Guinness World RecordsA Hungarian man has set a new record for longest video game marathon by playing the rhythm-based music game Dance Dance Revolution for six days.
Szabolcs Csépe, from Budapest, bopped to over 3000 songs and burned more than 22,000 calories in his quest to romp into the record books.
The 34-year-old, known as GrassHopper on his gaming channels, said that preparation for the marathon took six months and included physical training, focusing on his “legs and glutes”, as well a a diet plan.
“Playing DDR is always fun for me,” he told BBC News, “so this challenge was best described as tediously joyful”.
His feat has been officially recognised by Guinness World Records.
Dance Dance Revolution is a Japanese video game series which was first released to arcades in 1998.
Players stand on a dance platform or mat and hit coloured arrows with their feet, to score points in time with visual cues and the music from a catalogue of songs.
The series has spawned dozens of spin-offs in arcades and many more across home consoles.
The games have also become popular as a way to keep fit, featuring in UK and US school exercise programmes.
In 2004 the series was even recognised as an official sporting event in Norway.
More recently the game has grown in popularity in the esports community, with players across the world competing in official and fan-run tournaments.
Getty ImagesMr Csépe said he was inspired to try the challenge after watching the attempt of previous holder Carrie Swidecki, from the US, who spent a little over 138 hours playing Just Dance in 2015.
But the avid gamer, who works in IT engineering, had already broken several records before attempting this dancing feat.
In 2021, he achieved the longest videogame marathon playing a Naruto game (28 hr 11 min 32 sec playing Narutimetto Akuseru 2) and the longest videogame marathon playing a puzzle game (32 hr 32 min 32 sec playing Tetris Effect).
And in 2023, a 90-hour gaming session on Gran Turismo 7 earned him three more endurance-testing accolades, including the longest videogame marathon playing a racing simulator game.
Mr Csépe, who earned the nickname GrassHopper as a child because he was “always jumping around”, told the BBC he had been playing Dance Dance Revolution for almost 20 years, but the marathon was far from a dance in the park.
Mr Csépe said he was allowed to have breaks “through well-earned rest times”, with one hour of dancing earning him a ten minute break, which could be accumulated to allow him to sleep for an hour or two.
Despite the immense effort, the world record holder added that if the record got beaten in the future, he would “certainly return” to defend his dancing crown.
