I'm not gonna pretend to know the splits but I'll just say that there are many runners on Twitch who play on original hardware, in fact if I found out a runner I was watching was on emulator I'd stop watching.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Billy Mitchell's >1m scores in Donkey Kong were done on emulator, not standard hardware, maybe faked
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
- Start date
King of Con is turning out to be a tough google search, where can I watch King of Con?
They almost all use real hardware. It depends on the community but the vast majority lean towards real hardware. By "There was a time" I mean Donkey Kong hi-score runs don't seem to get streamed often anymore. It seems you can still find high level players though.
https://www.twitch.tv/lakeman421
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6922126/
Edit: Whoops, you're looking for where to watch it. Not sure yet...
Why do they lose tapes all the time?
Why is direct feed allowed at all when it doesn't show the player or the system?
Why does someone like Triforce, who has a history of scamming people in the fighting game community, allowed near anything resembling a record keeping organisation?
How do ridiculously impossible scores like this make in on to the board AND get verified by a referee? (It's removed now)
This should be the title bar on the TG site.
That score was seriously in their records for 16 years. And that's one of, what, 200, that were similarly ridiculous and blatantly false to anyone who had only played the game once in an arcade.
The entire organization should be considered a sham from this point forward.
All of the respected runners, including WR holders, do it on real hardware. A lot of them have cameras pointing at their hands/controllers too. Live events like GDQ are also done on real hardware.
Steve Wiebe was always the real King of Kong
THE KING IN THE NORTH
Hahahahaha, incredible.
The King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zhMlFOyZvQ
King of Con! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHeMUSo4SDg
Man VS Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYoVszTy2J4
As someone who considered going into competitucegaming of some kind, a story like this, where it seems as though cheaters literally ran the show, makes it really discouraging.
It's even worse when there are hints that they did not even "need" to cheat, and did it more out of a lack of willingness to put in effort to win legitimately.
It's even worse when there are hints that they did not even "need" to cheat, and did it more out of a lack of willingness to put in effort to win legitimately.
Jason Schreier was talking about how much he enjoyed the Nibbler documentary in a recent Kotaku Splitscreen podcast, seriously need to get around to watching it now.
The other thing I noticed in that interview (and Kotaku pointed this out) is that he says Pete Bouvier was there with him along with Todd Rogers, but in 2010 he said Pete wasn't there, but was on his way over. Way too many inconsistencies for me to believe his defense in this interview.
I very much agree with you.
I love the film and have watched it many times but from everything I've gathered, there was some pretty suspect editing and omissions that lead to a much more entertaining but ultimately less-than-accurate portrayal of events.
That isn't to say Billy isn't a bit of a shit but what we got in King of Kong was not the full story by any stretch.
Indeed. In reality Billy did speak to Steve at the event toward the end of the movie. His comment of "There's some people I don't want to spend too much time with" was taken way out of context. He told his wife he didn't want to spend a lot of time talking to some because they were gaming.
There was a whole lot more as well. I had pages and pages of notes but I can't seem to find them.
I'm never sure why on almost any post/article I read about Billy Mitchell, people nearly seethe with animosity, especially when they most likely have only seen clips and watched the "King of Kong" .
I was lucky enough to travel to Chicago a couple of years ago for Namco's Pac-Man infused 35th birthday celebration. Mitchell was there, as was Walter Day, and of course Toru Iwatani...and the dudes who wrote/performed "Pac-Man Fever". My only prior experience with Mitchell was of course, seeing the doc, and I'd showed it to my friend just a day or so before her and I went. Mitchell was demo'ing the Level 256 version of Pac-Man with the kill screen level ready for play . He was warm, polite, and even complimented me on a move I made while I played, (Which, I'm not really great for sure!). He took some silly photos with my friend and I, and we walked away entirely charmed and scratching our head's over the portrayal in the doc, and how we found him in person.
Later we talked with Walter Day for a minute, and shared how we were pretty taken aback with Mitchell's charm and demeanor, and he noted how King of Kong was edited to create more drama, and establish a sense of conflict between Mitchell and Weibe. That all made sense, for sure . And I can say I've heard sound bites from many celebs, and felt they'd be an ass in person, then was surprised to feel differently, and I'm sure the opposite can ring true as well.
I have no idea what's going on with this 2010 score/tape. I do know either way that score, and his play in general is largely irrevelant towards the current and future high score . I also know, that his play as a teen, and his continued push of his personal and public appearances in the gaming field, have done more help than harm. Personally, he helped, in addition to everyone else there, make for one of the most memorable experiences my friend and I have ever had in gaming. I've got over thirty years playing, and my friend just picked things up a few years back. That said, I'm grateful for him being out there, more so than ready to brandish him anything other than who he is, or seems to be, a really fantastic competitive gamer, and a guy that managed to push his success in gaming, in ways most haven't or ever could achieve.
I was lucky enough to travel to Chicago a couple of years ago for Namco's Pac-Man infused 35th birthday celebration. Mitchell was there, as was Walter Day, and of course Toru Iwatani...and the dudes who wrote/performed "Pac-Man Fever". My only prior experience with Mitchell was of course, seeing the doc, and I'd showed it to my friend just a day or so before her and I went. Mitchell was demo'ing the Level 256 version of Pac-Man with the kill screen level ready for play . He was warm, polite, and even complimented me on a move I made while I played, (Which, I'm not really great for sure!). He took some silly photos with my friend and I, and we walked away entirely charmed and scratching our head's over the portrayal in the doc, and how we found him in person.
Later we talked with Walter Day for a minute, and shared how we were pretty taken aback with Mitchell's charm and demeanor, and he noted how King of Kong was edited to create more drama, and establish a sense of conflict between Mitchell and Weibe. That all made sense, for sure . And I can say I've heard sound bites from many celebs, and felt they'd be an ass in person, then was surprised to feel differently, and I'm sure the opposite can ring true as well.
I have no idea what's going on with this 2010 score/tape. I do know either way that score, and his play in general is largely irrevelant towards the current and future high score . I also know, that his play as a teen, and his continued push of his personal and public appearances in the gaming field, have done more help than harm. Personally, he helped, in addition to everyone else there, make for one of the most memorable experiences my friend and I have ever had in gaming. I've got over thirty years playing, and my friend just picked things up a few years back. That said, I'm grateful for him being out there, more so than ready to brandish him anything other than who he is, or seems to be, a really fantastic competitive gamer, and a guy that managed to push his success in gaming, in ways most haven't or ever could achieve.
So Steve Wiebe is king AND a better human being that doesn't have an america tie?
In case it was missed, there's a response from Jeremy Young to Ars Technica reporting about the situation, and it followed my exact thinking on why the explanation of a "lost tape" is so incredibly unlikely. It's part of a much longer explanation, but this was the most info-dense :
I believe that was done in public as part of an event with journalists present.
That's the wild thing about this is that Billy Mitchell is clearly a great player, and has legit records, but he just couldn't handle losing.
I have a friend who has a TON of actual evidence on this. I'll post some. stay tuned.
Edit: Here we go, check this out. https://www.scholarlygamers.com/feature/2018/02/07/king-wrong-deconstructing-billy-mitchell/
Edit: Here we go, check this out. https://www.scholarlygamers.com/feature/2018/02/07/king-wrong-deconstructing-billy-mitchell/
Pretty interesting read, wonder where the support for the Pac-Man settings claim is. That's crazy to me that the number of lives were changed, it's clearly a different accomplishment if that's the case. So much effort to keep up appearances of being "the best" at the cost of others' accomplishments.
This is amazing. I can't imagine how frustrating it's been for people over the years to be skeptical of him and get blacklisted by TG and their associates.
But up until his attempt everyone used 3 lives to start, and afterwards TG said 5 lives to start was the "new" rule.
jesus christ... super interesting stuff.
Not to be rude, but your post is beside the point and frankly, that's one part of the whole problem. Nobody denies Billy Mitchell is in general a nice guy who casually chats with fans and is always willing to do some photos. Also he obviously is a talented gamer who has done some good for the industry/community, although I think his role may be a little exaggerated sometimes. Sure, he was like an ambassador for the medium but reading all these texts about him and testimonies from people knowing him, that's a role he kinda chose himself and was very comfortable keep playing it. I'm pretty sure video gaming would have succeeded without Billy Mitchell.....but like I said, this is not about his role.
The evidence against him is overwhelming. There is basically not one of his "world records"...or at least the ones he's famous for, that is not suspicious is a way. Either in regards to the circumstances it was submitted, the footage itself(if there even is any), the verification or the handling at Twin Galaxies... often a combination of more than one. Confronted with these facts he himself pulls the old Todd-Rogers and says he honest to god did all these records and can't really explain it..maybe the tapes are fake.
And then there are his die hard fans who will defend everything he does and emphasize his great role for gaming and what a great gamer he's always been. I'm not saying you're a die hard fan btw. I'm glad all this stuff comes out now and more an more people are able to tell their stories about the guy who kinda abused the system through his persona.
It might seem I'm overly negative towards the guy and yes I admit I first got into this whole thing through King of Kong and of course I was rooting for Wiebe. It was basically an underdog story about the lovable family man taking on the giant. How can you not root for him? And yes, we all know the film had a narrative and was edited. But even with the narrative some of the scenes that were shown gave us a peek into this whole mess. And funny enough a lot of stuff from the movie resurfaces now in the light of the new investigation.
It doesn't matter what he has done for gaming and whether he is a nice guy or not. If you want competitive gaming to be taken serious it's important people like him get scrutinized the same way as all the others.
It's really, really good. Out of all these kind of docos that came out around the same period, it's by far my favourite. Helps that the central character is a genuinely nice guy as well.
You're friends with PSP? Nice, I follow him on Twitter!
Tim is a really nice guy. I've known him for a few years, and he would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it.
I'm watching King of Con right now.
There are some pretty serious accusations being levied against TG, especially in regards to King of Kong being entirely staged with the help of Day and Mitchell.
Not certain I'm buying all of it.
There are some pretty serious accusations being levied against TG, especially in regards to King of Kong being entirely staged with the help of Day and Mitchell.
Not certain I'm buying all of it.
Dwayne Richard is a pretty odd dude. My friend Matt Bradford (He was the editorial director when I was the business dev director) confronted him on the video game outsiders podcast and really laid into him. It was awesome. If I can find it I'll post it.
So...
- Billy Mitchell was said in 1980's newspaper articles to be a co-owner of Twin Galaxies. And asking questions about that tends to get you slandered and blacklisted.
- Twin Galaxies inexplicably changed the rules on Pac Man to a non-standard set, shortly before Billy Mitchell played a "perfect game" under those non-standard rules. And even then, the only evidence of that perfect game was Billy Mitchell's word (and this was before he became a rockstar in the community).
- Twin Galaxies "accidentally" lost all the DK Jr records that were higher than Billy Mitchell's, making him the DK Jr record holder by default. When TG lost the records a second time, they rebuilt them from a set which should have restored the previously-lost records, but somehow didn't, because those records were being willfully ignored in an apparently attempt to create the legend of Billy Mitchell.
- When Billy Mitchell broke two world records at the same time, he demanded instant endorsement from TG (before they had a chance to review his claim, which on the face of it already had recording violations), called the media and staged a press conference, and then pressured TG refs to give him the award he was already telling the media he had, because he's Billy Mitchell, and you don't need to check his credentials.
- And it has now been confirmed that 3-for-3 of his most recent records have been lies. They were played on MAME, while nobody was watching him do it, which, aside from minor technical quibbles about frame rendering and whatnot, introduces the massively damning potential for cheating. Billy Mitchell could have been using slow-mo. He could have used savestates to pause the game and/or rewind. And his only defense is a ridiculous conspiracy theory about people chasing him for years, mimicking his live performance using MAME, recording it, and then swapping his tapes moments before he blitzes the media with them, in a long-game plot to discredit him many years later when new methods of testing are sure to result in long-undiscovered positives on his old drug tests.
So are all of his claims bullshit? There seems to be at least some overlap with his documentary and the blog you posted in terms of TG and Billy's lack of credibility.
And yes, Dwayne comes off as odd. He seemed a bit unstable in Man vs. Snake and it also seemed like he might have purposely cheated by using that faster-than-normal Nibbler board.
So how many points did he get the first time around on an arcade machine and why do people still care?
I'm not sure how you'd like me to reply here, as you seem fairly dismissive towards the sentiment I was trying to share, which was personal in nature, and that for me is...not...part of the problem, but part of the solution where we have a topic where multiple posters come in and basically trash talk someone's personal credibility on account of a documentary, and no personal experience with said person. That form of bias...does...impact a thread, conversation, and how a public can assess and ultimately judge someone. So please, don't say you're not being rude, but then....well, you are being rude, to someone you haven't even talked to before.
That said, I entirely feel his and anyone's scores need accountability, I wasn't questioning that at all. What I was questioning, is what I said up above, public image versus possible reality. And that does play into how and why we frame a person the way we do.
I certainly never said or insinuated that the industry wouldn't exist sans Mitchell, or the competitive gaming field in general. I do feel he's an early embassador for the field, and he definitely needs as much scrutiny as anyone at this level . I never suggested otherwise.
And for my point, my own personal experience does have weight, relating to how you specifically viewed, and me as well, King of Kong. It's a manipulative doc, and certainly has affected how he's viewed, and his credibility, as much as his own actions might . I know I'd never heard of him, the record, or much of that scene prior to that film being released years ago, and that impression on me, and others, carries negative weight. So for me, I'm sharing an earnest engagement, and reaction, to facilitate some degree of balance, as well as maybe for others to consider his demeanor or code of ethics a bit differently than the perceived scoundrel he was shown to be in that film.
Billy Mitchell apparently had the world record of 874,300, which inspired Steve Wiebe to go for 1,006,600, as seen in the "famous in gamer circles" documentary The King of Kong (which you should really watch, if you haven't already, although the warning that it paints Billy Mitchell unfairly through the use of clever editing has a new level of intrigue and irony).
Billy Mitchell responded (still in the movie) with a score of 1,047,200, which has now been proven to be a lie. He's gone back and forth for the record a few times with a couple of different people, seemingly establishing himself as the guy to beat, but all of his records since King of Kong have been lies.
According to the OP, Billy Mitchell has produced a score of 940,000 in front of a live audience, but I'm not sure if that was before or after Steve Wiebe dethroned him (assuming the 874,300 throne wasn't a lie to begin with, because apparently his Pac Man and DK Jr records were also lies).
People care because he's a high-profile gamer, thanks in part to The King of Kong.
I'm not exactly sure told it's all lies honestly. I'm pretty sure he never got any money from the king of king and he got pissed off about it. That could be a motive.
My intention was honestly not to trash your personal experience. If that came across, I apologize. And I agree that you of course shouldn't judge the man solely based on the documentary. That's a point I forgot to emphasize in my post. That being said, it's equally questionable to judge his personal integrity based upon his behavior and demeanor at these meet-and-greet situations. I'm not saying you're defending the guy because you met once, I just think his kindness in said situations is irrelevant to the whole situation as is his narratively fitting depiction in KoK. I get your point about balancing the discussion but it seems we're past the level of "maybe he did something wrong and maybe he didn't". This thread is at its core about the records and honestly, can you blame the people for being pissed at the guy? It's always the same thing in these kind of situations. If Todd Rogers would have admitted he never achieved the Dragster record and that he just got caught up in a decade-long web of lies and apologized... sure, at least he's honest now, I can accept that. But standing there, dozens of people presenting evidence his record is not possible and still claiming he did it..sorry, I have no respect for people lying in my face. Same thing with Mitchell.
I appreciate that. I do.
I definitely feel that he was at a PR event, and that's going to sway a person's demeanor/behavior more so than if I walked up to them, and asked them randomly to have a beer and a chat about gaming. So I definitely take that into account. He was most likely paid to be there. I'm just stating that most people view him as a slimy car salesman, from the movie, and meeting him he felt genuine and relatable, not dickish. And that's pretty awesome, frankly.
I did start watching the "The King of Con" on YouTube, and am just a few minutes in, but will watch more for sure! That also feels like someone has an agenda on hand, but I'd imagine anyone reaching this far into the limelight has eccentricities, and their persona is more about supporting their who and accomplishments, more so than the "truth".
As far as him lying to your face, all of this seems amuck, and this source says one thing, and another is contrary. Personally I'm not viewing anything as a lie until there's definitive substance out there, of which I'm not sure there is currently. That doesn't mean I won't be skeptical.
That Dragster record with Todd Rodgers, I tried to look into wat the record is, and I'm still a bit unsure of what the hell is even going on, regarding what the record/gameplay entails.
The evidence is definitive and his explanation defies all logic.
Man he really does look like a 80s-90s tv show villain. I could see him on Walker Texas Ranger tbh lol.
I went over to that thread on the Kong forum, and man...I really didn't have any idea of how to interpret all of the GIF differences and such. I wonder if a video will be released, that will help elaborate on what all of that means.
For me, it's an old and outdated score, that isn't really relevant regardless. Sure, if it's definitely faked, that adds a lack of credibility to his overall character, but....as one person said on the first page of that thread, it doesn't dismiss his score from years earlier, in the 900,000 range, that will still exist in the records at Twin Galaxies.
I'd imagine he won't budge on his end, and the evidence will speak similarly on a conflicting level.
Yes, but I think that misunderstands what was involved. He's saying that getting the highest possible score involves dying in the "right" places on 256, which actually makes what he did slightly harder than a 3-life perfect. It isn't like he's getting more chances to mess up, he's just doing what's needed to get the highest score theoretically available. I think that's a totally valid argument in this particular case.
Last edited:
The King of Kong is a far more entertaining documentary to watch but Man Vs Snake was a lot more heartfelt and touching. I really felt for Tim in several parts.
I watched that King of Con documentary out of curiosity and it feels like one of those 9/11 Truther movies, but for video games. Or maybe like a more amateur version of Roger and Me. lol
It's been 5 years since that movie was made... but I assume no one really bothered to talk about it back then or we wouldn't be having the conversation now.
It's been 5 years since that movie was made... but I assume no one really bothered to talk about it back then or we wouldn't be having the conversation now.
So, I just watched King of Kong over the weekend and have now been obsessed with the score controversy.... especially in light of the recent Todd Rogers scandal. Really fascinating stuff. King of Con is next on my list. Thanks to whoever posted the YouTube link.
Apollo Legend did another video after his Todd Rogers saga, now compiling information and interviews about Billy.
That East Side Dave Show footage is cringe as fuck
That East Side Dave Show footage is cringe as fuck
Yeah, saw this earlier.
Holy shit, I have never seen someone kiss ass so hard.
I read on reddit that he did that so Billy would do the show. The host had pranked him a few times, like ordering 1000 bottles of his hot sauce. Billy contacted him if he was serious on his home phone number. This allowed the host to obtain his phone number.