The Guinness Book contains many world records from the gaming sector. Here are 8 particularly cool records.
Everyone knows the Guinness Books, which document a variety of world records. In 2008, gaming was added to the “classic” categories like nature, science, art, or sports.
With the two editions “Guinness World Records: The Videogame” and “Gamer’s Edition”, the collection of gaming records began.
While The Videogame deals with records set by video games (most sold, longest franchise), the Gamer’s Edition features records set by gamers and the gaming community (for example, high scores).
In this article, we present 8 such community records.
Most Weddings in an MMORPG (24h)
| Game: | Players of Rift Online (Trion Worlds) |
| Date: | 14.02.2012 |
The world record for the most wedding ceremonies within 24 hours was collected by the MMORPG Rift from Trion Worlds. On February 14, 2012, Valentine’s Day, a total of 21,879 in-game weddings took place, leading over 40,000 players to the sacred bond of marriage. Participants received the special title “The Avowed”.
There was even a trailer that called the community to join the world record:
Organized by the developers of the MMORPG. Scott Hartsmann, the then Executive Producer of Rift, said:
Setting the world record was a tremendous achievement for our development team and the community of passionate players. I couldn’t be prouder of them.
Most Registered Players in an MMORPG
| Game: | RuneScape |
| Date: | 25.07.2017 |
The MMORPG RuneScape is not only one of the oldest online games, but on July 25, 2017, it also officially set the world record for the most registered users. A total of 254,994,744 player accounts were registered at that time in RuneScape.
The developer Jagex celebrated the high number with a giveaway of 250 million gold coins, distributed to players every day for a week. RuneScape actually scored two more records that year: for the most music tracks in a video game (1198) and for the most updates in an MMORPG (1,014 updates).
Interesting note: Guinness World Records mentions that the Asian MMO Dungeon Fighter Online and Fantasy Westward Journey both have more registered accounts than RuneScape. However, there are no official publicly available data for this, which is why these records have not yet been recognized.
Largest Gathering of Video Game Cosplayers
| Location: | Finland (Tampere) |
| Date: | 7.09.2013 |
On September 7, 2013, a total of 491 people dressed as “video game characters” gathered in Finland, setting the world record for the most video game cosplayers. This gathering had 21 more participants than the previous record of 470 people.
The world record was organized by the Särkänniemi Theme Park in Tampere, which includes Angry Birds Land. All sorts of characters from popular gaming franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and many more were present. A video of this was also made:
Largest Music Concert in a Video Game
| Game | Fortnite Battle Royale |
| Date | 24.04.2020 |
This world record was set less than a year ago in the Battle Royale game Fortnite by Epic Games. According to Guinness World Records, on April 24, 2020, 12,300,000 viewers were present live when rapper Travis Scott performed his single “The Scotts” in the game.
The concert was spectacularly staged in the game. Players were launched into the air and transported through various worlds while a gigantic animated Travis Scott performed for them.
You can watch a video of the concert here:
Largest Collection of Video Game Memorabilia
| Game: | Pokémon |
| Date: | 10.08.2016 |
With her enormous collection of 17,127 items, Englishwoman Lisa Courtney set the world record for the largest collection of video game memorabilia. The record was officially recognized on August 10, 2016.
Lisa dedicated her collection fully to Pokémon merchandise and owns items from various countries. She made several trips to Japan to buy new merchandise there, sending back 8 to 12 boxes full of purchases to England with each visit.
Her collection has likely grown even larger since then.
First Person to Play Video Games in Space
| Game: | Tetris |
| Date: | 1.07.1993 |
Before video games became a massive industry on Earth, they already took their first steps in space. The Soviet cosmonaut Alexander Alxandrowitsch Serebrow was the first person to play a video game in space. This happened on July 1, 1993, during his flight to the MIR space station.
Serebrow did what any of us would do when preparing for a long journey. He took his handheld device: a Game Boy and the game Tetris, which he played on the way.
By the way, his Game Boy and the game were auctioned in 2011 and sold for $1,220.
Largest Audience at a Video Game Live Concert
| Location: | China, Beijing Exhibition Theatre |
| Date: | 13.08.2015 |
When Tommy Tallarico founded his concert show Video Games Live in 2002, he probably had no idea he would set a world record with it. This happened on August 13, 2015, in Beijing, China.
As he and his orchestra performed various pieces of music from video games in the massive Beijing Exhibition Theatre, 752,109 people watched them live at the same time.
- 2,086 of them were present at the theatre
- While 750,023 watched via the Chinese streaming service Youku
This broke Tallarico’s own record of 320,000 viewers, which he had set in 2013 during the San Diego Comic Con. Tommy himself recounted it in an interview with MeinMMO:
We played in China, even in the same stadium where the Olympics were held. That was incredible. We set the Guinness world record. There were 752,000 people who all watched a symphony concert live. You can’t even imagine how many people that is.
Most Players in a Game that was Live Streamed
| Game: | Pokémon Red |
| Date: | 1.03.2014 |
“Twitch Plays Pokémon” was a social experiment that started on February 12, 2014, and ended on March 1, 2014, after 16 consecutive days. During this time, a total of 1,165,140 players entered commands for the game through the stream chat and attempted to master the game together.
On average, the channel where the “Pokémon Red” session was streamed had 80,000 concurrent viewers and amassed over 55 million views during the experiment.
Besides the world record, “Twitch Plays Pokémon” also spawned tons of memes and jokes that still linger somewhere in the depths of the internet.
