Score Chasing Gamers That Challenged Arcade Games

An Interview with Former Gamest Editor-In-Chief Zenji Ishii

Interviewer: Kaze no Iona

Reaching 10 Million Points in Xevious

Today we’re going to be discussing the score chasing culture that began in the 1980s, but just when was it that you first started playing arcade games?

(Ishii) My first real memories are from around ‘80 or ‘81…maybe with Donkey Kong? Of course I’d played Space invaders earlier, but my memories of that are pretty vague. Xevious was the title that really got me into video games.

In Xevious, the high score maxed out at 10 million points — a hard cap where the score counter stopped. So was that even really a game where people competed for high scores?

(Ishii) Xevious was more of a game where players all had the goal of reaching 10 million points, versus competing for high scores with each other. Back then you’d hear people talking about how there was someone who actually managed to hit 10 million, so you’d set that as a goal for yourself. I eventually managed to hit that score myself!

There were a lot of games that just endlessly looped back then, so many of them involved aiming for the maximum score you could possibly get.

(Ishii) Back then that was good enough. Instead of players ruthlessly battling it out, if the bar is set a bit lower and players can top out the score counter, that lets you get listed in a magazine as something like “one of XX players nationwide”, then more players can enjoy that sense of achievement. It was exciting because it felt like you might be able to make it into that group as well.

Magazines Publishing High Scores Fostered Score Chasing Culture

And it was amidst all this that score chasers appeared and competed with each other for high scores, in more than just shooting games.

(Ishii) This is a pretty well known story, but I think it all started when Mycom BASIC Magazine began collecting and publishing arcade game scores. It allowed for a clear goal of getting a high score and getting published in a magazine. But before that, there were arcades that would collect all of the high scores themselves.

They started putting up actual score boards within the arcade.

(Ishii) That’s right. The gaming group VG2 was also independently tracking scores, and high scores were also featured in other magazines as well, like AM Life.

In other words, a culture of publishing high scores across various forms of media was beginning to take shape.

(Ishii) As a result, arcades that attracted hardcore players started to emerge. Back in the 1980s, in the Kanto region, Play City Carrot in Sugamo (referred to as PC Sugamo) was a major hub for enthusiasts, so gaining recognition from the players there might have really mattered. I’m not sure how true it was, but at the time there was definitely a sense that PC Sugamo had the highest level of play in Japan.

I went to PC Sugamo in ‘89 with the video game loving friends I’d made in high school, and I remember not playing too many games there because I felt a little shy being around nothing but great players.

(Ishii) Yep, that’s what it was like there! (Laughs) The regulars were all gathered around the counter, and they felt so scary that it was hard to approach! (Laughs) From my point of view, living in the Kanto region, a part of the growth of scoring culture came from the VG2 crew in Sugamo.

The Boom of Score Chasers Creating Gaming Groups

Were you a part of any gaming groups back then?

(Ishii) I created a group called ECM with some gaming friends. At that time it was popular to put the first 3 characters of your group name in when entering the initials for a high score, all over the country. So then we decided to make a club ourselves so that we could do that same thing. But groups like VG2, for example, did serious club activities, like publishing member newsletters. But our activities were a lot more laid back.

And you yourself were a high score chaser.

(Ishii) That’s right. I’m most famous for being number one in the country on the Great Thing route in the original Darius. At that time I was compiling the high scores for Gamest as I wrote the strategy articles for Darius! (Laughs) I definitely got first place in almost all all zones that first month, but the following month I got knocked out of all of them but Great Thing. Incidentally, I researched and implemented the strategy for milking Great Thing’s drills for points all on my own.

You’re the one who came up with that strategy?!

(Ishii) The way it was done back then, anyway. Everyone knew that you could milk the drills for points, but the problem was actually doing it. The conclusion I arrived at was, at first glance, right in front — where the most bullets seem to be coming from — is actually the easiest to dodge. And when I put that into practice, it worked out well. If you try to escape downward, the homing bullets come at you from an angle, so it becomes harder to dodge them.

It’s not easy to come up with an idea like dodging those head-on…

(Ishii) Also, to say it a bit modestly, Darius was a game that used a large cabinet, so there weren’t that many units in circulation (Laughs) Maybe one of the reasons I was able to get the top score was because there just weren’t that many players to begin with. Also, there was this one time when a Darius score chaser stormed into the Gamest office, demanding, “Is it even possible to get that kind of score?!” So I said, “Come on and see for yourself,” and played the game in front of him at an arcade called Jack & Betty, which was located under the Kanda overpass. After watching me play, he quietly went home! (Laughs)

What an amazing story! (Laughs) Just what kind of battles did a player have to fight in order to get the top score?

(Ishii) Back then, score competitions were all about the magazine’s submission deadline. So it was a common strategy to avoid showing others the patterns you’d developed, and then go to the score-reporting arcade right before the deadline to submit a high score. That kind of tactic was an everyday thing.

At that point it’s no longer having fun playing a game, it’s something much closer to e-sports.

(Ishii) It was all about information. Whether you could come up with a strategy based on ideas no one else had thought of. It was a battle of gathering intel and using your brain. But that’s exactly what made it fun in a time before the Internet.

Fights Between Score Chasers, Rule Breaking and Manner Issues…

What was your personal approach for obtaining a high score?

(Ishii) I was thinking about games 24/7 back then. I’d come up with strategies based on the approach of one in every ten of my ideas working out, to make up for my lack of talent.

It feels really good to use strategies that you come up with on your own, doesn’t it?

(Ishii) And when it comes to the darker side of high scoring, there was the problem of some hardcore players making friends with employees at the arcades that kept track of the scores and playing after the arcade closed So even if you submitted a high score on the deadline day, it could get beaten after hours. There were times when players who couldn’t get in would bang on the shutter, yelling things like, “We know you’re in there! Come out!” (Laughs) For those guys, gaming wasn’t just for fun — it was a serious competition.

That’s very intense! (Laughs) Scores submitted after hours should technically be invalid, right?

(Ishii) Right, of course. Sometimes you’d walk into the arcade right at opening, and a high score would already be posted. And you’d think “There’s no way someone could hit a high score right after opening!” (Laughs)

Back then, weren’t high scores self-reported? That probably caused some issues too, didn’t it?

(Ishii) That’s right. There were definitely problems with fake scores. At Gamest, our policy was not to publish suspicious scores. But it’s also possible that some of those questionable scores were actually real. It was a really difficult judgement to make. In the early days of score tracking during the ‘80s, fake scores could easily slip through, so at some point we had to put a stop to that. The editorial department couldn’t make those decisions alone, since we relied on the network of hardcore players to gather info, investigate, and evaluate each case carefully.

It was kind of like a black box. Not having a way to verify is a tough spot to be in.

Gaining a Lot Through Going After High Scores

(Ishii) People often ask “What’s the point in going after high scores?”, right? But if you put it that way, it’s no different from asking, “What’s the point of being top of your class in school?” It’s the same with anything — what really  matters most is the fact that you aimed for the top, thought things through for yourself, and challenged yourself in all sorts of different ways. That experience is what’s truly important.

I really get what you mean.

(Ishii) There’s a lot I gained from chasing high scores. And it’s the same in any field — getting to number one is really tough. There’s a wall between just making it into the top ten, breaking into the top three, and finally reaching the very top. Competing and coming out on top is truly difficult. You can’t reach number one on talent alone. All the time I spent thinking, struggling with what I needed to do, and figuring out what it would take to get a high score — I really believe those experiences have helped me in life too.