers as a high score. There were no tapes, polaroids, or Twin Galaxies submissions back then; only live gameplay, which has always been my preferred method. This brings me to my next Dragster topic: "Fake" certificates. What many fail to realize is that I was not part of the birth of Twin Galaxies. It wasn't until the early 1999 that I even became aware of their existence other then being published in an old issue of Joystik magazine for Gorf. Back then, I was very enthusiastic about the gaming community, and thought it would be a nice touch to recognize players achievements by reviving a classic method popularized by Activision. While my design was based on Activison's original design, it was not an exact copy and was not on the same paper as the originals. I am unaware if any of my designs have survived over the years, but telling them apart from Activison's originals would not have been difficult. Somewhere along the lines however, my concept was misconstrued as me making exact, perfect replicas of the originals. This led to the theory that if I could make exact copies, that perhaps my own certificates were forged as well. I'm uncertain as to how this theory snowballed as it did, but it is completely false.

Many have asked my opinion on Eric Koziel and the results of his findings. I have refrained from speaking about him for the most part, which I will explain shortly, but I thought this would be a good time to clear up any assumptions that have been made. My opinion on Eric, himself, is a mixed one. On one hand, I respect what he represents - change in how we address controversial scores. The ability to fact check based on data is something I hope to see grow. Everyone should be able to compete on a level playing field, and the results should be based on skill alone. I do, however, question Eric Koziel's motives, and how he went about his efforts. Not once was there any attempt on his part to contact me or question me on my methods. Instead, he chose to use bits and pieces of interviews I have done on my shifting patterns, and use them as factual evidence of how I play, without ever actually seeing me play in person. I am not a hard person to reach - my phone number, email, and facebook are easy to obtain, and I don't recall anyone having trouble contacting me. In fact, Eric did find my facebook page and chose to engage my friends, on my wall, yet still failed to address me directly. To me, it's an act of cowardice when you choose to call someone out but refuse to speak to them man to man. If you feel I cheated, or think I'm a fraud, say it to my face. We may disagree, but at least I can respect someone who hears me out before passing judgement. In my opinion, he has only gone about this matter the way he has to draw interest in his book, which he has shamelessly promoted throughout his argument, and I will not engage him in his attempts to draw interest in it.

In closing, I would like to address why I have not previously discussed this topic directly. What many may or may not know, is there were plans for me to play live and attempt to replicate my Dragster record. At first I embraced the challenge, and looked forward to proving my score legitimate. I remained silent on the matter, as I believed that in this situation actions would speak louder than words. I began practicing during this time to get my timing right, and though a 5:51 was not achieved I was feeling good about my chances of tying my score. What made me sour on doing such an event, and ultimately cancel it, was the reaction from the gaming community. Insults began littering my personal facebook page. Degrading remarks filled my PM's and emails. Even my family was being harassed for being associated with me. I began to wonder who I really was trying to satisfy with my record attempt. If you wish to call me a cheat, a fraud, etc., you have every right to until you see evidence that says otherwise. Seeing is believing. But when the remarks become personal, and my friends and family are dragged into the mire, it is no longer about gaming. People are wishing ill will upon me and my family over what? A high score on a video game? If that is what the gaming community has become, then despite my love for video games and all of my contributions and experience to help the scene grow by playing live at events and supporting the community, it is not worth jeopardizing my personal life and family outside of gaming.
Though gamers such as Rudy Ferretti and Roy Schildt may have given some people the idea that high scores are all that matters, gaming is not life. Gaming is meant to be fun. The competitive aspect of it should be used to bring people together in pursuit of a common goal, not tear down friendships and communities. Who I am, and what I have done with my life will not be defined by a score that I produced live, that others do not believe because they were not there. For those who have shown me unwavering support over the last few months, thank you. I will continue play games I enjoy and have fun doing so. After all, isn't that what gaming is about?"

I got a 5.49. I have photoshops to prove it.

Here's a good video for ya

im waiting for part 3 of the Ben Heck video.

here is the first part.

Busted!

there has been a huge witch hunt for classic gamers of this era for a while now. Whats sad is that anyone who has seen these folks play in person at live events or for fun agree the skills are undeniable. I think he represented himself extremely well in that response and made all joe shmo's look like fools for attacking him, his family or friends. After many of these so called cheaters have been outed ive noticed the same thing over and over, the accusers are jealously trying to make a name for themselves. And to that I say good luck but id bet on the other guy.
Thanks
Blake

It's clear the Todd guy was a huge fraud, though. Terrible cheater.

Are you for real with this? Todd is a proven cheater and to be highly unethical. There's been smoke around his claims ever since he started submitting them. He knows he's a liar. We all know he's a liar. There is absolutely no reason to defend the guy. Stop letting him dupe you.

I'm not getting duped by him in anyway. I don't have anything to gain or lose by his actions right or wrong, true or false. Would you disagree that he is a world class high score player on multiple arcade classics and other platforms?
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Blake

Yes he's a world class high score cheater..

Being a cheater and a fraud does not imply you are not the best at what you do. If that was true we would have to change the record books in every sport and achievements in every field. Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, and the New England Patriots are all known cheaters and frauds. Does that mean they were not the best at what they do?
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Blake

All those "cheaters and frauds" still did a thing. Todd just said that he did a thing...that he didn't do. He's far worse.

They are every where we look in every competitive recreation known to man. And yet no matter how hard we try us average guys and gals most likely will never come close to there skill sets or aptitude in their given platforms.
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Blake

Now I think that's more then stretching saying he has no accomplishments in his field.
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Blake

Lance Armstrong was stripped of his wins. He was only the best because he cheated. Bonds was good without cheating, but he became better because he cheated. There is a reason it's called cheating.

So if someone won a bunch of money from you playing poker and they cheated, that would be fine because they were good at cheating? Got it - that makes sense...

anybody that can play 85 hrs on an atari 2600 game is a world champion to me.

this all seems childish. i remember kicking ass in many many games and to see people fighting about high scores, especially that shitty dragster game is ridiculous.

Blake, his clearly made up scores on games don't tell you anything at all? 15,000,000 on Donkey Kong? Games with scores divisible by 50, ending in a 90... It makes it seem like he didn't even know what a high score would look like. Like he never even played the games he was entering BS high scores into.

You can't trust anything he's done. It's all suspect.

Was Lance an OK bike rider? Or did he have something most of us including his peers (who were and still are also cheating, verified dozens if not hundreds of times) did not and do not have? No mention of the Patriots? Big fan maybe?
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Blake

Hey Blake, say hi to your uncle Todd for us...

your denying there is talent. If you or I would play him at his respected games, out of 100 games how many would we win?
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blake

He was a cheater. He should have done it without cheating. The patriots are cheaters too. They may have done it without getting caught most of the time. I don't know.

I knew that was coming. That trains never late.
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Blake

The train to Uncle Todd's house?

That's the best statement that's been made in this entire thread. "He should have done it without cheating." And I think if he was an average player we would not make that statement knowing that it was preposterous.
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Blake

You've lost me with this. I have no idea what it means.

Finally something more dorky than Pinball. I have no idea whom any of these geeks are but this shit is great guys, keep it coming.

I never heard of this guy before I saw this thread.. But.. Holy hell, he's a cheating fool....

Who said anything about talent. What if it was you and your buddies. By your logic you would admire your friend for cheating you and taking your money. Hey wanna play some poker?

Coffee Stain Excuse!!!

the typo I made didn't help. what I said was the fact that we think he should have done it without cheating implies he has a reasonable skill level to accomplish such tasks. If people truly believe he has no skill at the dozens of games he's had or made record attempts on then we would laugh at the thought of his ability to accomplish anything relevant in regards to high scores. If that's true then some of us are commenting on subjects we know nothing about.
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Blake

The talent is what I'm talking about not the cheating or fraud. Admiration would have to come from something on a more personal level. I don't know Todd. I do know fellow hobbyist who know and have competed with him and to suggest there is no talent beyond an average skill set is foolish at the most blatant level. Which is what some of us wish he would have done, compete blatantly.
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Blake

I believe he probably has great skills. It's irrelevant. If he cheated on one of his results, he's suspect on all of the rest. And he cheated on more than one.

How do you admire someone that cheats? I don't care how much talent you have, your personality and integrity need to count for something. This guy is a dirtbag and so is Lance or anyone else that will do anything to maintain their bullshit.

I missed reading your post here. Yes it certainly says a lot, and anyone would have to doubt his credibility on any of his accomplishments or records. Thankfully for him there is an overwhelming amount of people both knowledgeable and not on the subject at hand that have seen him compete in person. Talent wise he is way above the norm on most classic games. That does not excuse his actions of cheating in any instance. It might very well mean that several of his records if not all are not legit. I certainly would not want to bet on it.
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Blake

For anyone saying this is good on Twin Galaxies, I don't know exactly how much you've followed Twin Galaxies, but there are tons of early records that they have that are spotty at best, and they have for ages refused to look at. I mean, heck, that was sort of the point of King of Kong. I feel like Todd definitely got that point correct in his response, and TG has to deal with a certain group of players that they more or less let run the place because they felt it was in some way beneficial to them to have a small group run the whole thing.

Ultimately, we're talking about Dragster, a game that I can't imagine anyone saying is their favorite 2600 game. If it wasn't for the debate over the best possible time on it, absolutely no one would care about any record on this game.

The overlooked thing in that video was that it was Activision back who said this was legit. Twin Galaxies wasn't a thing with 2600 games back then, but they allowed his score because of the Activision newletter (which I attached below). To get listed in it, when you were done with your game, you took a photo of the run and sent it to Activision. Apparently, Activision found three people who had gotten that exact same time in photographic proof. I see basically no way the three could coordinate their pictures, or edit them, or much of anything to pull off the feat back then.

Now, again, why Twin Galaxies only recognized one of them, I don't know, but it feels weird to look back at a score 35 years later and say that it's fake. So for this one, either Twin Galaxies was wrong for allowing an "imported" score from a different scoring authority and should have recognized none of them, or should have recognized all of them.

My theory is that Todd was really really good at games, and got an amazing score on Dragster in some way legitimately. After that point, to keep up his status, he was pressured to keep getting high scores on lots of different games - which would make sense, Activision hired him as an ambassador back then because of his skill. He couldn't do it, so a significant number of the other games which he held world records on were not legitimate were "embellished" to be better and to live up to the expectations that had been placed on him. For someone who was 16 when this all started, to me that seems like something that could have easily happened.

Is it worth all of his scores being questioned? Oh yeah, absolutely. But I think that this opens up *every* score pre-2000ish for questioning, and significant scores since then too. If you have too many people who gamed the system for too long, how is any of your stuff legit?

...Oh, and let me just add this. I'm totally cool with his score being thrown out because of the cheating on other things, but then I feel like those other two who received 5.51's from Dragster should be recognized in some way for it.

nofdokfelhpswwmlwiv5 (resized).png

Is Lance Armstrong a world class cyclist - yes. Is Todd a world class gamer - probably. Because of my value system as soon as i learned they had cheated, there accomplishment's are negated. You have a different value system, and that's where we disagree....

Wow this has opened a whole subsection of youtube gaming videos which are really just rambles of clinically insane people.
It's kind of sad because it's so obvious but I had a friend like that...gotaa keep them calm.

That's all I was searching for. To see if someone truly thought he had skill or if that was a fraud too. Irrelevant to claiming records sure ill agree to that. Certainly hurts his claim to any of them.
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Blake

The difference between Todd and Lance is, when Lance got caught and it was undeniable, he admitted it. He never apologized for all the people he destroyed along the way, but at least he admitted it. That would be a good first step for Todd.

I think we both have the same morals and I too look down on cheaters.....as my son is reminded of frequently.
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Blake

Agreed.
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Blake

I'm sure if we look the rabbit hole is endless. Where the truth ends and the lies begin who knows. This can be said for many of the early pioneers of gaming. Both in the people playing and in the people/companies making these games. The later is a whole separate discussion with just as much crap to sift through.
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Blake

Oh, I agree completely, but having Twin Galaxies be the authority on a considerable amount of this is just tough for me. Walter, who I have interacted with and is very nice, is also extremely trusting and doesn't like to rock the boat - which is not exactly the person who you want in charge of determining the actual records. It was easy to do when he was running an arcade and keeping a local scoreboard, but it is not easy when you're trying to be everything to everyone for record keeping.

This I think more than anything leads to issues with a considerable portion of the records. If I ran Twin Galaxies, I would...

- Put *everything* into a "historical" record. Keep this on the page.
- Restart *all* record keeping with a strict manner in which to do it is created and enforced.
- Explain that the historical record was created before the new records, and were competed with under a different ruleset that may have misrepresented some scores.

But this is super difficult for them to do because so many of the record holders were refs and are still hugely influential there, since the people who actually care about this thing is extremely insular.

Ultimately, the organization is held back by it's history, but so few people beyond them care about score chasing the super old records, so you end up with it being an endless loop. *All* of the records are questionable.

...and by the way, Todd wasn't even the first to get a 5.51. See below, from the earlier Activisions publication...

activisions_volume5_05 (resized).jpg

I too have heard almost exclusively across the board positive things from people who have met Walter. The same goes for the infamously hated Billy Mitchell. There is so much information to look through its daunting, and to think that for years one man basically did it on his own "Walter" is amazing. Change is coming I'm sure.
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Blake

That's the thing though - it wasn't done by just Walter. He assembled a bunch of "refs" to help him, which was essentially people who enjoyed setting records and cared about this stuff. And that made sense, because Twin Galaxies had no income to speak of because of the records, so how can you pay people to go through and verify world records or whatever unless they are really interested in it?

But the problem is with a small and insular world, the refs started to know each other and would just trust each other. Walter would trust them. Sometimes, they would input their own stuff. When this is the sort of thing that matters to you the most, and you're competing with a bunch of other people who this matters to the most... it's like letting the fox run the hen house, especially because Walter just generally trusted that people were doing the right thing.

Walter is extremely nice, but in the case of something like this, being nice doesn't ensure that things are done fairly.

Right on. There's undoubtedly a risk that's being taken to say the least. Do you know if there is any publications on the history of twin galaxies and the start of arcade high score records being kept?
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Blake

You guys that haven’t seen it should watch “The King of Kong” if you like this type of controversy...

C45EA6D6-900A-491C-BB45-ECC53B29109F (resized).jpeg