Video Game Documentary Stirs Up Controversy

Game Master writes "Billy Mitchell has long been one of the gaming industry's most recognizable players. He appears in a new documentary, King of Kong, which has been screening to very positive reviews at film festivals around the country, and has been picked up by a major motion picture distributor. The movie, which portrays Billy in a very negative light, has come under fire recently in an article posted at MTV.com, where Billy and others spoke out about what they believed to be an unfair portrayal in the film. 'Ultimately, the documentary hasn't settled the Mitchell/Wiebe debate, which has been going on for nearly a half-decade. Mitchell, Day, Mruczek and several other arcade aficionados are now compiling a response to the film, a timeline they plan to post on TwinGalaxies.com in June. An early draft of the document lists [what they refer to as] KOK fiction, like, "Billy Mitchell will stop at nothing in order to keep his DK score," and promises facts that will prove those assertions wrong.' The end of the article seems to imply that legal action may follow."

Comments

Re:Um, context?

[Timesprout]

Let me summarize for you.

Loser claims documentary makes him look like a loser and infers he may not be the best Donkey Kong player in the world. Several people are believed to have been injured by toys thrown from prams.

To settle this...

[svendsen]

Take them to the hottest club in Miami, LA, and Vegas. Have each one try to pick up the hot chicks using their DK story. Person who gets laid the most wins. I mean shouldn't be hard, 1+ million points in DK.....chicks dig that

Re:Summary of the Summary

[gEvil (beta)]

It's all in the editing. [T]he average person is...a prick.

Re:Um, context?

[Timesprout]

Having read your comment I still think it's more like this:

Video portrays latest hotshot loser in the classic gaming scene as a hero who's being put down by the old losers. In the process, it portrays the older losers as being petty in an attempt to suppress the rightful crowning of the new loser. The old loser replies that they did nothing to suppress the young loser, and that his problems stem from a failure to adhere to the rules of gaming championships. (e.g. His Donkey Kong machine was a later twin-board system for playing both DK and DKjr rather than an original DK machine that the rules call for because this somehow changes the game itself. They cited the new International Athletics rules which state that all athletic events can only be considered valid if they are held on the site of the original olympics in Greece, using 1000-750BC era equipment.) Young loser thinks that the real case is that the judges and other losers want to protect the scores of the older loser. No one gives a toss.

And the true irony

[Colin Smith]

A competition where even the winners are losers.