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The Guinness World Records 2012: Gamer's Edition is out now, showcasing the very best of gaming's achievements. But while the tales of triumph covered in the book make for great reading, you rarely hear about the failed attempts. Which is why we asked official GWR adjudicator Gaz Deaves to tell us about some of the most painful failures he's witnessed. Over to you, Gaz:
1. If you’re organising a group record, make sure you have enough people
Some of the records in the Gamer's Edition are all about big groups of gamers getting together and playing together – for example, the largest handheld game console party consisted of 1,019 participants and took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, in August 2011. These are some of the most fun records to attempt and take part in because it’s basically a bunch of guys hanging out and playing LovePlus or whatever.
Above: This is the actual largest gathering of people dressed as Mario, achieved by 230 participants at an event organized by Red Star Macalline Home Furniture Shopping Mall in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, on 18 August 2010
The problem is you need to be super organised. No one likes to see nice people fail at something they really want. OK, some people do, but they’re horrible. Easily the most awkward moments of my life have been when I’ve had to get up on stage in front of a crowd and call them losers because they have 100 people playing DS instead of 1,000.
Advice: Make more friends.
2. Get the right venue
We all game at home. It’s the most natural place in the world: sofa, headset, big-screen TV, bliss. However, record attempts DO NOT live at home: many of them need to be done in a public place as this makes it much harder to fake. Finding a public place that’ll support your attempt shouldn’t be hard, but it breaks my heart to think of the number of records I’ve had to reject because they couldn’t be bothered to JUST FIND SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN THEIR PARENTS’ BASEMENT TO DO THE ATTEMPT!
Advice: Go to your local indie games shop and ask them if they‘ll help out. Plenty of small games retailers can easily handle staying open a little longer, plus it gives them something to tell the local paper about!
Above: The longest marathon playing a videogame lasted 109 hours exactly and was achieved by Tony Desmet, Jesse Rebmann and Jeffrey Gammon (all Belgium) who played Assassin's Creed Brotherhood at the GUNKtv World Record Gaming Event in Antwerp, Belgium, from 18-22 December 2010. Not in the bedroom of Joe Schmoe
Next up? Anger management...
