Guinness won't accept Twin Galaxies scores anymore

[Xermon54]

Let's discuss the impact/reason of that (let's hope this discussion won't turn into drama!). Here's a copy paste I saw on Facebook:

Twin Galaxies International has lost its contract with Guinness to publish scores for the yearly book, and that all scores in the Twin Galaxies database are no longer considered "World Records" according to Guinness.

I used to work for Guinness, and I left because I was in charge of the Guinness Gaming World Records book, which worked fine for a while, until TGI was taken over, and they started to charge for scores. The money required to verify scores was against the founding rules of Guinness, which was that either the poorest person in the world, or the richest one could hold a Guinness World Record, but this site asking for fees was the straw that broke the camels back. I resigned a while ago because of this....

The people who took over from me obviously took my resignation to heart. I did keep in touch with those people, and heard that over 1200+ people emailed in with concerns and complaints about the new TGI owners charging people, and they deliberated over the founding rules, and overwhelmingly decided to cancel the contract between Guinness and TGI, making all scores, past, present and future not Guinness World Records, but TGI records.

[homerwannabee]

I know hindsight is 20/20, but I think Twin Galaxies made a critical error in their pricing structure.  Now don't get me wrong, I understand the logic behind going to the model, but here is some food for thought that probably could have kept them in good standing with Guinness.   Create two verification structures.


1) The fast track pricing structure.  This guarantees the buyer that their submission will be published within 2 weeks of receiving said submission.  Charge the normal fees for this.

2) The slow track structure.  This one is free, but it will take 6 months to a year for Twin Galaxies to verify your score.  That way even the poorest of the poor can still submit, and those with money will choose the fast track since not many people want to wait up to a year for their score to be verified.

I say this because Guinness themselves has a similar structure in place.

[stella_blue]

Another option is to provide free verification for WR scores, and charge a fee for everything else (other than scores achieved at a TG sanctioned venue).

[xelnia]

I think this issue could be hotly debated until the end of time. My position is that while "Guinness" is an instantly recognizable name, it is not necessary or even desirable to have it associated with video game records. The Guinness World Records company/association/book/whatever has had its own changes in vision over the years. Does anybody remember the older record books that were as thick as a brick, only to replaced in the 90s by the flashy, trendy, illustrated thin version? Guinness used to be a reference book, now it's a coffee table book. As far as I know, non-gaming records not included in the printed version are still in their database but one has to submit an application to find out what that record is. Twin Galaxies existed before its relationship with Guinness and it will presumably continue without one.

At this point, I don't believe either organization has the ability or desire to effectively represent the interests of ALL gamers and ALL games. I'm not sure it's possible for any one organization to do that. As businesses, they are free to do as they wish. As gamers, we are free to do as we wish.

I understand that the Gamer's Edition is important to many in the hobby, so the question is this: submit to Guinness directly for free, or submit to TG for a fee? Neither option is ideal to me. I would rather have a record with the Twin Galaxies seal-of-approval than Guinness', but I don't agree with TG's pricing structure.

[mikegmi2]

I saw the same cut/paste post on the TG forums.

I don't think it means a whole lot, for me, being I really don't care about the Guinness part of it all.  I've never seen an actual Guinness book in person...actually the only place i've seen one is in Roy Shildt's YouTube videos.

As far as the whole charging for submissions...this might be somewhat of a blow to TG.  Although TG was the first to keep track of all these high scores, and they have the most history, exposure...Guinness was arguably a major chunk of their significance...something that seperated them from all the others.

What is Guinness though?  Well they're a company that tracks various records that various people perform...they then organize them, put them in a book, and sell them to the public.  They're basically profiting from other people's accomplishments, via book sales.  In return, the individual gets their name in the book.  Ok seems like a fair trade.  Is it a fair trade for TG to charge $25 to submit a score and have it put up on their scoreboard? If you asked me I would say that is up to the individual.

As long as you got a great score or a world record legitimately, having your name in a book, or posted on a website, doesn't make your accomplishment any more/less impressive, or official, than if it wasn't.

Since this is the DK Forum, speaking specifically about Donkey Kong, I never had a problem paying a fee for submitting a Donkey Kong score.  TG does a lot of work to put on the KO events for all the arcade/DK fans...I go to the Kong Offs...so cool, in my mind my money goes toward that.  Playing on a Wildcard machine last year, getting to meet everyone...it was a fun experience.  I also got to go upstairs for the live Arcade Culture show afterhours.  Richie was nice enough to give me a bracelet.  There was free food/drinks, all the games were set on free play...Wiebe was there chatting/drinking beer with everyone...and I got to see Walter sing Three Lies live in person! That was worth $30 in itself.

For others, I can see how it wouldn't be worth paying a fee.  I guess you just have to look at your own situation, and do what is best for you.

[hooch66]

The Guinness name means nothing to me (except for beer..yummy).

The charging a fee to own a record in something will always bother me. If you set the record in anything, then you are the record holder. It really is that simple. If I ever set the record in Donkey Kong (which I never will), then I have set the record. No $20 fee will change that.

I do like homerwannabee's idea from above.

[hchien]

fk, I'm already enough poor like that. If I want to send a 3h+ DK submission, I won't be able to afford coming to the Kong Off 3!

Vincent if you beat my record, I will pay your submission fee so you can afford to come to the Kong Off... said no Hank ever.

This is a rather unfortunate event.  The pay for submission has been discussed several times already.  Although I don't mind paying, I disagree with it in principle.  Hopefully a resolution can be reached.

[lakeman421]

Having the Guinness name attached to TGI was what made it even more legitimate that a high score would be a world record verified by some of the most knowledgeable referees in gaming.  From what I have heard was that TGI wasn't receiving any funding from Guinness and was a resource for Guinness which I thought was bogus since they made a profit of the Gamer's Edition.  If this is the case where Guinness drops TGI because they were charging fees while making a profit off TGI and giving nothing in return, I just see that as hypocritical.  I don't jump to conclusions or believe anything until theres a statement from TGI or Guinness, but it seems like there is just a disagreement especially since TGI has to come up with their own funding.  TGI is great and I dont mind spending 25 bucks to attach my name to a world record, since I know what my money is going towards.  TGI has the history and exposure that other scoreboards do not have so I don't see anyone else replacing them for video game records.  Also keep in mind that TGI was already an international scoreboard for video game records before they were with Guinness.

[TheSunshineFund]

I think the Guinness brand means more to people outside of gaming.  At work, sometimes when it comes up in conversation that I play classic arcade games, my manager interjects that I'm in the Guinness book for this.  To me, it's not that big of a deal really, it always seemed pretty arbitrary which scores would get submitted to the book anyway (at least from an arcade perspective which are the only ones I ever checked).  I've always been more interested in trying to go after 80's scores that were listed in TG, but I think everyone's different so I can understand if some are upset either way.

[corey.chambers]

In a sense, at least in the eyes of some people, having Guinness' name attached to TG instead of any alternative said something about the way people saw TG in the world of score-keeping, and was just one more way of setting it above everything else. Some may minimize this connection with various forms of reasoning but the fact that it does hold significance for a certain portion of the population was valuable. Why give this up? TG's policy has isolated itself from most of its market. People speak of business decisions and that they can do what they want and in reality this is a complete bypass of the issue. And I don't care how nice they are to some people. People should be nice to one another, period. And when it comes to this issue you can't just look at how it will effect you, but look at the over-all picture. When TG started charging for submissions they started targeting a much smaller market, only those willing to pay for submissions, nay, only those who are willing to pay a lot of money for submissions. All those who were unwilling were no longer targeted and sought alternatives. Why limit your market? Score keeping competitors can be found on the internet now, and many gaming communities are starting to take the responsibility of keeping their own scores. This move by TG only pushed these alternatives to take over the portion of the market that TG was leaving altogether. Maybe if it were only $5 per submission with free options for high scores would be tolerable to many people, including to Guinness, but not $30 or more for everything. Because of this TG will not be seen as relevant any more because the pricing hinders people with real high scores from submitting and therefore the list will not represent the real state of things as much as it used to and therefore the need for community driven lists will automatically become more relevant, almost instantly. People are starting to look towards individual communities more so than a third-party organization. It is just not a sustainable model and I don't really understand any word of support for it. Charging submissions and some of the attitudes that float about TG has been the worst thing ever for the organization and may have crippled it altogether, with the exception of a few elitist groups and a few influential individuals that support it. TG does not have any where near the respect and image it once had.

With that said, I do like the new website. But that is about it. Nothing more about it appeals to me any more.