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In a nutshell, Tim McVey, the first billion point gamer, is attempting to reclaim his world record on Nibbler, which he lost a month or two ago after holding it for 27 years. He's streaming from his home in Iowa and doing it to support Child's Play. He's planning on playing for over 48 hours to get this record.

The stream is located here: http://www.twitch.tv/sprinter461?utm_ca ... arcade.com

It's really interesting to watch. This game is really hard (as anyone who's played it knows), and he's freaking amazing at it. He accumulates lives super fast.


Full press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Video Games, More Than “Child’s Play”

DeKalb, IL (September 1, 2011) – This Saturday, September 3, 2011, Tim McVey of
Oskaloosa, Iowa will be attempting to regain the world record on a video arcade game
called Nibbler. Tim is known as the first video gamer to reach over one billion points on
an arcade game using a single credit back in January 1984. Not only is McVey playing
to regain his title, Star Worlds Arcade in DeKalb, IL is coordinating an effort to
encourage cash donations to Child’s Play as a show of support for Tim’s efforts. Child’s
Play is a game industry charity that, since 2003, is dedicated to improving the lives of
sick children with toys and games in a network of over 60 hospitals worldwide.
Live video of the attempt at a new world record will be streamed on-line from McVey’s
home via Star Worlds Arcade (http://www.starworldsarcade.com) and other web sites. A
donation link will be available on the Star Worlds Arcade web site that will allow the
funds to be donated directly to Child’s Play. Patrick O’Malley, owner of Star Worlds
Arcade, encourages donations of any amount toward the charity. The organization
purchases everything from video games to movies and toys for needy, hospitalized
children. O’Malley hopes to raise at least $1,000 for the charity during the next two
weeks. He says, “Donations of any amount, even $10.00 to purchase batteries for those
toys, would be appreciated.”

Star Worlds Arcade is a classic video arcade that was recently inducted into the Twin
Galaxies International Registry of Historic Video Game Arcades as one of history’s
original Golden Age Arcades from the 1980s.

McVey expects to reach his goal after over 40 hours of marathon game play. The
donation link on Star Worlds Arcade web page will remain active until September 17.
More information about Child’s Play can be found on their web site at
http://www.childsplaycharity.org.

Update: Tim's played for a bit over ten hours now, and was at 278,312,710 at that point. At 27,831,271 per hour, that's faster than the guy who recently took the world record, who was averaging around 23,000,000 per hour and lasted 42 hours.

Last update of the night.

Tim hit 500,000,000 18 hours and 10 minutes in, meaning he's on pace to pass the record in a little over 36 hours.

And remember, they're trying to get donations for Child's Play. Donating anything helps, even a dollar. There is a donation widget on the District 151, Star Worlds Arcade, and Patrick Scott Patterson websites.

YoshiEgg25 wrote:Tim hit 500,000,000 18 hours and 10 minutes in, meaning he's on pace to pass the record in a little over 36 hours.

Holy crap, that's fast!

I'm watching the videos and the speed is insane. Some of those moves are very hard to pull-off.

Ah damn. Great gamer but what an unfortunate name.

Final update.

Apparently very early this morning, Tim's Nibbler game crashed on him from accumulating too many lives.

If you want to see the end, it's posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWpUmdTRHxA

Final score: 599,632,720

Here's what happened, in a nutshell:

Nibbler has a maximum you want left of 128. If you build up to 129 men left, then next death your game is over. This is exactly what happened to Tim's game. That A5 by "Left" you see there is 129 men left, so his game keeps going but his next death is game over as the code thinks you are out of men at that point.

So this isn't the Timothy Mcvey the Oklahoma bomber then?

J T wrote:So this isn't the Timothy Mcvey the Oklahoma bomber then?

That's Timothy McVeigh.

They did a head-to-head high score challenge at the 2009 MAGFest. The current holder and the challenger on two machines, on the same stage. It lasted about a day before one of the machines broke. Since it takes about three days to get to a billion, there was no reason to re-start.

Note: It was not my cab. I was asked about donating a cab but since nothing Wedoca has uses leaf switch buttons or wico sticks (at the time), I could not help out.

Majors wrote:They did a head-to-head high score challenge at the 2009 MAGFest. The current holder and the challenger on two machines, on the same stage. It lasted about a day before one of the machines broke. Since it takes about three days to get to a billion, there was no reason to re-start.

The holder at the time was McVey, and the challenger, Dwayne Richards, is the new record holder. It actually takes slightly less than two days to get to a billion. Richards did it in 42 hours in his attempt, and McVey was on pace to hit the mark in 36 hours.

And yeah, Tim talked about that in his stream. Richards' machine had broken in the 400 million point range, and Tim went up to 650 million or so before quitting.