In games, score refers to an abstract quantity associated with a player or team. Score is usually measured in the abstract unit of points (except in game shows, where scores often are instead measured in units of currency), and events in the game can raise or lower the score of different parties. Most games with score use it as a quantitative indicator of success in the game, and in competitive games, a goal is often made of attaining a better score than one's opponents in order to win.
In video games that feature scoring, points are usually an optional, side component of gaming. Players may achieve points through normal gameplay, but their score will often not have an immediate relevance to the game itself. Instead, playing to beat a "high score" set by the game program, another player or oneself becomes an extra challenge, adding replay value.
In modern gaming, the presence of a score is not as ubiquitous as it was in the past. During the era of arcade games, when, because of the technical limitations of the time, games could not be "won" or "completed" but were instead endless cycles of continuous gameplay, points had a much greater relevance. Many modern games no longer keep track of scores, and many no longer feature an option to save or record high scores. However, some games, such as role-playing games, have experience points, skill points, and use money or treasure, which can all be used to buy or upgrade skills and objects.
In fighting games, scoring a very high number of points could result in unlockable players or modes. In some games, reaching certain scores gives an extra life, or a continue.
Scoring
In puzzle games, scores are usually gained by solving the puzzles quickly. Higher scores can be gained by performing combos of puzzle solving. There is often a time bonus which can add extra points. The level number is often a multiplier on the points, so higher scores are possible on harder levels. Level multipliers can also be picked up in some games, to further multiply your points bonus.
In other games, points are typically gained from defeating monsters and enemies. When defeating a boss, a proportionally large number of points is usually rewarded. Extra points can be gained from gathering items, such as power-ups or other pick-ups.
Usually, when a player gets a certain number of points, they may get an extra life or go on to a higher level. Points can be often used as currency which can be redeemed for rewards and player upgrades.
The high score of a video game is usually the highest logged point value. Many games will have a list of several high scores, called the high score table or leaderboard.
History
Sea Wolf, the first video game to use the term "high score".
The concept of a high score first achieved cultural significance with the rise in popularity of pinball machines and electro-mechanicalarcade games. Players who achieve a high score are often greeted with a congratulatory message and are able to enter their initials or name into the machine. Their score and name will remain there until someone "knocks" them off the high score list by achieving a higher score. For this reason, high scores are inherently competitive and may sometimes involve one-upmanship against other players.
The high score has a close association to the "free game." When in an arcade, many games will offer a player a free chance at another game if they achieve a high score. This has declined in popularity in recent years, as players are often allowed to play for as long as they can without losing, but not given free games even if they achieve a high score.
The first video game to use the term "high score" was Midway's Sea Wolf (1976). The game saved the highest score achieved on the cabinet, but could be reset by a player at any time by pressing a button on the machine.
The high score concept changed in July 1978 with the release of Taito's shoot 'em upSpace Invaders, where high scores were determined by gamers playing for as long as they could to stay alive, as high scores kept rising.[1] The popularity of Space Invaders stemmed in part from players returning to beat the current high score, as players could now compete with each other over who had the highest score.[1] In December 1978, Exidy's Star Fire allowed the player to save their name as initials next to their high score.[1] Since this data was stored in the machine's RAM, it was deleted every time the machine lost power, which in practice would almost invariably happen every night as operators preferred to leave the machines unplugged when the arcade was closed to avoid incurring unnecessary power costs.
The popularity of the high score made it nearly ubiquitous and a defining feature for many games. Magazines such as Nintendo Power and Sega Visions would often publish high scores submitted by their readers. The high score became most popular when, starting in 1982, the Twin Galaxies Scoreboard began to appear in the pages of Video Games Magazine, Joystik Magazine, Computer Games Magazine, VideoGiochi Magazine, Video Games Player Magazine and Electronic Fun Magazine. Later, in the 1990s, all performances would have to be videotaped to verify the achievement.
The high score also exists in online games in various forms. The spread of the Internet has made it possible to compete with the rest of the world, rather than the players of a single machine or game. Many modern games have the ability to post his/her high score to a central webpage. Online multiplayer games, especially first person shooters, real time strategies, and role-playing video games often have ranking systems. These new high score lists and ranking systems often are more complex than conventional high score lists. Some are based on tournaments, while others track game servers continuously, keeping statistics for all players.
Some games include default "high scores" that do not actually represent real players, but are displayed whenever the machine's memory is reset, often with generic initials such as "AAA." These scores often represent certain levels of achievement for a player to aspire to, ensuring that there is always something for players to compete with. Many video games also have default high scores built in, sometimes attributed to fictitious entities (e.g. Commander Keen) or to members of the game's development team.
In popular culture
The high score's prominence in video game culture, and even mainstream society has led to various pieces of art and entertainment. There is a cartoon titled High Score. There is also a book entitled High Score! The Illustrated History of Electronic Games. A 2007 documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, follows the attempts to beat the high score in Donkey Kong.[citation needed]
In an episode of the TV seriesSeinfeld, George is astonished to find that the Frogger machine he played as a teen still retains his high score. With the owners wanting to get rid of it, George decides to keep the machine for posterity, the catch being that he has to move the game without unplugging it, because if he unplugs the game the high score will be erased. Unfortunately, the machine is destroyed when he unsuccessfully tries to move it across the street in a spoof of the gameplay.
On September 24, 2005, Twin Galaxies issued Poster #59, which publicized a $1,000 prize to the first gamer who could break George Costanza's fictitious Frogger high score of 863,050 points.[2]
On August 1, 1982, the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard issued a colorful poster that listed the world record high scores for more than two dozen arcade video games. The poster was distributed among arcades worldwide. This was the first poster (#1) in a series of colorful posters that continues today, with poster #131 issued in October, 2008.[3][needs update]
In an episode of Friends, Chandler Bing puts in dirty words on all the high score positions on a Ms. Pac-Man machine. He then finds out that they are not blanked when the machine is reset, so he has to break all his high scores to remove the offending words. (This is not possible on an actual Ms. Pac-Man machine; such machines only record one high score and do not allow the winning player to enter initials.)[citation needed]
In the media
According to the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, "high-score" attempts enjoyed as much press coverage as any other video game–related topic reported in the media during the 1982–1985 period. Though the media was often focused on the amazing growth of the video game industry, it was equally as fascinated with the human side of gaming, as typified by the "player vs. machine" showdowns that led to new world record high scores set on nearly a daily basis. In fact, Twin Galaxies reports that during that early era it was not unusual for there to be multiple new world records reported in the media on a single day.
Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails called 'pins' and had hollows or pockets which scored points if the ball came to rest in them. Today, pinball is most commonly an arcade game in which the ball is fired into a specially designed cabinet known as a pinball machine, hitting various lights, bumpers, ramps, and other targets depending on its design. The game's object is generally to score as many points as possible by hitting these targets and making various shots with flippers before the ball is lost. Most pinball machines use one ball per turn, and the game ends when the ball(s) from the last turn are lost. The biggest pinball machine manufacturers historically include Bally Manufacturing, Gottlieb, Williams Electronics and Stern Pinball.
An amusement arcade, also known as a video arcade, amusements, arcade, or penny arcade, is a venue where people play arcade games, including arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers, or coin-operated billiards or air hockey tables. In some countries, some types of arcades are also legally permitted to provide gambling machines such as slot machines or pachinko machines. Games are usually housed in cabinets.
Millipede is a fixed shooter video game released in arcades by Atari, Inc. in 1982. The sequel to 1981's Centipede, it has more gameplay variety and a wider array of insects than the original. The objective is to score as many points as possible by destroying all segments of the millipede as it moves toward the bottom of the screen, as well as eliminating or avoiding other enemies. The game is played with a trackball and a single fire button which can be held down for rapid-fire.
Missile Command is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases. It was designed by Dave Theurer, who also designed Atari's vector graphics game Tempest from the same year. The game was released during the Cold War, and the player uses a trackball to defend six cities from intercontinental ballistic missiles by launching anti-ballistic missiles from three bases.
Defender is a scrolling shooter video game developed by Williams Electronics in 1980 and released for arcades in 1981. A side-scrolling shooter, the game is set on either an unnamed planet or city where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts. Development was led by Eugene Jarvis, a pinball programmer at Williams; Defender was Jarvis' first video game project and drew inspiration from Space Invaders and Asteroids. Defender was demonstrated in late 1980, before entering production in early 1981. It was distributed in Japan by Taito.
Galaxian is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco. The player assumes control of the Galaxip starfighter in its mission to protect Earth from waves of aliens. Gameplay involves destroying each formation of aliens, who dive down towards the player in an attempt to hit them.
Track & Field, also known as Hyper Olympic in Japan and Europe, is a 1983 Olympic-themed sports video game developed by Konami for arcades. The Japanese release sported an official license for the 1984 Summer Olympics. In Europe, the game was initially released under the Japanese title Hyper Olympic in 1983, before re-releasing under the US title Track & Field in early 1984.
Popeye is a 1982 arcade platform game developed and released by Nintendo based on the comic strip of the same name created by E. C. Segar and licensed from King Features Syndicate. Some sources claim that Ikegami Tsushinki did programming work on the game. The game was licensed by Atari, Inc. for exclusive release in the United Kingdom and Ireland in an Atari-designed cabinet. Nintendo ported the game to the Famicom, while Parker Brothers published versions for other home systems. Popeye no Eigo Asobi, an educational spin-off similar to the later Donkey Kong Jr. Math, was released for the Famicom on November 22, 1983.
Star Wars is a first-person rail shooter video game designed by Mike Hally and released in arcades in 1983 by Atari, Inc. It uses 3D color vector graphics to simulate the assault on the Death Star from the 1977 film Star Wars. Developed during the Golden Age of Arcade Games, Star Wars has been included on lists of the greatest video games of all time.
Tron is a coin-operated arcade video game manufactured and distributed by Bally Midway in 1982. The game consists of four subgames inspired by the events of the Walt Disney Productions motion picture Tron released earlier in the summer. The lead programmer was Bill Adams. The music programmer was Earl Vickers.
A saved game is a piece of digitally stored information about the progress of a player in a video game.
Twin Galaxies is a social media platform and video game database. It founded the U.S. National Video Game Team.
Bump 'n' Jump is an overhead-view vehicular combat game developed by Data East and originally released in Japan as Burnin' Rubber. The arcade version was available as both a dedicated board and as part of Data East's DECO Cassette System. It was distributed in North America by Bally Midway. The goal is to drive to the end of a course while knocking enemy vehicles into the sides of the track and jumping over large obstacles such as bodies of water.
Cooperative video game, often abbreviated as co-op, is a video game that allows players to work together as teammates, usually against one or more non-player character opponents (PvE).
RoadBlasters is a combat racing video game released in arcades by Atari Games in 1987. In RoadBlasters, the player must navigate an armed sports car through 50 different rally races, getting to the finish line before running out of fuel.
Doctor Who is a pinball machine designed by Bill Pfutzenreuter (Pfutz) and Barry Oursler, and released by Midway in September 1992. It is based on the television series Doctor Who. As stated in the Gameplay section, the rulesheet is rather different from other pinball machines released at the time, which didn't help popularity as casual players did not understand the complex rule changes that occur during the game.
Geometry Wars: Galaxies is a multidirectional shooter video game developed by Bizarre Creations and Kuju Entertainment, and published by Vivendi Games for the Wii and Nintendo DS in November 2007. As the first Geometry Wars game to be released on non-Microsoft platforms, Galaxies is a spin-off of Geometry Wars, which was originally included as a bonus game within Project Gotham Racing 2 on Microsoft's Xbox console. This updated version includes a single-player campaign mode, several multiplayer modes, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, and support for online leaderboards. The Wii version supports widescreen and 480p progressive scan display.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a 2007 American documentary film about competitive arcade gaming directed by Seth Gordon. It follows Steve Wiebe in his attempts to take the high score record for the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong from Billy Mitchell. The film premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival and was released in U.S. theaters in August 2007. It received positive reviews.
William James Mitchell Jr. is an American video game player and restaurateur. He rose to national prominence in the 1980s when Life included him in a photo spread of game champions during the height of the golden age of arcade video games.
This list includes terms used in video games and the video game industry, as well as slang used by players.
High Score – large online database of user-submitted high scores
Twin Galaxies – historic authority on video game world records
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