'King of Kong' Billy Mitchell Argues He Was Framed for Donkey Kong Cheating, Threatens Legal Action (polygon.com) 80
"Billy Mitchell, the former Donkey Kong and Pac-Man high-score champion made famous in the 2007 film The King of Kong, has threatened legal action against the sanctioning bodies who threw out all of Mitchell's high scores in April 2018 after finding that two were illegitimate," reports Polygon.
This week, lawyers for Mitchell sent a letter to Twin Galaxies and Guinness World Records demanding that both "retract their claims against Billy Mitchell" and restore the scores to their world record leaderboards, where Mitchell had been a fixture since the early 1980s... The letter to Twin Galaxies alleges that it defamed Mitchell, both in its findings and in later posts to their website.
In banning Mitchell, Twin Galaxies also vacated records that were not in question, and banned Mitchell from further participation in their leaderboards. One of Mitchell's records thrown out was a "perfect score" in Pac-Man (reaching the maximum number of points available in its 255 levels). Mitchell's attorneys say Twin Galaxies implied that score was tainted by cheating, too.
Guinness, say the lawyers, cited that disqualification in its 2019 Gamers Edition compilation of records in saying that Mitchell's "submitted scores were obtained while using [the emulator] MAME," which the attorneys take to mean as applying to all of Mitchell's scores, from 1982 to present day. They say that is factually incorrect and also impossible, as MAME was created in 1997...
The letter also alleges that Twin Galaxies "did not provide Billy Mitchell fair opportunity to provide evidence to prove his innocence," and that "specific evidence was accepted, while evidence of equal stature was rejected."
A 156-page package summarizing Mitchell's defense has been posted in Reddit's videogame speedrunning forum. It argues that the documentary's makers actually have filmed footage in which a videotaped high-score attempt at Funspot Arcade is clearly announced to be "not a score submission. This is for entertainment purposes only." And while the film-makers show that score being submitted, "this was only acting done for the movie...the scoreboard shown by the movie was forged.... Actually, in the King of Kong movie, the tape I hand Doris Self is a WWE Wrestling tape, not my 1,047,200 performance... The movie's portrayal that I submitted this performance is fictitious."
Mitchell's documents say that that score was submitted later -- without his permission -- by a referee for Twin Galaxies, arguing that the footage suffers from a compromised chain of custody. The documents even include emails written by the owner of the web site fuckbillymitchell.com "saying he has a 'master plan' to take Billy Mitchell down," along with statements from two separate witnesses who say that man had even at one point asked for help in how to fake footage of a videogame.
"I find the current accusation of Mitchell too close to exactly what Richard planned in 2009 to be overlooked."
In banning Mitchell, Twin Galaxies also vacated records that were not in question, and banned Mitchell from further participation in their leaderboards. One of Mitchell's records thrown out was a "perfect score" in Pac-Man (reaching the maximum number of points available in its 255 levels). Mitchell's attorneys say Twin Galaxies implied that score was tainted by cheating, too.
Guinness, say the lawyers, cited that disqualification in its 2019 Gamers Edition compilation of records in saying that Mitchell's "submitted scores were obtained while using [the emulator] MAME," which the attorneys take to mean as applying to all of Mitchell's scores, from 1982 to present day. They say that is factually incorrect and also impossible, as MAME was created in 1997...
The letter also alleges that Twin Galaxies "did not provide Billy Mitchell fair opportunity to provide evidence to prove his innocence," and that "specific evidence was accepted, while evidence of equal stature was rejected."
A 156-page package summarizing Mitchell's defense has been posted in Reddit's videogame speedrunning forum. It argues that the documentary's makers actually have filmed footage in which a videotaped high-score attempt at Funspot Arcade is clearly announced to be "not a score submission. This is for entertainment purposes only." And while the film-makers show that score being submitted, "this was only acting done for the movie...the scoreboard shown by the movie was forged.... Actually, in the King of Kong movie, the tape I hand Doris Self is a WWE Wrestling tape, not my 1,047,200 performance... The movie's portrayal that I submitted this performance is fictitious."
Mitchell's documents say that that score was submitted later -- without his permission -- by a referee for Twin Galaxies, arguing that the footage suffers from a compromised chain of custody. The documents even include emails written by the owner of the web site fuckbillymitchell.com "saying he has a 'master plan' to take Billy Mitchell down," along with statements from two separate witnesses who say that man had even at one point asked for help in how to fake footage of a videogame.
"I find the current accusation of Mitchell too close to exactly what Richard planned in 2009 to be overlooked."
Oh come on who cares about this stuff?! (Score:5, Funny)
What is this, a website for nerds?! *checks URL* Oh wait, I see the mistake I made. Carry on. ;)
Re: Oh come on who cares about this stuff?! (Score:1)
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Do you want ants? Because this is how you get ants!
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Re:Oh come on who cares about this stuff?! (Score:4, Interesting)
The funny thing is, the 'modern' speedrunning establishment seems a lot more interested in social justice and gender theory than it does speedrunning. Ironically, even if he wasn't a cheater the world Mitchell is desperately trying to claw his way back into is gone. https://twitter.com/gamesdoneq... [twitter.com]
Your link goes to the organization Games Done Quick and their preference that their new mascot be refered to as it/them as it is genderless. I don't know that they are associated with the article and I believe their request is reasonable, but I'm open minded enough so that if you wish to sexualise the mascot in private i think you should be able to do so and I don't see why you'd want to argue doing it outside of a private situation as that's just being creepy.
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Who said anything about sexualization with implications of beastiality?
It's a mascot. The implications are furries not beastiality. Know your sexual fetishes people!
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Reasonable politeness about people's gender was a far-left political point in the 1980s, maybe, but now it's just sorta the baseline of being civilized. It turns out, sometimes after we think about what people say for a while, it turns out they had a pretty good point.
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Re:Oh come on who cares about this stuff?! (Score:5, Insightful)
The tweet you link to points out that their mascot, a magical creature, does not have a gender. They are just a mascot, for an event that is also gender neutral and does not have categories for different genders or anything like that.
If that really upsets you so much then I'd suggest that the problem is with you, not with GDC.
You are right about Mitchell though. When he set those records Twin Galaxies was just a club for him and his friends. A lot of it went on trust and they didn't question his tapes or claims too closely. Nowadays the standards are a bit higher.
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Why not say, not mention gender at all in a "genderless" event? The GDC is SocJus, just not on steroids like most of the idiots who spend all their time fretting about pronouns (which, the English language has he/she. THAT IS ALL. They is friggin' plural.)
My problem is they pervert the language for their own delusions, and they try to shame people who don't buy into their claptrap, even going so far as to try to get them fired, banned, and de-platformed. That's what really upsets those of us who remember th
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Why not say, not mention gender at all in a "genderless" event?
People asked about the mascot, they replied.
My problem is they pervert the language for their own delusions, and they try to shame people who don't buy into their claptrap, even going so far as to try to get them fired, banned, and de-platformed.
Like those petitions demanding that "universities" ban "social justice courses" etc?
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Although I agree with you on their nonsense, you might want to read up on the singular they: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The use of the singular they fell out for frequent use only in the late 20th century. Which does not preclude a newfound use. I will use they anytime over Xe. Especially if the Gender can not be known.
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I hope (Score:2)
The judge throws this out for wasting the court's time.
Re: I hope (Score:2)
This is what private arbitration is for - not Sheriff's deputies with guns drawn.
Ignore the cackle of dopes who are trying to outlaw binding arbitration agreements - they can only imagine OSFA monopolies.
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He has no standing to force arbitration, so if they won't play, he has no choice but to go through the courts. It's literally what they are there for.
If he was a true master of the game (Score:1)
He would do it again, if Guinness want it re-run, should be a breeze for a true master, an imposter would obfuscate and have 155 fucking pages of why he shouldn't.
a true master of the game has just done that, mastered it, you cannot beat their technique, for there can be only one minimum time and they know how to create it, there should be no variability as every condition has been predicted in advance.
do it again chump
Re: If he was a true master of the game (Score:5, Insightful)
Neil Armstrong should land again on the moon, Michael Schumacher should become again F1 world champion, Robert Peary should walk again to the north pole... aftet all, they did it once, how hard can it be for them, right?
Being the best is usually not a particular magic "technique" one guy knows and everybody else not. Yes, it takes a good technique, but also specific devotion, training, (mental and physical) preparation and, yes, luck, and quite generally "having your stars aligned" on a partiular day are all necessary ingredients. Some things are difficult enough to do once, essentially impossible twice. (In other words: even mastery of a game fades away when you choose to move along to something else and stop practicing...)
Requiring to do it again just because a particular moron couldn't be bothered to pay attention the first time rewards to wrong person.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Twin Galaxies needs to dump the pinball scores (Score:1)
just from the missing info on stuff that can make the scores very alot.
Like ROM version
Settings are very set in a way that does not make them common to all games just saying Tournament - 3 Balls Only is missing a lot of them + there other things in game play that in the arcade rules may be banned by TG.
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Re: If he was a true master of the game (Score:5, Informative)
Mitchell's perfect Pacman score is an interesting case.
First you have to understand that Pacman is deterministic. Nothing is random in the game, so if you do exactly the same thing each time then the outcome will always be the same too. In fact you only need to learn about 14 different patterns and then apply them correctly to beat all 255 levels. Of course it's very hard but when Mitchell set his record the patterns were all well known (published in books) so it was more a feat of memorization and stamina. In fact even stamina wise you can rest during the game as there is one spot in the maze where Pacman is safe.
So there is a lot of doubt as to weather Mitchell was the first to actually do this. Certainly the first to do it at an event that Twin Galaxies witnessed, but world wide?
Anyway, basically anyone with enough determination can learn to do it. The Pacman controls are quite forgiving, it doesn't require a huge amount of dexterity or lightning reflexes. I'm sure Billy could do it again, but his claim to fame is being the first to do it.
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It doesn't work like that. Getting a high score like he did takes lots of practice time and ability. Time he may not have or want to put back into a game he's already beaten. Then there's the age factor which comes into play with is he physically the same as he was back then. Reaction time slows as we age so he may not be physically capable of performing as he did back in the day.
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He's extraordinarily good at a number of video games. Billy Mitchell got the first ever perfect Pac-Man score of 3,333,360 points.
However, he is no longer the best Donkey Kong player out there. Why he was driven to cheat to temporarily appear to be the world's best Donkey Kong player is something only he can answer.
Ironically, the scores that he cheated to create are not even close to today's best scores:
"On February 2, 2018, the current world record of 1,247,700 was set by Robbie Lakeman. According to Twin
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It turns out that he actually did "do it again".
"Finally, on November 24, he streamed a score of 1,050,100 for the Twitch faithful".
Billy Mitchell gets 1M+ score [twingalaxies.com]
You can watch it for yourself here if you are so inclined:
1,050,100 Donkey Kong Billy Mitchell [twitch.tv]
Of course, this doesn't prove that his original scores weren't faked .......
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or that the board in the mchine was fully legit. I do think he is def capable of beating the game. Just doing it in person when being watched at a machine not his own might make it a lot harder.
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He would do it again, if Guinness want it re-run, should be a breeze for a true master, an imposter would obfuscate and have 155 fucking pages of why he shouldn't.
a true master of the game has just done that, mastered it, you cannot beat their technique, for there can be only one minimum time and they know how to create it, there should be no variability as every condition has been predicted in advance.
do it again chump
He's too old. Never happen,
The first page of that letter (Score:4, Funny)
or "evidence package" is a crappy picture of billy surrounded by scantily clad ladies (maybe time for better lawyers?).
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Sorry I mean the summary they didn't link to not the letter above.
https://drive.google.com/file/... [google.com]
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In the context of the letter I do :)
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Looks like a conservatively dressed female kpop group, to me.
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yeah but even those conservatively dressed kpop idols move their bodies in seductive, suggestive and lewd manners. They're a real threat to uptight prudish decent people!
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yeah but even those conservatively dressed kpop idols move their bodies in ... lewd manners. They're a real threat to uptight prudish decent people!
Not AOA, they always keep their knees at polite angles, even when they're rolling around on the floor in miniskirts.
kidults (Score:1)
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All competitive activities started as "games". As more and more people were drawn to them, competition became more than some friends playing against each other for pure fun or pastime.
For those who may be interested ..... (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the thread on the Twin Galaxies forum where the allegations were originally made. I read through most of the thread about 6 months ago, and the evidence against Billy Mitchell appeared to be overwhelming.
One piece of evidence centred around a video that Billy Mitchell made of a Donkey Kong high score. The way that the playfield is drawn on the original arcade PCB is different to how it is done in MAME (the sprites are drawn on the screen in a different order), proving that Mitchell's world record had in fact been done using MAME (which is easy to cheat with) rather than with the original arcade cabinet.
Anyway, here is the thread. It's very long ....
Twin Galaxies Billy Mitchell Thread [twingalaxies.com]
Re: For those who may be interested ..... (Score:3)
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I agree with you. Several people support Billy Mitchell in this thread and deny the allegations, but my overall impression after weighing the techical evidence presented was that he absolutely did cheat.
He is without doubt one of the best ever arcade gamers - him getting the first ever perfect Pac-Man score of 3,333,360 was proof of that.
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Several people support Billy Mitchell in this thread and deny the allegations, but my overall impression after weighing the techical evidence presented was that he absolutely did cheat.
Did you read his side of the story?
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Yes, I've been reading through it now.
His arguments seem convincing on the surface, but he doesn't explain the graphical differences between MAME and the arcade cabinet to my satisfaction. His analysis of the technical evidence fixes on color variations and the "girder finger". But the differences between the way the playfield is drawn on MAME and on the arcade cabinet haven't been explained. Take a look for yourself:
differences [youtube.com]
I think there is only one genuine explanation for why his video looks as it does
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Mitchell is essentially making two arguments here.
1. He didn't cheat. He claims that the video that is supposedly his high score is actually fake. There is no question that it was done on MAME a this point, the forensic evidence is overwhelming, but he claims that someone made it to discredit him.
I suppose it's possible but he never questioned that video before. If it is a fake it is a remarkable effort, given that it mirrors his play style so well that even he didn't notice it wasn't his actual run.
2. His
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I agree #2 should be fixed regardless of #1, because some of (or is it all?) his other high scores were done in person with the Twin Galaxies folks in attendance. I recall watching videos explaining the technical aspects of Mitchell's DK score shenanigans, but I do remember Billy spent an insane amount of time saying the documentary made him look bad. I take most documentaries with HUGE grains of salt mainly because 99% of them have an axe to grind. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle.
I don't thin
Re: For those who may be interested ..... (Score:5, Informative)
There is now a suspicion that he cheated on other games. Anything post 1997 could be MAME, anything before that a different emulator or a modified arcade board. Most arcade boards have jumpers to set the difficulty level and other things. There are also different official versions of the games, and even bootlegged or modified ROMs.
Some boards even have a pause switch feature. Then there is the ability to use things like autofire circuits or even mechanical autofire. Less of an issue in Donkey Kong but maybe in some of the other games.
It's now impossible to verify the machines he set those scores on. We can't trust the Twin Galaxies staff either, because at the time they were very close to Mitchell and were clearly not scrutinising him properly, and not even to the level they did with rivals trying to beat his scores.
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If you change the difficulty the game behaves differently, that's easy to detect. I presume that's why mame is a problem, you can change it just to slow the game down. Though i suppose you could underclock an arcade game if you understood it well enough, then speed up the video.
This is why world records normally require a witness... Not just video.
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MAME is an issue because it supports save states. You can save the game at any time, try and go back if it doesn't work. You can also capture all the inputs and play them back, even edit them manually.
These days it's even worse because you can use the recorded and edited inputs with a real console, making it very hard to detect. A simple video of the play through won't reveal that. Sometimes they require video of your hands too, so they can check that it all syncs up perfectly.
The other issue with videos is
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The unanswered question: What is wrong with this guy that he cares THIS MUCH about a video game score?
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I think he might get TG and Guinness to retract their comments about him cheating, but I doubt they will re-instate his scores.
I don't think they can do the one without the other. Like the police forfeiting cash you carry on your person "because it must have been proceeds of crime" but they have to retract that because you show up with a bank statement proving you withdrew that exact amount from your bank account, but still keep your money?
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Well it's a civil legal matter so he would sue them if they refused. I imagine they would just settle by removing the comments. It's hardly worth it for them to fight him.
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I'm pretty sure cops actually do, in fact, sometimes just keep the money.
If they retract the statements, because of the threat of harassment or lawsuits, that doesn't mean they *have* to do anything at all. They can just say "no, we don't feel like it". He can sue, but you can sue anyone for anything. I don't think it'd be likely to work out well. (I'm not a lawyer, though.)
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Here's a video showing proof that Billy Mitchell's record was done using MAME rather than an arcade cabinet as he had claimed. The interesting bit starts at 2:23:
Donkey Kong arcade cabinet compared to MAME [youtube.com]
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He's not denying that. He's saying that the video was not of his high score attempt - it was a documentary and that there is footage that was unpublished where this was made explicitly clear.
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it was of his high-score attempt.
FACT: the video he showed at the conference is identical to the video that he submitted to TG that appeared in the MTV documentary.
FACT; that video was created on MAME.
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he also stated clearly that he "never played it on MAME".
so, is he saying that he didn't create the video that he submitted to TG?
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For crying out loud... (Score:2)
it's just a video game [youtube.com]!
Throw out all the TG records. (Score:4, Insightful)
This and the Todd Rogers cheating scandle [youtube.com] has really shown that Twin Galaxies isn't at all competent at accurate record keeping, heavily damaging their reputation. At this stage, it'll be better to throw out all records and start over anew.
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They were guilty of trusting certain "superstar" players far too much on records that were set a long time ago.
However, I would say that all recently set records are accurate. The standard of proof needed now is far higher than it was previously. I think older records should be allowed to stand unless there is evidence to suggest that they are wrong. They are an important part of the history of video games.
they once tryed to say that both pro and pruime (Score:2)
they once tried to say that both basic and premium versions of one game where going to be on the same high score chat even when the scoring is not the same on both.
Billy needs a Vegas Elvis Onsey (Score:1)
You cheat, you lose. Period. (Score:1)
It doesn't matter that he had some records from before MAME even existed and he couldn't have used that mechanism to obtain higher scores than what one might have been able to on an orginal arcade cabinet.
More recently, however, he cheated. And we know this from his own doubtless careless admission in an interview where he mentioned that a record was obtained via MAME. As a result, *all* his scores are thrown out.
I have absolutely no sympathy for him, and I honestly hope the court throws this case ou
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In fairness, he's claiming that it was not a careless admission but that the video was made as part of a documentary and was not the high score submission. And that there was unpublished footage that made this clear. The original Pacman was hard to film as it had an unusual refresh rate.
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If that is all true then why have these details never come up till now? At no point while Twin Galaxies was looking at his records does Mitchell mention these things. If the video wasn’t the real video why is shown posing with it in multiple places? At this point Mitchell can’t deny MAME was used. The new excuse is he was framed. Framed, I tell you!
It reminds me of a bad lawyer cross examination: Lawyer: “On what grounds did you arrest my client of public intoxication?”
Officer:
Now it's on.... (Score:5, Funny)
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...like Donkey Kong!
My kingdom for a mod point.
What? (Score:3)
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Do you think that the topic of old arcade games might interest you?
Download MAME and a few of the classic ROMs and see if you enjoy playing them. Try watching "King of Kong", an interesting and entertaining film about Billy Mitchell, Steve Weibe and of course Donkey Kong.
Slashdot often comes up with articles that I don't immediately understand. Sometimes I'll skip over them, sometimes I'll do some research and learn something new.
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The article's lede mentions "Richard" but doesn't say who "Richard" is. There are three "Richards" in the PDF.
What about his hot sauce venture? (Score:2)
More importantly, where can I buy his hot sauce? It's like he fell off the face of the earth.
my favorite part (Score:3)
My favorite part of the Evidence Package is this sentence regarding the movie "Kings of Kong".
Actually, this is very obvious, because the movie's has errors.
You can't make this stuff up.