History Lesson: Recalling the 1980s and my Relationship with Defender

I was asked to put together a "short" blurb for an upcoming book. Since it'll have to be abbreviated, I wanted to share it all with you. Because posterity. 

When I was a kid, I competed in the first video game championship across the state of Texas, called the "First Annual Texas Video Game Championships" and won the title of Texas State Defender Champion. (See below for details on the tournament)

Back then, there wasn't an internet, so gamers didn't know there were other championships happening in other places in the world. Just about every gas station and store had a couple of arcade machines, and leaving your initials on a high score was the only way we knew of to prove we were the best. We certainly didn't know about Twin Galaxies.

During the boom of arcade games in the 1980s, features were added to one game and then they would be added to others. Scoring was in games at first, and then High Scores were added. Those scores would last until the machine was turned off, so if you wanted to have the top position, you'd have to go back and set a high score again. 

Then Defender came out. It had the first high score that didn't erase when the machine was turned off. They even celebrated high scores to an unprecedented level in their "Hall of Fame" high score table. They had a "Today's Greatest" high score that was erased when the machine was turned off and the "All Time Greatest" high scores that were saved forever. Williams had added a set of batteries to the motherboard so the scores would be retained. To me, it was revelatory. 

When I saw that "All Time Greatest" score table, I came unglued. I could leave a mark on a machine forever. Of course Defender was insanely hard, with an average play time of a new user of something like 27 seconds, so it took quite a bit of time to get good enough to even get at the bottom of the high score table. But I was driven.

There were two Defender machines in walking distance from my house. One at 7-11 and one at a local hardware store. I spent a lot of time at both those locations, as you can imagine. The hardware store owner had a desire to keep kids off the streets, so he would give us rewards for setting our personal high scores. I'd show him my score on Defender, and he'd challenge me to hit a new one. The reward? A brand new $10 roll of quarters, which mostly went right back into his machines. 

My friends Keith and Marque were just as interested in Defender as me, so we were at those machines constantly. Eventually, we all got so good that we could play forever. The game has 256 levels and it flips back to level one once you get through them, so if you could get to 256, the only question was "How long can you stay awake, or interested?" To keep it shorter, one thing we'd do was try to see how far we could go on the first ship, and I eventually could roll the machine over (1,000,000 points) before player two could start. 

Then 7-11 announced they were doing a state-wide tournament and one of the machines was Defender. I told the manager of our 7-11 "I'm going to win that." She said "I know you will." The tournament was designed to take into account that games could be played for a LONG time, so you had to make the most points in a 10 minute timeframe. 

I did win, and it was because my playstyle had developed over time to make the most points possible as quickly as possible. All because my friends and I competed constantly to do exactly that.

I did a podcast with lots of detail about the championship here: https://kakebytes.com/2017/11/07/episode-2/

Fast forward to the days of King of Kong. Walter was on a whirlwind tour and came to Austin for the world premiere. He'd brought Steve there to make another attempt at the world record after the movie. He didn't do it, but it was so cool to see a master at work.

When the movie ended, Walter was giving away copies of his world record book. I approached him and introduced myself as Billy Joe Cain. He responded "You are the Defender champion of Texas! You won the First Annual Texas Videogame Championship. I did a sidebar of it in my book!" He yelled out to the audience, introducing me and telling everyone they needed to come get autographs. The book holders came down and I signed them. It was surreal. 

After that, I became his Austin ambassador, and hosted him for his Texas Trading Card Premiere at a local arcade. 

Great stuff about that here: http://www.brettweisswords.com/2013/01/

In 2013, I decided to make an attempt at a marathon world record. The "standing record," from the 1980s was 84 million, so that was my goal. It takes around an hour to collect 1 million points, so I was prepared to stay up for 84 hours. My friend Josh Jones got certified as a referee and we set out to go for it. He took a whole week off from work and family and committed to staying with me the entire time. Along the way, I connected with a Facebook group of arcade marathoners and Defender experts and we did a lot of research on that score and others from the "old days." The scores included descriptions of how long these scores took, not for posterity, but because they were such feats of stamina. Ultimately research showed the highest scores were impossible to reach given their estimates. I.e. players turned in fake scores. 84 hours of Defender? We also didn't know if these players slept or let others keep the game going while they went to the bathroom, etc. A lack of an official referee put the integrity of all the scores into question. After much deliberation, the groups I participated in came to the decision that the highest score that matched the expected rate of play was a guy named Dale Rees. He racked up 40 hours and had even built a leather handrest to keep his hand from getting injured. We still don't know if he had other players to keep things going, but I see him as the "real" marathon champion. 

This includes the big list of scores

My final achievement was a 32.5 hour play session (33,644,725 points in 32.35hrs), streamed live on Twitch (they deleted it, grr), which ended because my wrists completely gave out.  My friend that became a referee with Recordsetter.com was joined online by hundreds of people, including Todd Rogers, who became my sensei thanks to his marathon experience. He stayed on with me almost the entire time, tracking my score by the hour AND giving me tips. Ultimately, it was because the playboard is at an angle that wasn't built for a 33 hour session (remember the 27 seconds comment above?). They still hurt but every time I feel those aches I think to myself... "TOTALLY worth it." I should have done more preparation, but it was kinda cool to just jump back in and go for it. 

One synopsis: 

I wrote a series of detailed blogs describing the world record journey. 

There's more on the main page: 

Walter's a hero and a visionary. He captured the gestalt of a whole generation that lived and played through the golden age of arcades. I am proud to call him a friend.

THANK YOU, WALTER!!!!

_______________________

BONUS MATERIAL

Facebook Page for the First Annual Texas Videogame Championship. Resources, images, etc.

Description from the Facebook page:

First Annual Texas Video Game Championships

In 1982, the Southland Corporation launched an historic video game championship across the state of Texas called the First Annual Texas Video Game Championships. Almost every 7-11 had a small arcade within it, so they took advantage of those assets and challenged their customers to set a high score on the machines in their stores. The competition was based around Pac Man, Tempest, and Defender, some of the most popular and complicated games at the time. The grand prize for each game was a new arcade game cabinet of the machine itself.

Each store collected high scores by having an employee verify the score and write it down. If a store did not have one of the three games, they would take scores for another game.

The highest scorers per game were sent to area competitions where the games were played in three 10 minute rounds. This was the method from here on out. Those scores were added together to determine who was the winner. The winner progressed to Regional competition, where the process was repeated.

At the Regional level, there were far less players, and the winners on each machine continued onto the State level.

The State Tournament was in Dallas on one entire floor of a hotel. The Southland Corporation brought in all of their arcade games from a 30-50 mile radius and filled the hall with hundreds of arcade games. They were all set to free play. Guests and the public were actually outnumbered by the machines. They even had Dallas Cowboys at the show taking pictures and signing autographs. [It was the biggest arcade game collection I have ever seen to this date. bjc]

The challengers competed on a stage in front of media, friends, and family. Each game winner was crowned, and then those winners were asked to compete on three never before seen games for the title of Texas Video Game Champion.

The three games were then played, with the same methodology, and the overall winner was crowned.

The competition was co-sponsored by Dr. Pepper.

The Defender winner, Billy Cain, received a Defender windbreaker, a Defender baseball cap, a Dr. Pepper beach towel, and was supposed to win a new Defender arcade machine, but they were no longer producing them. The representative from the Southland corporation offered to provide a used one from their stores, but Cain informed them that there was a sequel to Defender currently being produced, Stargate, and they provided him a brand new Stargate shipped to his house in the original shipping container.

The Tempest winner, 11-year old Alex Dubler, received a full-sized Tempest arcade game, along with tons of T-Shirts, a case of Dr. Pepper, and several caps.