2013 is now nothing more than another memory, but it still made its mark on history in terms of gaming, all of which have been captured in the latest edition of "Guinness Worlds Records Gamer's Edition." It will be the seventh edition of the series.
Highlights of the year's various record setting events include Grand Theft Auto V becoming the fastest game to gross $1 billion, a 49 hour marathon session on Just Dance, a mammoth video game collection, speed runs, high scores, etc. There's a good chance you read about some of the record breaking events before, but they've all been gathered together here for a nice bit of bathroom reading.
Here's a quick recap courtesy of a press release:
* Most expensive videogame - The most expensive videogame that is commercially available is GRID 2: Mono Edition (Codemasters, 2013), which retails in the UK for £125,000 ($190,100).
* Most prolific videogame voice actor - The most prolific videogame voice actor is Steve Blum (USA), who has made 333 credited appearances as of August, 2013.
* First in-game pizza delivery system - The earliest video game pizza delivery system appeared in EverQuest ll. In February 2005, game developers added a pizza delivery system for its players. By typing /pizza, players would be linked directly to the Pizza Hut ordering site. This was the first time that an MMORPG could accept orders for real world items.
* First videogame to become a licensed bank - The Swedish MMORPG Entropia Universe became the first video game with a built-in bank in March 2009 when its application for a banking license was approved by the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. As a result, the game's currency, Project Entropia Dollars, has a real-world value on the stock exchange, currently fixed to the US dollar at a rate of 10 PED per $1US.
* Most fish in a videogame - More than 8 billion fish were caught by RuneScape players in 2012. Game creator Jagex claims that, laid head to tail, these 8 billion fish would encircle the circumference of the world 20 times.
* First scientific study of a chemical compound in a videogame - As part of the development of Command & Conquer 3, publisher EA commissioned scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, to come up with a plausible analysis of the game's main resource, Tiberium. In the resultant paper, issued in 2006, the game's executive producer Mike Verdu described Tiberium as a dense "dynamic proton lattice" held together by exotic heavy particles.
* Largest playable area in a videogame - Minecraft holds the record for the largest land-based videogame area, as of 26 June 2013. Although Minecraft's map is technically infinite - the further you go, the more land is generated - a hard limit on chunks (groupings of blocks) means a maximum possible world size of 4,722,366,482,869,645 km².
* First videogame in space - Tetris for Game Boy (Nintendo, 1989) became the first videogame in space when Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr A. Serebrov (b. 15 February 1944) packed for his 1993 mission aboard the Mir space station. The cartridge left Earth on the Soyuz TM-17 rocket on 1 July 1993 and returned 196 days 17 hours later, having orbited the Earth more than 3,000 times.
* Best-selling gaming heroine - With lifetime series sales swelling to 35 million following the release of the 2013 reboot, Tomb Raider remains the best-selling videogame franchise with a female lead.
* Michael Thomasson, is recognised as the owner of the "Largest Videogame Collection" in the world. The 43 year-old, who teaches videogame history and design at Canisius College in Buffalo, USA, has 10,607 games in his collection. The collection is estimated to be worth around $700,000.
* Sean "DarthKnight" Grayson completed Batman: Arkham City in 2 hours, 3 minutes, 19 seconds, earning himself a record for the Fastest Completion of the game. Sean said: "Some of the fights did not go well," he said, "but I think that's expected. I'm not actually Batman."
- 24 year-old Stephen Kish from Hove, East Sussex, is recognised for high score records on two iconic videogame series: Pac-Man with 5,555,552 points, and Angry Birds with 37,510 points recorded on Level 1-1 of "Poached Eggs".
Spreads on the most influential figures in the industry, voice acting, motion capture, production and design are also included in the latest edition, along with in-depth interviews with some of the biggest names in the industry. The book also names the Top 50 games according to fan votes. More details on where to pick up a copy can be found here.