Is it a Record

e.g. first person to play/complete/discover etc.

A 'first' is not necessarily a record. By definition, a record is a feat that can be measured, compared and broken. Because firsts don’t meet these criteria, we don’t generally recognise them as records. Plus, you can usually bet that the game’s developers got there before you did anyway, so to accept gaming records of this kind would be like giving most games devs enough GWR certificates to wallpaper their toilet.

As a general rule, the games-related ‘firsts’ that we accept tend to be more about ‘things’ than about people.

Examples of firsts that we will not recognise:
First person to find the dancing Vortigaunt easter egg in Half-Life 2
First person to complete DoDonPachi while wearing a space helmet
First person to reach level 60 in World of Warcraft

Examples of firsts that we would recognise:
First home console game produced in 1080p Hi-Def
First ukulele-shaped gaming peripheral
First game to feature online multiplayer

With most of our records, we don’t distinguish between the ages of the people who attempt to break them. It’s fairly easy to see why we do this: if we published a record for the fastest time for a 17 year-old to complete Mario Kart DS, we’d have to do the same for every other age. This would produce enormous amounts of paperwork, and ultimately lead to global deforestation.

For this reason, we only publish a single, overall record for any feat, regardless of the age of the person to achieve it.

Furthermore, we will not accept any record attempts for specific games from anyone who is younger than the game’s BBFC or ELSPA age rating (sorry kids, you’ll have to wait until you’re 18 before trying to claim bragging rights on Manhunt).

At Guinness World Records, we are interested in just that: World records. As such, anyone in the world needs to be qualified to have a go, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or their views on Assassin’s Creed.

Examples of proposals we do not accept:
Fastest Welshman to complete Wolfenstein 3D
Most consecutive super fireballs on Street Fighter 2 Turbo by a gay person
Highest score on Boom Boom Rocket by a Scientologist

We also don’t differentiate our records based on other uncontrollable factors, particularly medical conditions and disabilities. To qualify our records in this way would mean we had to carry an entry for every single achievement recorded disability and medical condition, which would be both time consuming and utterly pointless. There are a number of world-record holders with disabilities or medical conditions; however these were assessed solely on the basis of their achievements.

Examples of proposals we do not accept:
Longest Guitar Hero Marathon by a group of schizophrenics
Completing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time after gastric bypass surgery
Longest Survivor time on Tekken 5 by someone with a sprained ankle

We can’t accept records involving consoles that have had their internal workings modified or chipped to run unsigned code. This includes modifications to hardware through the addition or removal of components, alterations to firmware and memory/savegame editors. In many countries, it is illegal to circumvent the copyright functions on consoles and we refuse to endorse these practices by recognising world records involving them.

We do, however, accept records for modifying machines where none of their internal functions are compromised or altered. For example, case modding is fine providing any additional electronic components are purely aesthetic in nature.

All world record attempts must take place on the platform for which the game was originally released. Although many software emulators can provide an almost identical experience to the original machine, we need to ensure that our records can’t be questioned on the basis of hardware.

We also don’t recognise tool-assisted record attempts at present, as these are often a reflection of programming expertise rather than proficiency in a particular game, and this is extremely difficult to quantify.