Forum - View topicNEWS: Guiness World Records Drops Pac-Man, Donkey Kong High-Scorer Billy Mitchell's Records
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mrsatan
 Posts: 909 Location: Olympia, WA, USA |
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My local boy Steve Wiebe gets his old record back!!! Great news for a rather lousy day!!
Billy Mitchell always claimed that King of Kong was a misleading documentary that purposely slanted the footage to put him in a bad light the way reality shows do. I loved that movie and am glad that what Billy said wasn't true. Steve Wiebe and the film makers are finally vindicated after 11 years of doubt! |
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blaizevincent
 Posts: 407 |
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I think it's good that all his DK scores were wiped, it was clear even in King of Kong that there was things going on that weren't right.
Though i must admit I find it harsh an slightly bizarre that his Pac-Man record has been taken away, I mean he did that live in front of people if I'm not mistaken on a proper machine. You can ban him from further entries and from all of DK etc but to wipe a legimate (so far as I'm aware) first Perfect Pac-Man seems going overboard as none of the current controversy surrounded that score. |
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Spoofer
 Posts: 356 Location: NY |
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I'd been following the DK side of it for the past few months, and for some of those scores, he performed them "live" as well. He had stuff inside the arcade cabinet piping his pre-recorded MAME/spliced footage to the arcade monitor, and just mimed along to the play. He mandated that he be allowed to play in a back room with the audience watching him on camera from another room, so that they wouldn't be able to get close enough to recognize the ruse. He pulled multiple other stunts like that as well, where he was clearly utilizing various methods to deceive people.
I don't know for sure since I didn't follow the Pac-Man side of things, but from what I recall hearing from the DK topic, no one from Twin Galaxies or any other classic arcade community actually recalled seeing Mitchell ever accomplish his records on Pac-Man live, and no full footage exists of it. There's plenty of footage of Mitchell showing off tricks on MAME Pac-Man (again, rigged to play from an arcade cabinet), however, like warping to the last stage to show some fans the tricks to perfect the last level. People have also unearthed early interviews of him stating he used to submit fraudulent scores to game mags back in the day because he knew they never actually checked/verified the scores, and he wanted to see how much he could get away with. Long story short, the guy has absolutely no credibility whatsoever, and absolutely no score of his can be trusted. DK forums, TG, Guinness, etc. all did the right thing by stripping absolutely all of this fraud's scores. He only got away with it for as long as he did because Walter Day and all the other original TG crew were a mix of willfully ignorant and corrupt as hell, and didn't care about the authenticity of their F-Tier celeb stars (Mitchell, Todd Rogers, etc.) so long as they brought TG PR and recognition. Jace Hall took over TG at some point and seems more willing to address public pressure to look into many of these long-standing disputes, finally. |
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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I followed this a bit as well. There seems to be some uncertainty about the Pac Man scores and whether he was actually the first to complete a perfect game.
But that aside, it becomes a question of whether or not you just trust a cheater and accept scores after they have been exposed. Mitchell had been lying for years and years, using his connections to Twin Galaxies and particular staff members to slide by. TG switched management a few years ago, which has unquestionably had an impact on how his scores are reviewed and received. Todd Rogers was in the same situation just a little while ago, albeit several of his scores were not even in the realm of possibility. Mitchell's removal all together has not only to do with the veracity of his scores, but also the fact that he has been proven to have lied. |
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Spoofer
Posts: 356 Location: NY |
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While Billy's final scores were of course certainly possible, many found the nature of how he actually achieved them in the tapes to be beyond belief. Basically, in terms of the RNG and the likelihood of stuff aligning as they did in order for him to maximize his scores, the chances were like 10,000 to 1 for everything to align as they did. Furthermore, when plotting the range of how often stuff like the blue barrels or whatever pop up (again, due to RNG) for increased score opportunities, in every case, Billy's stats were far outside the range of all the other expert players, even when they ended up with higher scores through better play. It suggested MAME and reloading saved states or editing the footage to get enhanced play on every stage, and restarting each stage constantly until he got an optimal score.
Evidence emerged of these edits, as Billy accidentally left a 1UP indicator flashing on the screen for three times longer than it actually does in the Arcade version, and by the end of the investigation it was discovered that the final level before the kill screen, where Billy "conveniently" suicided himself to put him exactly 1,100 points ahead of Wiebe, it wasn't even actually the final level. Since the score rolls over to 0 after 999,999 or whatever, he just started a new game from 0 and passed that corresponding level off as the kill screen level since he planned on suiciding himself before hitting it. They discovered this via some obscure tell. But yeah, he's a total joke. Glad he finally got his due. |
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Set1229
 Posts: 146 Location: Pittsburgh |
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I used to be a TG player.
I feel that even though the movie was inspiration for me to get into competitive gaming, I'm not sad about his career going up in smoke. There are tons of competitive gamers that deserve more of a spotlight. Some of them are even friends of mine. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4609 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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He was at a Milwaukee gaming conference this past weekend, mostly just hanging out and taking pictures, but after a day of not saying a thing he did make a statement.
A friend had much fun making light of him showing up. Disgraced video game champ Billy Mitchell was at the Midwest Gaming Classic, made a “statement” |
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