Youngsters break record for playing video game

Wesley McCarter (left) tries to round up some witnesses before embarking with friend Chris Archie (center), Nate Smith (right) and C.J. Budy (not pictured) on an attempt to break the world record for playing the video game Super Smash Brothers Melee last Friday.(Ruth Campbell/Tribune)

Set up in a barn on the grounds of Pine Z Arena south of Fort Scott, four youngsters convened last Friday to break the world record for playing video games. They succeeded -- smashing the previous 32-hour milestone by 10. The record will now be submitted to Guinness.

Wesley McCarter, C.J. Budy, Nate Smith and Chris Archie played Super Smash Brothers Melee. Witnesses included Shane Willie, Chavez Gaynor, Skyler Lowery and Joseph Herrman, although some were there longer than others. Josh Woolsey kept the log.

McCarter said the attempt was "pretty fun," but 40 hours was a lot longer than they originally thought.

"The whole thing kind of blurred together," he said. "Some of us can't recall everything that happened between Saturday and Sunday. The last eight hours, we were like zombies mashing buttons. It was interesting to say the least."

The youngsters broke the record at 2 a.m. July 31. McCarter said he subscribes to Game Informer, a monthly magazine, and saw they had set a mark of 32 hours and five minutes playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl, a previous version of Super Smash Brothers Melee. "It kind of started out as a joke until I contacted Guinness, and after they emailed me back, it got serious and here we are going for 40 hours," McCarter said the Friday before they began.

The boys needed two witnesses at all times and whoever came and went from the barn had to sign in and out. There were also two webcams -- one recording everything and another that took a screen shot of the computer game every hour.

The four knew each other from working at Sonic, although Smith is now employed at Key Industries. "This is the first time all of us have hung out," McCarter said.

For every consecutive hour of play, players got 10 minutes of break time. Three players could break at once, but one had to be playing all the time.

"The longer you play, the longer you can sleep consecutively," McCarter said.

All the youths had played video games for extended periods before embarking on this adventure.

Smith once went for 20 hours with Modern Warfare; Budy played for four hours; McCarter for 15 or 16 hours and Josh for 27 hours on World of Warcraft. "It just goes by fast," Smith said.

Earlier this week, it was all McCarter could do to get out of bed, get something to eat, take some ibuprofen and go back to sleep.

After the marathon video gaming session, he cleaned up the room and he and Woolsey started the process of compiling everything to send to Guinness Book.

The general consensus is they probably won't do this together again for awhile.

"If we did, it's definitely not going to be that game," McCarter said.