Will we see your record for most number of Monster drinks downed while playing Freebird on Guitar Hero?

(Reuters) – The most perfect virtual bowler, the most swearing in a videogame and the most popular game on Facebook are just some of the records listed in the 2011 gamer’s bible of wacky achievements from Guinness World Records.

The new “Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer’s Edition” published on Thursday features an array of record holders from pensioners to schoolchildren, demonstrating the extent to which people from all walks of life have embraced videogames.

“Gaming has become a hugely important part of popular culture and this year’s Gamer’s Edition reflects just that,” said Guinness World Records Gaming Editor Gaz Deaves.

The oldest gamer to make the book is 85 year-old John Bates from Onalaska, Wisconsin. The former high school principal became hooked on Nintendo’s Wii Bowling and went on to achieve the Most Perfect Games on Wii Sports Bowling (2,850).

At the other end of the age spectrum is nine-year-old Ryota Wada from Tokyo, who has been recognized as the Youngest Gamer to Achieve a Perfect ‘AAA’ score on music videogame Dance Dance Revolution.

Mitsugu Kikai, 25, from Tokyo is recognized for having the largest collection of memorabilia related to videogame character Super Mario (5,400 individual items) and Annie Leung from San Francisco is featured for achieving the highest score on Guitar Hero 3 for a female (789,349 points).

Other records include the most swearing in a videogame, the most people to sing to a karaoke videogame and the most popular game on Facebook, which is FarmVille with 60 million monthly active users.

[Full article at Reuters.com]

...not if you get fired first...

Despite warnings from employers and guidelines outlining proper company equipment usage, a recent study from Cisco indicates that Enterprise users continue to access social networking sites and tend their virtual crops in Farmville.

The study shows that of the employees surveyed, 50% confessed to ignoring social media policies at least once a week while 27% were guilty of reconfiguring settings on their corporate devices in order to access content and applications which were expressly forbidden by their employer. Of those verboten applications accessed, the number one application accessed was Farmville. Not far behind were games like Mafia Wars, Café World, and Treasure Isle.

The primary focus of the report is network security with Cisco demonstrating that one of the largest threats to Enterprise networks is Social Networking sites. Unsurprisingly, the document goes on to analyze the impact of social networking and the games it offers on workplace productivity. While the number of people who spent an excessive amount of time on Farmville and the like was below 10%, there was evidence that those individuals spent an average of 68 minutes per day tending their web crops while in the office. That comes out to approximately 295 hours a year. That’s 7.4 weeks out of the 52 week year. And you wonder why your boss gets grumpy when you Tweet from work…

The overall message of the report is that while social networking is a great tool for getting your company’s product into the public eye that allowing rampant use can not only lead to a loss of productivity but can open your business up to hackers and cybercriminals. Sadly, I see the persons who are most at risk on a daily basis, individuals who don’t lock down their personal information and happily open any attachment that comes their way.

If you’d like to see the full report, you can access it here.

[Source]

Gritskrieg – End of Line