The 50 greatest gaming world records

39) Biggest team
As if there was any more evidence needed that games development is getting ever more sprawling, unwieldy and expensive, consider this: the game that holds the world record for the largest development team of any Japanese roleplaying game is Final Fantasy XIII. One hundred people created the CGI cut scenes, while a team of 200 handled the rest of the game. Gobsmacking.

40) Unit shifter
Sticking with Japanese role-playing games, you might be slightly surprised to learn that the best-selling Japanese RPG ever is Pokemon Red/Blue/Green. First released in 1996 (that long ago! How time flies), they’ve shifted a total of 31.38 million copies.

41) Expansioneering
Expansion packs for games are nothing new, especially in the world of RPGs – just look at World of Warcraft’s many add-ons. But the reigning champ of RPG expand-o-trons is Sony’s Everquest (released in 1999), with a massive 16 expansions. How much would that cost you, eh?

42) Shortest-lived
Massively multiplayer roleplaying games are all the rage these days, but not all of them have the legs to last for long. The official shortest-lived MMORPG is Richard Garriot’s Tabula Rasa which, after release in 2007, lasted only one year, three months and 26 days before its servers were shut down. Shame.

43) Sticking around
Now here’s an unusual record. It’s for the ‘longest lasting player corpse’! In LucasArts’ Star Wars Galaxies, first released in 2003, players were required to retrieve items from their own dead bodies. One player, Icir, never did, and his body was left at the Talus Imperial Base on the Bloodfin server for an incredible three years.

44) Critics’ fave
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion may be the best-selling Western RPG of all time, with 1.86 million copies sold, but the most critically acclaimed Western RPG comes from developers Bioware. Their 2000 game Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn has scored an average of 95%.

45) Long life
World of Warcraft may have eaten entire lives, but it’s nothing compared to the all-encompassing MMORPG monster that is Second Life. While WoW players devote, on average, 653 minutes a week to their game, Second Life gamers pip them with 760 minutes a week. We dread to think what that might add up to over a lifetime.

Arcade gaming

We’re not forgetting arcade machines. Here are some of the top records set on good old coin-ops…

46) Longest Play
It’s very important to take a break for every hour that you game – advice completely ignored by one James Vollandt of the USA, who in 1985 won the world record for the longest continuous play on an arcade machine when he played Joust for 67 hours and 30 minutes. He also set a high score in the process – unsurprising, really.

47) Most-played game
What’s the most played coin-op game, then, do you think? Donkey Kong? Pac-Man? Daytona, even? Nope, it’s Golden Tee Golf from Incredible Technologies. The series has been played by an astonishing one billion people since it first arrived in 1989.

48) Most popular
Who is the most recognisable videogame character of all time? It’s not Mario, if that’s what you’re thinking. It is, in fact, Pac-Man, who first sprang to life in 1980 and is synonymous with arcades everywhere. He’s recognised by 94% of American consumers – Mario is a close second with 93%.

49) First hard disk
The innards of a coin-operated arcade cabinet are frankly a mystery to us. For all we know they could be operated by tiny elf-like men running a treadmill. However, one thing we are sure of is that Midway’s Killer Instinct coin-up (1994) was the first arcade game to come with a hard disk – it was needed for all the fancy pre-rendered backgrounds it featured.

50) ’Cos We Can!

The biggest cosplay gathering, or Most People Dressed as Videogame Characters, took place in the UK on March 23, 2009 – 376 people took the record.

Feb 5, 2010