1983: Fifteen-year-old Scott Safran of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, sets the world record score in the arcade game Asteroids — the longest-standing videogame high score in history.
Safran, who had been practicing nonstop at the game for the previous two years, agreed to play a marathon session of Atari's popular outer-space shooting game as part of a charity event in Pennsylvania. His mother drove him to the event and lent him a quarter, which he dropped into the machine Nov. 13.
Some three days later, having taken only brief bathroom and food breaks, Safran finished his game with 41,336,440 points, nudging out the previous world record held by famous old-school gamer and actor Leo Daniels.
What makes Safran's score so momentous, however, is that it has gone 25 years without being broken, giving it the longevity record for a videogame high score, according to the authoritative game-record keepers at Twin Galaxies.
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