Carrie Swidecki is a teacher from Bakersfield who holds various dance game world records.[1] [2]
In 2010 Swidecki broke the Guinness World Record for the "longest marathon on a dance or rhythm game", playing Dance Dance Revolution for more than fifteen hours.[3] In 2011 she again broke the Guinness World Record for the "longest marathon on a dance or rhythm game" with Dance Dance Revolution, playing for 16 hours and nine minutes. She then broke that record and set a new one in 2012, playing Dance Dance Revolution X2 for almost 22 hours.
Also in 2012, she set the Guinness World Records for the “longest marathon on a motion sensing dance game” and the “longest marathon on a dance/rhythm game” playing Dance Central 2 with a Kinect motion sensor for 24 hours.[4]
On June 15–17, 2013 she set two Guinness World Records at the same time (the Longest Marathon on a Motion-Sensing Dance Game and the Longest Marathon on a Dance/Rhythm Game) by playing Just Dance for 49 hours 3 minutes 22 seconds, thus becoming the only person in the world to hold a world record for marathon play on all three major dance games: Just Dance, Dance Central, and Dance Dance Revolution.[5]
She was formerly overweight and has lost 75 pounds through exergaming.[6]
On October 6, 2018, she was inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame in Ottumwa, Iowa. Of this milestone achievement Swidecki says, "Somewhere there is a little girl who is playing a video game, reading a Guinness World Records Gamer’s Book, and dreaming of doing extraordinary things with gaming. Today she now knows that’s there’s a place for her in Video game history. Today that door will be permanently open for the next generation of female gamers! I know that little girl is out there, because I was once her."[7]