Records are meant to be broken and this timeless rule is just as applicable to virtual reality as it is to giant pizzas and clothes pinned faces.
Challenger One
On April 7 of this year a man by the name of Derek Westerman set a verified Guinness world record while wearing a VR headset. The HMD (head mounted display) in question was HTC and Valve’s Vive. Weseterman’s achievement was officially entered into the Guinness records as follows:
The longest videogame marathon on a virtual reality game system is 25 hr 2 min and was achieved by Derek Westerman (USA) in Los Angeles, California, USA, on 7 April 2016.
The virtual reality system used during this attempt was the HTC VIVE and Derek played the game Tilt Brush for the entire attempt.
Westerman took on this challenge as a part of his work for Super Deluxe – a collection of YouTube filmmakers specializing in elaborate and creative videos.
He reported feeling bored at only the half hour mark. At 21 hours in, Westerman was violently sick into a bucket the very same bucket he was using to dispose of urine.
Westerman provides his reasoning for the stunt at the beginning of his video by saying, “Tons of people have gone into virtual reality for huge amounts of time already. But currently there is no specific Guinness record, so I want to establish that.”
Consider this record established…for now.
Challenger 2
Champions are meant to be tested and world records aren’t designed to last forever.
Enter Cris Miranda of EnterVR. Miranda is – at the time of writing – currently in his 65th hour of non-stop virtual reality consumption. He has eaten, slept, and completely existed inside of VR for almost three consecutive days now. Miranda’s goal is to remain in VR for a full 100 hours.
Even though Miranda is well past the 100 hour mark he still has not trumped Westerman’s Guiness record because, unlike his competition, he has been switching between a myriad of experiences and a handful of different headsets.
Guinness records are usually specific in their nature and so in order for Miranda to seize Westerman’s crown he would need to experience over 25 hours of a single game on an HTC Vive without stopping.
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Now begins the inevitable debate over which record is more impressive. That should tide us over until the next digital daredevil decides to do something even more mad.
