The other two aren't but, in my opinion, make for far more interesting stories.
The one you no doubt all remember is the 1983 North American Video Game Olympics - considered by many the first national video game championship.Everybody remembers the finals on That's Incredible. The image of Ben Gold crossing the finish line isn't quite as iconic as the Life photo, but it isn't too far behind.
Not nearly as many, however, remember the qualifying event and even fewer probably remember that the even was not the first video game tournament shown on That's Incredible. But anyway, on with the article...
That's Incredible Ms. Pac-Man Tournament
That's Incredible was an ABC reality
television show in the tradition of Ripley's
Believe It or Not and NBC's Real People
that aired from 1980 to 1984. Most video game fans remember the video game
competition that aired on the show in February of 1983 (see below) but few
remember the Ms. Pac-Man
championship that aired the year before. Sponsored by Six Flags amusement
parks, qualifying rounds were held at six Six Flags locations around the nation
in the summer of 1982. Thousands competed in the tournament with finalists from
each of the six regions (at the Southeast Regional in Georgia in June, there
were 44 finalists) receiving $500 and a four-day trip for two to Los Angeles to
compete in the televised finals, which aired on October 11th. Tim Collum of
Boyd, Texas (who had won the Texas Video Game Championship in June) won the
competition with a score of 123,000.
 |
Tim Collum, winner of the That's Incredible Ms. Pac-Man tournament
|
The
North American Video Game Olympics/That's Incredible Invitational
Perhaps the most
famous video game competition of the golden age came in the January 1983 "North American Video Game Olympics"
-
a contest that many consider the world's first national video game
championship. Once again, That's
Incredible was the driving force, though the main competition took place in
Ottumwa. While they hadn't been credited, Walter Day and Twin Galaxies had been
involved in the That's Incredible Ms. Pac-Man tournament, providing
advice on how to run the competition. When the show proved to be a hit,
producer Alan Landsburg decided to do another show related to video games and director
Todd Simon made another call to Day looking for ideas. As he had with Life, Day suggested bringing top players
to Twin Galaxies, this time for a five-game video game "pentathlon".
Simon was skeptical but when he arrived in Ottumwa to scout the location, the
just-released year-in-review issue of Life
magazine and all doubt vanished (some sources claim that the competition
was actually announced in the Life issue).
The competition was scheduled for January 8-9, 1983 and Twin Galaxies was paid
$1,100 for expenses. Excited by the prospect of their national television
debut, the citizens of Ottumwa chipped in. The local Radio Shack supplied a
Model III computer and a technician to help create a computerized scoring
system (sadly, calls for a marching band
went unanswered). Volunteer referees came from as far away as South Carolina
and Maryland. The documentary crew from
the Life shoot was on hand.
The opening parade |
Day invited 21 of the top players to compete in
the event. Only two failed to participate, including Billy Mitchell. Mitchell wanted to attend but after the
expense of the Life magazine trip he
decided that he didn't want to spend any more money or take any more days off
from school. With the temperature dipping below
freezing, the festivities kicked off in Ottumwa on Saturday, January 8th with a
torch-lighting ceremony and a parade down Main Street. Heading the pack was a
player dressed in a Pac-Man uniform that had been donated by Bally/Midway. In
place of the band there were pickup trucks with boom boxes (plans to have a
convoy of dump trucks fell through). After the festivities (including, some
say, a call from Ronald Regan) and parade, the main event got underway (after,
that is, Day chased a gaggle of groupies out of the arcade). Players competed on five games: Super Pac-Man, Donkey Kong Jr., Millipede, Joust, and Frogger. Each player would play three games on each machine with their
highest score being recorded. The top
scorer on each game was given a 100 percent rating with the others given a
score based on the percent of the top score (i.e. if the top score was 50,000,
a score of 10,000 would be given a score of 20%). The final score for each
player was calculated by averaging the percentage scores achieved on each game.
19-year-old Todd Walker of Milpitas, CA was the
odds-on favorite. Considered the best all-around player in the world, Walker
took a unique approach to video games. He found that it was easy for him to get
good enough to beat 99.9% of the players in any given game. Getting good enough
to beat the handful that remains, however, would take longer than it did to
beat the first 99.9%. Instead, Walker preferred to move on to another game at
that point. In Ottumwa, Walker didn't
disappoint He crushed the competition with a winning score of 69.58% - almost
23% ahead of second place. The top three finishers - Walker, Darren Olsen of
Calgary, and Ben Gold of Dallas would be compete in the finals on That's Incredible. Joe Malasarte of
Anchorage finished fourth, less than one percentage point behind Gold. Eric Ginner,
winner of the 1981 Centipede fiasco,
finished fifth - largely due to a bug in Frogger.
The game had a "kill screen" that appeared randomly, making it
impossible to finish the game. Ginner got the kill screen after scoring just
15,000 points. Steve Sanders, author of The
Video Masters Guide to Donkey Kong, finished 6th. Ms.
Pac-Man champion Tim Collum finished ninth.
Finishing dead last, with a paltry 12.9% was none other than Steve
Juraszek, the original video game superstar (though his critics were not
surprised).
The players arrive. I believe that's Steve Sanders in the jacket. |
 |
Drawing for position |
Final Standings
1. Todd
Walker (Milpitas, CA) - 69.58%
2. Daren
Olsen (Calgary) - 46.85%
3. Ben
Gold (Dallas) - 46.17%
4. Joe
Malasarte (Anchorage) - 45.32%
5. Eric
Ginner (Mountain View, CA) - 42.12%
6. Steve
Sanders (Clinton, MO) - 36.97%
7. Steve
Harris (Gladstone, MO) - 36.91%
8. Lee
Whitney (Las Vegas) - 36.87%
9. Tim
Collum (Boyd, TX) - 35.58%
10. Jeff
Stueve (Dayton, OH) - 30.66%
11. Matt
Brass (Helena, MT) - 29.59%
12. Mike
Lepkosky (Spring, TX) - 27.92%
13. Antonio
Medina (Napa, CA) - 26.21%
14. Landon
Rothstein (Happauge, NY) - 25.49%
15. Tim
Foland (Spring, TX) - 21.16%
16. Joe
Louks (Moncks Corner, SC) - 20.16%
17. Mark
Sellers (Grand Rapids, MI) - 18.87%
18. James
Marino (Happague, NY) - 13.15%
19. Steve
Juraszek (Mt. Prospect, IL) - 12.95%
The
finals, which aired on February 21st, were more of a sprint than a distance
race. Players had to achieve certain scores on five different games in turn: Cosmos (50,000 points), Burgertime (8,000), Millipede (90,000), Donkey Kong Jr. (30,000), and Buck Rogers (20,000). After the whistle
blew, the players ran to the first game. When they reached the target score,
they could move on to the next. While Walker was considered the best player,
Gold took the early lead - within minutes he was 20,000 points ahead of Walker
on Cosmos. Walker lost more precious
time when he peppered in the wrong direction on Burgertime. Olsen briefly pulled ahead on Millipede before Gold climbed back to the top. The commentary by
hosts Cathy Lee Crosby, Fran Tarkenton, and John Davidson, was unintentionally
hilarious: "He piles on the pepper and sends down a bun covered with hot
dogs and an egg!" "Junior caught papa and papa kicks the evil Mario
temporarily out of the picture!" "Ben, the leader, just lost a life to
a millipede head!"
Olsen and Gold
finished the penultimate game practically simultaneously and headed for Buck Rogers neck and neck. Olsen
quickly took the lead but Gold quickly caught up and was first to the 20,000
mark. He then madly sprinted the 30 feet to the "finish line" pursued
by - no one, since Walker and Olsen were still blasting away. Gold, arms raised
in triumph, breasted the tape, followed by Walker (who had miraculously managed
to catch up) and Olsen. The three collected medals, and kisses, from Crosby
(who almost gave the gold to Olsen). The event was perhaps the high water mark
of video game popularity in the U.S. The low point would come shortly
thereafter.
Much of the information in this article came from Walter Day's outstanding Video Game and Pinball Book of World Records - 1st Edition. Many of you may have skipped this one thinking it's nothign but records, but pick up a copy if you can find one.
Note - That's the FIRST edition, not the 2nd of 3rd.
The first edition had a wonderful 200+ page section on "the golden age of video games" in which Day recounts many of the stories associated with Twin Galaxies. The 2nd edition did not include this section (can't speak as to the third).
OK, this article probably didn't tell you anything you didn't already know but I think the next one will - the fascinating and tragic story of the Electronic Circus.
