Questions Abound Regarding Todd Rogers' Dragster Record

By Scott Stilphen

 

Recent articles - one by Heather Alexandra,  one from "ioloroberts", and one from Eric “OmnigamerSDA” Koziel" - once again question the validity of what's now a 35-year-old record.  I'd like to respond to some of the comments by both David Crane and Todd Rogers.

Crane: “He impressed us at Activision to the point that we paid his expenses to attend CES to demonstrate games, and he came up to our sales suite after show hours and demonstrated his play.”

Demonstrated his play... for which games?  The question is, did he in fact pull off a 5.51 in Dragster in front of Crane and others, or did he simply play the game and offer his explanation of how he plays it?

Crane: “Activision used photographic evidence, requiring a Polaroid photo of the TV screen,” he said.  “This was pre-internet, and pre-Photoshop.  It would have been very difficult to falsify a Polaroid photo.”

Considering how hard it was to get a good photo of a TV screen back then with cameras of the day, a "6" might have easily been mistaken for a "5". Let's revisit those 2 other 5.51 times that were accepted by Activision at one point.  How did they get accepted, and were they later “disqualified”, as Rogers claims?

Crane: “Activision validated Todd’s Dragster score using the accepted methods of the day. The time to question any of those records has passed.”

“Those records were set at the time, by a player at the time, and given validation by the authority at the time.  Thus those records should stand.  If there is a discrepancy between Activision’s record and a computer simulation, we should be questioning the simulation, not the record."

The discrepancy is whether or not a 5.51 is even possible.  Sorry, but there's no 'limited time only' period on when scores can be questioned.  Twin Galaxies has a long history of questionable behavior by some of their referees and a slew of issues regarding their process of accepting scores.  The fact that 2 other players who possibly had their 5.51 Dragster times removed from Activision's newsletter proves their submission process wasn't infallible, either.  Todd's record for Barnstorming was another example of a score that was once accepted by Activision and later proven to be impossible (link).  So no, we can't accept something simply because it was published in a company newsletter, or because it's from a well-known gamer (the first reply in the thread I linked to shows just how vulnerable 'blind acceptance' can be).

And since Activision's simulation isn't available, and Crane isn't offering to recreate it (according to this thread, he can't even verify his simulation's max time of 5.54), it's left to others to create simulations.  Crane could certainly help contribute his experience and knowledge to improving these simulations, should he choose to, or explain how it's possible to start the game in 2nd gear, when others noted the code says that's not possible.  So far he hasn't.

Crane: “We have credible empirical evidence that 5.51 was, in fact, possible. The question should be, ‘Why does the mathematical analysis disagree with the empirical evidence?’”

As someone in the comment section noted, "Empirical evidence is information acquired by observation or experimentation.  This data is recorded and analyzed by scientists and is a central process as part of the scientific method."  In all of Crane's comments, he never once said Todd replicated his 5.51 time in front of him.  He never once said he personally saw Todd's photo showing his 5.51 time.  As of now, there's simply no empirical evidence to examine.

Crane: “If someone was trying to cheat in some way, he wouldn’t have known to claim that exact time. I think you can rest assured that Todd’s time was, in fact, the time of his run as played on the actual game system.”

There's no need to "invent a number out of whole cloth".  Every Dragster time ends in either 1, 4, or 7.  Anyone who's spent any time playing Dragster would immediately see that pattern.  You don't need to be a programmer or look at the code.  This was even described in Tom Hirshfeld's book, How to Master Home Video Games (pg. 138).  If I get a score of 5.74, it's fairly easy to work your way down (or up) the pattern - (5.71, 5.67, 5.64, 5.61, 5.57, 5.54, 5.51).

Crane: “Could the hardware affect the game scores?  Possibly.  Does that explain Todd Rogers’ Dragster score of 5.51?  No.”

So, an issue with the hardware affecting the score is a possibility... but not with Dragster?  Again, why not?  Did Crane personally see Todd replicate his 5.51 time or see Todd's photo?  Considering Todd's photo (if it ever existed) is long gone, and no known video of any of his alleged 5.51 games exists, we need a statement from either Crane or someone else from Activision who can definitively say, "Yes, I saw Todd achieve it" or, "Yes, I saw the photo in question."

Here's some of the photos Todd once sent me from a video tape he made showing various glitches in some of his Atari VCS games (corrupted graphics, missing graphics, backwards graphics, extra scoring digits, etc), but remember, David Crane says hardware can't affect the score...


Adventures of TRON


Battlezone


Jungle Hunt


M*A*S*H


Raiders of the Lost Ark


Raiders of the Lost Ark


RealSports Volleyball


RealSports Volleyball


Shootin' Gallery


Solaris


Spacechase


Spacechase


Spacechase


Spacechase


Spacechase

These glitches are either the result of a flawed TIA chip, a weak power supply, or a faulty power switch (either intentionally or unintentionally "frying" the game and temporarily corrupting the game code) - any of these can possibly affect EVERY game.  The Easter egg section is littered with examples of similar code "manipulation".  Dragster is not somehow immune to such influences.

Alexandra: Rogers says that he replicated the 5.51 score multiple times in 1982: once at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show and another time at The Electronic Thing show in Detroit. “That was more than enough for the developers,” Rogers told Kotaku. “You can’t alter history, no matter who speculates what is possible and what is not.”

Did he TELL the developers about his 5.51 time, or did he PLAY the game and achieve that?  We can certainly alter the accepted history, when there's no proof to back it up.  History books aren't indisputable.  They're not written in stone ala the Ten Commandments.  They are influenced by social, political, and economical factors as much as they are by historians and scientists, and are constantly being re-edited and re-written as new information becomes known.  For example, until the Titanic was found, it was widely believed the ship sank intact, and the few witnesses who claimed it broke in two were discredited.  So yes, the accepted historical record is constantly changing, and there's no reason to think video game records are somehow immune to that.   Todd has several questionable scores for other games as well, some of which are downright impossible without the hardware affecting the game (such as Decathlon, Fathom, Skiing, Stampede, Sub-Scan, and Wabbit to name a few).

Crane: “Activision used photographic evidence, requiring a Polaroid photo of the TV screen,” he said.  “This was pre-internet, and pre-Photoshop.  It would have been very difficult to falsify a Polaroid photo.”


Alexandra: “Rogers says that the other two scores were “disqualified.”  There’s no printed evidence to back this claim, since no retraction was published in the final Activision newsletter from Fall 1983.  Rogers says that his score alone was allowed to stand because he was able to convincingly explain to Activision how he did it, and says that the other two high scorers could not.

"Convincingly explain to Activision" - does this mean he TALKED a good game, or PLAYED a good game?

Alexandra: Rogers’ contention is that the videos are only simulating one way of playing a quite complex game.  “There’s like nine ways to shift in Dragster—and I don’t share that with too many people—but [Koziel is] going on one specific pattern where you stay in first gear and second gear quite a bit of time,” he said.

This "9 different ways to shift" is the first time I've ever heard this explanation.  Well Todd, if you're not going to replicate your 5.51 score, the time to explain all these different ways to shift would be now.

In the years since I interviewed Rogers in 2005, some of his world record scores have come under intense scrutiny.  Several years ago, I sent Rogers a refurbished system and some controllers, as well as over a dozen cartridges, with the hope he'd use them to respond to the increasing number of people who were doubting some of his scores.  Needless to say, that never happened, and more gamers (myself included) have started to voice their concerns (once it came to my attention that back in 2005 people found out that Rogers verified some of his own scores on Twin Galaxies, he earned himself a place on my list of banned players).  When there's a lack of physical or 1st-hand evidence to back up someone's score, there's always going to be a question of legitimacy regarding it, no matter how much time has passed or who's involved.  The reality is, Rogers has been questioned about his Dragster time ever since Twin Galaxies included it in their database (back in 2000), and apparently TG accepted it based solely on the letter/certificate he received from Activision claiming his Dragster record beat their simulated "perfect game", and not from any photo or video.   I've never seen the letter, and as far as I know, Rogers has never posted a copy of it online. Tom Hirschfeld's book (pg. 141) says Tony Armstrong was the first to achieve a 5.57, followed by Rogers; the V2 issue of Activisions newsletter recognizes Armstrong, Rogers, and Greg Nichols. On another site, a forum thread by former disgraced TG ref Ron Corcoran refers to 2 Dragster certificates Rogers had from Activision - one (#157) for a time of 5.64, and another (#2786) for a time of 5.57. In the same thread, Rogers claimed to have had some 600 video tapes of scores for various games, of which only a few were sent to Corcoran at the time (late 2002).

UPDATE: Since posting this article, a formal dispute (that ran a ridiculous 2,700+ posts) over Rogers' Dragster record was initiated by Dick Moreland at Twin Galaxies in 2017, with the owner or "head custodian" of TG, Jace Hall, announcing there was to be a live event featuring Todd Rogers attempting to replicate his record time planned for the weekend of November 18th-19th that year; the event was cancelled at the last minute.  Some folks on Twin Galaxies found that Roger's 5.51 certificate was in fact a Photoshopped version of his 5.64 certificate.  Someone else even offered some bounties for Dragster.  That same month, Rogers met with Ben Heck to try and replicate his 5.51 time (video #1, video #2)and even with Ben's rig shifting exactly how Rogers wanted, he couldn't get anywhere close to it.  The rig did however validated Eric Koziel's analysis.  The guy once known as "Mr. Activision" and "Toddzilla" is now referred to as "Fraud Rogers".  Apollo Legend would go on to give Rogers a new title: 'The Biggest Cheater in Gaming History' (video).  Here are all the relevant videos from Apollo Legend, Karl Jobst, and Pat Contri about Rogers' now infamous cheating:

How to Lose a Guinness World Record
Dragster World Record Controversy
The Longest Con In Video Game History
Conman Sues Guinness World Records And Gets DESTROYED!
Gaming's Biggest Scam Artist Is Back And Dumber Than Ever
Legendary Cheater Todd Rogers Just Lost Another Lawsuit


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