Young Gamer Beats Tetris AI in Honor of Late Father; Extreme Minecraft and Halo Communities Also Make Headlines
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13-year-old Willis Gibson became the first human to beat the original Nintendo Tetris AI in December 2023, dedicating his win to his late father.
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Speedrunning involves players optimizing routes and exploiting glitches to complete games very quickly, with record times chasing theoretical "tool-assisted" perfect runs.
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Minecraft players have collaborated on mega-projects like recreating Earth at a 11 scale and riding a pig 414 virtual miles.
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The Halo 3 community organized a "Great War" against in-game aliens, generating over 1 petabyte of battle data on Bungie's servers.
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Game designers argue "gamification" misses why games are engaging, preferring "gameful design" focused on intrinsic motivation and joyful mastery.