The Gretzky of Gaming

A whiz at classic arcade games in the 1980s, Dwayne Richard stages a comeback.

Though some of this article is reproduced below, go to the Ottawa Citizen to read the entire story by Dave Alexander.

EDMONTON - October 21, 2004 - Dwayne Richard laughs before he spills the nickname he's earned in global gaming circles.

"The Great One," he says. "I used to call myself the Wayne Gretzky of video games."

In the early '80s, the 35-year-old Grande Prairie man was one of millions of kids pounding the pixels down at the local arcade. But he's one of only a few to become famous for it.

After honing his talent in his hometown arcade as a teen, Richard travelled to competitions in the U.S. during the height of the cabinet game craze. During that classic era, roughly 300 titles were produced, and Richard can master most of them.

"I can play 200 games at a world-class level, and that's really rare," he notes. At his first competition in '84, he racked up his first of many records, for Tutankhaman. By 1985, he was featured on Entertainment Tonight and was made an honorary member of the United States National Video Game Team. In '86, he won the world championship.

"If I would've lived in California, I would've been a millionaire," he says. "My friends actually started Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, and (other friends) work at Tips and Tricks magazine. Back in '85, '86, when those magazines were started, no one thought they'd still be going strong and be multimillion-dollar ventures. I couldn't take part in a lot of that stuff because I'm Canadian."

(The Ziff-Davis media group recently bought Electronic Gaming Monthly for $14 million.)

It wasn't a Canadian passport, however, but rather two Italian plumbers that most affected Richard's fortunes.

He recalls: "I was at a convention in Chicago when Nintendo released Super Mario Brothers, and when they released the home console, that's what killed arcades. The whole cultural thing changed."

As the scene dried up, Richard quit gaming and pursued an education in philosophy and theology. Before he could finish his master's degree, though, he ran out of money. It was about this time, in 1999, that he got a call from Twin Galaxies (www.twingalaxies.com), the body that has compiled and tracked video game records since 1981.

After a decade, they were restarting their competitions and wanted him there.

Richard went and, despite his long hiatus, won the world championship. He returned the following year and won it again in a legendary contest based on a single score accumulated across a variety of titles.

Walter Day, Twin Galaxies' chief scorekeeper, describes Richard's unlikely come-from-behind victory: "He won the 2002 championship knowing that he had to play the best game of his life on Donkey Kong Jr. with a big crowd of people around him watching, knowing that at any moment if he loses his man, he's lost and he ends up in second place. But he managed to keep that man going and going and going, and (won)."

Day adds, "He was a wizard way back then, but then somewhere along the line he started getting even better."

In addition to Twin Galaxies' venture, Bill Mitchell, record holder in games such as Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Centipede, started to offer $100,000 worth of prizes for players who could pass record thresholds on classic games. Richard bought an old Dig Dug machine, studied it for a month, and then broke the 21-year high score on the game. He won two $1,000 prizes from Mitchell.

With nostalgia for classic cabinet games booming, Richard began collecting and selling them on eBay. In addition, he now tours with Twin Galaxies on the gamer show circuit and he's working on a gamer-themed reality TV show.

Richard laughs again: "It's kind of funny how famous a few of us are, actually, just being able to play games." Looking for a classic game? Drop Dwayne Richard a line at

mrbigwig@hotmail.com.

ROCKET RICHARD

- Some of Dwayne Richard's records:
Arkanoid Returns 709,640
Blaster 92,346,500
Dig Dug 4,211,920 (former record)
Major Havoc 1,379,358
Mayday 6,235,300
Super Buster 1,036,450
Tutankhaman 249,980 (former record)
Two Tigers 1,001,700
UN Squadron 1,960,400
Warp Warp 175,000