Eighty-Year-Old Doris Self Coming to London to Re-Claim Title of ''World's Oldest Video Game Champion''

LONDON, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 28, 2005--Doris Self is coming to London to win back her title as history's "oldest video game champ."

Last month in Weirs Beach, NH, after four days of playing the Q*bert video game, Doris fell short of the 1.8 million points needed to break the world record, scoring only 931,900 points.

“I was the 'oldest' champion in 1984 with a score of 1,112,300 points on Q*bert”

But, the eighty-year-old gamer is trying again, this time at the Classic Gaming Expo-UK, scheduled for Fairfield Halls in Croydon, Saturday, August 13. The CGEUK - the UK's premier retro gaming event -- can be found at www.cgeuk.com.

Doris will be holding a news conference in Fairfield Halls on the day before the CGEUK, at 1:00 PM, Friday, August 12.

Escorted by gaming legend Billy Mitchell and Twin Galaxies' Walter Day, Doris will be part of a large contingent of American gamers going to the CGEUK to compete for high scores in the forthcoming edition of Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records.

But, the road to the CGEUK has been long for Doris. She used to play poker and bridge with her 80-year-old girlfriends almost every night. Sometimes until four o'clock in the morning. And, her passion was shooting "craps" while on casino junkets.

That is, until Billy Mitchell delivered a Q*bert arcade game to her house.

Now, Doris, of Fort Lauderdale, eats, drinks and sleeps Q*Bert, the classic video game from the early 1980s, practicing day and night. And, if she breaks the Q*bert record at the CGEUK, she'll be history's oldest video game world champion.

"I was the 'oldest' champion in 1984 with a score of 1,112,300 points on Q*bert," remembers Doris. "Later, in 2003, I was sad when I lost the title to John Lawton, 72, of New Hampshire. Then I got a call from gaming legend Billy Mitchell, who offered to loan me a Q*bert machine to practice on and win back my title. Billy made me promise that I would give up poker and practice Q*bert everyday."

In the video world, Mitchell is considered the world's most famous video game player. In the early 1980s he was the most successful video gamer listed in the U.S. edition of the Guinness Book of World Records and was proclaimed the "Player-of-the-Century" at the 1999 Tokyo Game Show. He was among a select group of champion players to appear in LIFE Magazine in January, 1983 and was a founding member of the U.S. National Video Game Team, history's first team of professional video players. Most notably, he has enjoyed undying notoriety for achieving history's first "perfect" game on Pac-Man in 1999. Mitchell now produces Rickey's World Famous Sauce, found at http://www.800hotsauce.com.

Thanks to Mitchell's support, Doris is ready for her big day of truth at the CGEUK.

Doris has already played an important role in history, graduating in 1945 as a member of Eastern Airlines' first class of airline stewardesses. Later, in 1954, while working with legendary air ace Eddie Rickenbacker, she co-organized 'The Silver Liners,' history's first association for ex-stewardesses.

In light of all this, Doris says: "My bridge-playing girlfriends have no idea of all the adventures I have been through. They think my Q*bert quest is strange, but this is my life and, thanks to Billy Mitchell, I feel like I've packed four lifetimes into my years and don't plan to stop now."