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Walter Day

American video game referee

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ277746
Source-derived summary

Walter Aldro Day Jr. (born May 14, 1949) is an American businessman and the founder of Twin Galaxies, an organization that tracks world records for video games and conducts a program of electronic-gaming promotions.

Biography

Walter Aldro Day Jr. was born in Oakland, California, on May 14, 1949.

After moving to the town of Fairfield, Iowa, Day sold commemorative newspapers for a living. In 1980, Day went to Houston, Texas to become an oil futures trader. He soon moved back to Fairfield and became a landlord, purchasing the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1981. That same year, he appeared on the cover of Time in an edition featuring video games, and he established an online platform to establish rules and compile records for competitive video game playing. Twin Galaxies soon became known as the trusted database for high score records.

Beginning in 1983, Guinness World Records recognized video games as a new category.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Walter Day” as american video game referee. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Walter, American and video.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1949, 1980, 1981, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1949-05-14. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Walter, American and video providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Walter Day”, the useful work is to connect “american video game referee” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q277746. VIAF identifies the subject as 3149196260574790689. The Library of Congress control number is n99026378. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1949, 1980, 1981 and 1983.

Critical limits

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Walter Day” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.