Like almost every child of the '80s, Todd Rogers played video games. Unlike every other kid, Rogers is the best who's ever done it. His 2,000-plus high scores — on everything from classic console games to current first-person shoot-em-ups — are greater than the next five ranked players' combined.
In 2003, Rogers played the Atari 2600 game Journey Escape for almost eighty-seven hours. This stands as a human endurance record. That record, however, only scratches the surface of his gaming life. To speak with Todd Rogers on the phone, as I have over the years, is to embark on a roller-coaster ride of subjects and levels of candor. Throughout our conversations, I learned that Rogers, now forty-one and a widower from an unhappy marriage, lives with his parents, where he is their caretaker; that he possesses psychic powers he is reluctant to use; that he speaks eight different languages (Greek, Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Swahili, Polish); that he modeled swimwear, leather briefs and suits for International Male and Mello Male;
that over the years he has claimed titles such as "The King of Video Games," "Mr. Activision," as well as the more informal "TODDzilla" and "The Howard Stern of Video Games"; that his wrestling record junior year at Argo High School in South Side of Chicago was 38-0, 155 lb. weight class; that in the early '80s he bedded an up-and-coming porn star whose name he will not let me reveal, except to say that a "certain type of bread house in a children's book sounds like her first name"; that he was once able to bench-press 460 pounds, using the unorthodox method of pointing his knuckles away from his face; that he was an extra in the Goldie Hawn football vehicle Wildcats; that he had worked as a repo man, bounty hunter, bouncer for the heavy metal band Pantera, as well as a roofer and telemarketer; that he raises forty-five different species of tarantulas in his home and sells them to wholesalers, private collectors and public zoos.
I called Todd up last week in his home in Brooksville, Florida, to ask him about the first X-rated video games, representing Activision, meeting adult-film stars, and joysticks. — Daniel Nester
Is it really true Playboy magazine wanted you to endorse a penis-shaped joystick?
Yep. It had to be back in 1983 or '84, something like that, when they contacted me. It was one of the few things I flat-out didn't take someone up on. They had an Atari joystick shaped like a penis. And I just said no. They had Swedish Erotica games, they were all set to get in on the video-game action. The money was fine. But I just couldn't see myself jerking that penis back and forth, playing Decathlon or something.
You had a problem with it because it was shaped like a penis?
Well, how are you going to make a joystick in the shape of a nipple? It would probably have to be a rollball for Missile Command or something.
Take me back to when you were fifteen, sixteen years old, when you started to meet adult-film stars and other celebrities and play video games against them.
I guess it was 1983 to 1986. And people, even then, didn't want the smut thing getting in with video games, and people were protesting. But, uniquely, the Chicago consumer-electronics shows weren't open to the public. It wasn't just video games. It was electronics, TV, VCRs, stereos. And porn stars. So it wasn't like John Doe and Baby Doe would just walk in and see a naked body. And there were moments when someone would lift one of the adult-film stars up on a podium and everyone could see they didn't have no underwear on. It was just the way it was.
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| Todd Rogers with porn legends Ginger Lynn (top left) and Marilyn Chambers (lower left). Below: Todd Rogers, with more fans. |
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Were you one of the only gamers to walk over to the porn star section and introduce yourself?
Yeah, I guess I was curious to find out if they really are as big and flappy as they are in the movies! [Laughs.] I wandered around after I did my stuff at the booth, and during lunch I would mingle. A lot of people recognized the Activision name, the T-shirt and badges I had on, and they came up to say hey. I gave people like Marilyn Chambers and Lisa DeLeeuw my phone numbers. They were so approachable. Cody Nicole, oh, she was a sweetheart. People would hit me up for copies of games all the time. You have to remember that this was cutting-edge back then. People wanted to get the first Activision games, and games in general that no one else had except me.
Did the Activision people scold you for sullying their image?
I don't know what they were thinking internally, but I did hook up the people in the adult-film industry with some of the personnel with Activision to distribute product. They're not gonna sell 5,000 units to these people just because they're in pornography? They enjoy the games just like anybody else, they want to entertain people like anyone else.
You told me before you didn't really watch pornos. So how did you recognize these people in the adult-film industry?
Well, I just don't make a habit of it. To me, it's a tease. You're gonna do one of two things: you're either gonna masturbate or fuck your girlfriend. And I don't masturbate. If I don't have a girlfriend, my attitude is, what's the point of egging yourself on? Plus my hands are like fucking sandpaper — if I start jacking off, I'm gonna have some bleedage down there, ya know?
Is that because of all the video games you've played?
Well, not only that. I used to do a lot of construction work and weightlifting, a lot of deadlifting. I got like triple and quadruple calluses on my hands. No lotion would soften that.
Wasn't it distracting when you were fifteen and you would be in an arcade or at a tournament racking up a high score, and all these girls were staring at you?
Well, I definitely felt a few hands grab my ass, and they certainly weren't guys. But when you were playing the game, that was what you were there to do. In my mind I was a professional, I made money at it. I mean, when you watch the Indy 500, you don't see a woman jacking her off in the car.
Do you think a lifetime of playing video games has influenced how you look at sex?
As far being competitive? Well, I never said I was perfect at having sex, and practice makes perfect, so I just wanna have sex all the time. I guess it's the same as playing video games, because being a consistent player is what you strive for.
Do you have memories of your first sexual experience?
Well, I once got a BJ for two hours playing Bop'n Rumble on the Commodore 64. I remember that distinctively. I was sitting there playing the game, and I'd go soft, and she'd still be there. I think I had to wake her up at one point because I felt the drool going down my nutsack. She had some fantasy about blowing me while I was playing a game.
Why Bop'n Rumble?
Well it was just one of those games that at the time I really wanted to beat. And this girl had this fantasy of giving me oral sex while I was playing a game.
How old were you?
Fifteen, sixteen, I guess. Another story is I touched my first pussy playing Wizard of Wor. The people at the school used to call this girl Scratch 'n Sniff. The waters of Lake Michigan couldn't cool this girl off.
So she was the town bad girl?
Well, she was two towns over. We had sex 330 times in 10 months.
Were you trying to rack up a high score or something?
For sex? I guess. I don't get that now, that's for sure.
Do you still get fan mail?
Every now and then. When I was interviewed in Joystick magazine in 1983, there were a bunch of girls who wrote me who wanted to know about secrets to playing Pitfall and Space Invaders, and what makes me better than everybody else.
What do you think of the sexual content of games these days?
Someone asked me about Hillary Clinton before. I have no respect for her lashing out at the video-gaming community. Just because one game has somebody giving a blowjob, she says all video games are a waste of time. She's an idiot and a moron. And I'll add that she should single out the independent developer of that game, not the whole video-gaming community. Not everybody makes or plays pornographic games.
There were pornographic games back in the early days, too, right?
Sure. There was Custer's Revenge and Porky's right at the beginning. That's precisely how I got involved with the porn people and the Playboy people. I still have the high score on Custer's Revenge. I have the high score on Porky's, too. It's 8,814. Porky's was a controversial game at the time.
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| Yes, this actually existed. |
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| Rogers set the new high score for Custer's Revenge on Dec. 11, 2005. He decided to stop at 12,069. |
When did you set the Porky's high score?
Right when it came out, and then in 2001.
Why did you do it again?
To update the database, so they could verify my score according to the current rules. A lot of my scores aren't found, so I have to do them all over again.
What's it like to play these twenty-year-old games?
You feel like a kid again. You associate different games with different times. I mean, I associate Wizard of Wor with the first time I touched a woman's bush. Every time I hear that opening sound [hums it], I think about that first time.
So what did you associate with Porky's?
Just the neighborhood, trying to hose up on all the girls in the neighborhood. I distinctively remember watching the movie, too, then playing the game.
You don't think, even back then, video games had an effect on what people thought about sex?
You know, there was a lot we didn't know about. I was privy to a lot of games in development overseas, a lot of beta versions of games that were never released. I had one where you controlled a joystick to make a penis go in and out of a vulva. It was from Germany. You had the guy going ja! all the time. Then there was another where you just stroked your player's penis, and the faster you went, the faster he'd splooge. And it would go ja! or schlecht! if you did bad.
Did you get the high score on those games?
[Laughs.] Well, they weren't really high-score-type games. You either ejaculated or you didn't. It was around the time you had strip poker with digitized pictures of naked women. I would hack into it so that they would be naked in the first place, and when you lost, they'd put their clothes back on.
I have to admit, I still can't stop thinking about the penis joystick.
It's okay. At the time, I couldn't stop thinking about the lashing I'd get if people got a picture of me swigger-swaggering back and forth with a penis between my fingers. I was horrified. I thought, This just promotes masturbation! n°
©2005 Daniel Nester and hooksexup.com
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Commentarium (5 Comments)
this is one of the funniest interviews i have read in a while.
A most inspiring gamer Todd Rogers, for all to admire and a story well done by Mr. Nester. Can any of us really imagine being in the video gaming zone for that long, not to mention that Activision T-Shirt and where it has been and also who that T-Shirt has rubbed up against. That T-Shirt if it were to be sold on Ebay would be priceless.
Great story great gamer keep on gaming we want to hear more.
-Ben Davidson
he really did all that, then he is the MAN
Who is this guy lets get him on Howard Stern or Geraldo Rivera.
80 plus hrs at a game? When does he have time to have sex or does he still have sex while he plays and what does his girlfriends think.