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Interviews: Ask "The King of Kong" Billy Mitchell About Classic Video Games
samzenpus (5) writes Billy Mitchell owns the Rickey's World Famous Restaurant chain, sells his own line of hot sauces, and was called, "probably the greatest arcade-video-game player of all time". He was the first to achieve a perfect score in Pac-Man, and held many record scores in other arcade games. He is probably most famous for the 2007 documentary,"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters". The film follows a challenger on his quest to surpass Billy's high score in Donkey Kong, which Mitchell had set in 1982. Since the film was made, the Kong crown has been held by a number people including twice by Mitchell. Billy has agreed to put down the quarters and answer any questions you might have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.
Do you play many modern computer games these days, such as the current (Xbox One / Playstation 4) or recent generation? How do you think they differ from decades ago with cabinet based titles you are so well known for playing?
Why did you waste all that money on Donkey Kong when Galaga is clearly the superior game?
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What (if anything) do you regret about your fame as a champion video game player?
Do you like Japanese imports?
Every arcade that I have been inside in the last 10 years or so has been filled with terrible ticket-churning games. The commoditization of gaming hardware seems to have permanently killed off the classic arcade. Do you think this is an accurate observation, and do you see any way that the arcade-game scene could be rejuvenated?
Wasn't hr the first guy to sink a battleship by bombing it from the air?
Have you ever been approached by an extraterrestrial recruiter?
Billy, is it as heart breaking for you to see someone butchering classic games that, with a little effort, could easily be restored, for the sake of some assclown hacking together a glorified Bally/Midway 60 in 1 with a bag of Skittles dumped on the control panel?
In the documentary, you were definitely made out to be the 'bad guy'. I'm sure reality was a bit more complicated than what the movie portrayed.
Have you and the challenger kept in touch? Are things more amicable than they were back then?
Do you regret wasting your life on pointless video games?
How many hours do you estimate you've put into DK and other games?
I'm not even trolling. I really want to know.
It's probably Omega-Centipede-Defender.
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Can you estimate how many hours you have spent playing Donkey Kong? Is it still fun to play?
BlameBillCosby.com
What is your opinion on today's competitive gaming, where there are corporate sponsors, live streams viewed by thousands, tournaments with prize money in the millions of dollars, and a focus on games made to be played competitively - games like Starcraft 2, Counter-Strike GO, DOTA and its dozens of clones, Street Fighter, and even modern competitive Pac-Man (Championship Edition DX II)? Do you think it is an improvement over the eighties, where perfect-scoring Pac-Man got you some media attention and that was pretty much it?
Do you have a favorite pre-1990's console conversion of Donkey Kong? Maybe Colecovision or Atari 7800, etc..
Barcade idea and don't need chains like dave and busters that are loaded with the ticket and prize games.
Chicago has a few with lots of pinball and other video games.
Really, let's find out about your performance in that game. That's what really matters. No other game matches it.
How do you feel about the modern trend of getting away from joysticks and buttons to almost exclusively shifting towards a combination of a revival of pre-video game type arcade games and novel/gimmick interfaces?
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Couple minor tweaks:
Do you think unvaccinated Creationists should be denied universal healthcare if they claim the right to bear Linux-based arms?
no no, 3d printed arms, from companies selling their blueprints for bitcoins.
Most documentaries have a particular point of view and editing can really define how someone comes off. Most people would agree you did not come off particularly well in the documentary. Would you ever consider doing another documentary?
What is your experience and opinion on the many Donkey Kong clones, like Congo Bongo, Crazy Kong, Konkey Kong, Monkey Kong, Donkey King, or even Popeye?
I for one have never heard of "Rickey's World Famous Restaurant chain" (Australian living in the U.K.) So it can't be *that* world famous...!
In Soviet Russia, all our base are belong to YOU!
Mr. Mitchell,
What attracted you to Donkey Kong? There are several video games of that era which could easily be considered classics, such as PacMan, Donkey Kong, etc. What was it about Donkey Kong in particular that kept you coming back to it?
The movie, "King of Kong" made it appear that your cozy relationship with the adjudicator introduced a bias and double standard that undermined the credibility of Walter Day's record keeping. Despite your unflattering portrayal in the movie Seth Gordon claims to have portrayed you as a more light-hearted character than you are in reality because if he showed the real you the movie would have been "darker". Has viewing the movie altered how you see yourself and your approach to life?
I excelled at every video game I played at far above anyone else I've met. Every competition I've been in, I've done very well too. I ranked high in the Nintendo World Championships in what 89? I got #1 in ladder in Starcraft back in 99. I got first to 1500 wins in Warcraft3 and #1 in ladder in 1v1,2v2 and 3v3.
So my question is: Have you ever wanted to design an ultimate skill based game?
I'm also a programmer/designer. I got into game design in 87 when I played all the games that were out there and had ideas for my own. My main ideas as a kid was "Action/RPG", and MMORPGS. These were good ideas and as anyone can tell they're where we went as an industry. The problem is that MMORPGS have little reflex skill involved, and Action/RPG can be beat by just leveling your player up.
So lately I've been wondering in how to make a video game similar to those 80s games in terms of relying on reflexes, yet still be fun for the modern player who likes to bathe in powerups(levels, skill trees and equipment). Do you have an idea you might want to share? We could work together to see it through. I'm just finishing a video game that is like Zelda and is going on Kongregate.com hopefully in the next few weeks. If you want to play the engine the game was built on, just be sure to login to save your progress.
God spoke to me
Omega Race gets my vote for underrated game of its time. It immerses you, relies on reflex gaming, is pretty fair, and there are several strategies to employ of various success rates. If you're good at it, you can play for quite some time. Try it sometime on Mame, though realize the dial control of the game doesn't translate perfectly to keyboard. It took me some time adjusting the sensitivity to have an okay time.
God spoke to me
I think you just stated "I hate your looks" in the form of a question. I don't think it should be dignified with an answer.
How much money did you spend in the 1980s on video games? I recall thinking $10 to $20 a day was a lot of money at the arcade back then - but nowhere near enough game time to build up 'pro gamer' skills... were you independently wealthy, or had some other secret?
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Do you have a ghost pepper hot sauce? If not, do you know where I could get a good one?
I've been eating so many nachos that it surprised me when I can barely even notice Habaneros give me any heat.
The obvious step is to go up a notch, but I can't find any ghost pepper sauces at my local grocery store, and I'm hesitant to buy ghost peppers from out of the country on Ebay. Ebay is pretty bad when people screw up your order to begin with, but ingesting something you buy on Ebay steps it up to a new level of trust I don't think Ebay deserves.
God spoke to me
Question: what is your Ms PacMan record?
Myself and my friends who have seen the documentary and the actions of you and your cadre have just one question. How come we could never see your arm as you operated your army of ass puppets? Seriously you must have been shoulder deep in Steve... Some of us think you wore green washing up gloves and it was edited out.
If you're not trolling, you may want to try re-phrasing without loaded language, e.g. "Do you ever regret spending so many hours playing video games?" Otherwise, we might ask you why you spend so much time posting to pointless Slashdot Q&A articles...
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Hey - how about you forgo all this old timey stuff and just ask him to do a reddit IAMA? Ask him all you want in REAL TIME. Whoa - we're in THE FUTURE! :-)
What's it like knowing that the only thing people will remember you for is that you're a dick?
Do you want to remembered differently than your words and deeds in that documentary portrayed you, or, as in the words of Jack Sparrow, is it simply enough that "you have heard of me?"
One might say that Donkey Kong is a Popeye clone. Nintendo was developing a video game adaptation of Popeye, which it retooled to use original characters when negotiation with King Features weren't going well. Had DK development gone according to plan, the Popeye we know would have been Popeye 2.
I miss the days where the goal of a game is to get the high score.
What's your high score in Splashy Fish?
When I first started putting games into arcades, players would play for an hour on a single quarter. My Double Dragon machine was a complete waste of money.
Then I got smart and bought some of those arcade-killer games...
I come here for the love
Thanks for taking the time, Mr. Mitchell!
My question: What do you think of the evolution of video games *since* Pac-Man and that sort of golden era of arcade and Atari gaming? Do you think changes in gamers's expectations for difficulty and entertainment from the games have changed?
Thank you Dave Raggett
What exactly happened, between yourself and Roy Shildt, to cause you to take out a restraining order on him?
Should the game producers have the Starcraft 2 level of control over events?
What's it like knowing that the only thing people will remember you for is that you're a dick?
Some people need to take a long hard look at themselves in the mirror. And I don't mean Billy.
what's your high score?
lose != loose
When the King of Kong came out you, and Steve were the only ones who could score at least 1.04 million on this game. It was rumored you even had a private personal best of around 1.15 million. Since then some major things have changed. There are now about seven people who can score over 1.1 million, and three that have scored higher than even your private person best.
As you have said on previous occasions, that you are a family man first, and a business man second, and Donkey Kong at the moment is pretty low on the priority list. If I am not mistaken you have plans to get serious with Donkey Kong in a few years when you hit 55 because your kids will be fully grown by then.
By that time though it may very well be too late. There will be many players who will have had a decade of Donkey Kong playing experience while you are trying to learn the game at a more advanced age. Because of this, do you really think you have any shot whatsoever at regaining the Donkey Kong Arcade world record?
Hey Bill,
I will have the large order of wings (medium) with a large order of curley fries and 2 large cokes.
How far did you ever get playing Ms Pac-Man blindfolded?
Do you still phone prank people like you did with Mogermen and Demner?
I enjoy games that compete for high score, but the landscape is just too different.
It's one thing when you're the kind of the local arcade that sees 1,000 unique players a year, but it's another thing when you're competing online with literally millions of others. The top 10 are usually all cheats/hackers who just want to see their name in lights.
I much prefer the trend of having Friend Leaderboards, or Local Leaderboards, just to help provide some level of context to your score.
Do you ever look back on those bonkers games from the 70s and 80s and wonder how gaming could otherwise have developed over the years?
Nowadays, even the hardware is geared towards 3D, and most games are generally some sort of photorealistic adventure involving humanoids. In the early days of gaming, people didn't know what the trends were gonna be. Was it inevitable that it turn out that way? There are games for the early Atari or Commodore etc. consoles where it's difficult to even figure out what the buttons do. Some games just had a completely different take on what a computer game could be. Many really good ones remain as the classics that defined the genres, but so many ingenious takes on gaming are left only as single examples of a great idea.
--
Omega Race gets my vote for underrated game of its time. It immerses you, relies on reflex gaming, is pretty fair, and there are several strategies to employ of various success rates. If you're good at it, you can play for quite some time. Try it sometime on Mame, though realize the dial control of the game doesn't translate perfectly to keyboard. It took me some time adjusting the sensitivity to have an okay time.
Another great feature of Omega Race was that you could still control the ship to a degree in attract mode if you were out of quarters. If I remember right, you could at least control the thrust and weapons fire. It was a good way to get just a little more of your fix even if you were broke but still not ready to go home.
Oh, and amazingly, I found that the best home port ever for Omega Race was on the Commodore VIC-20 (need to see about getting Omega Chase Deluxe for my Vectrex to see how it compares). That was one of the most faithful renditions ever of the arcade version. And back when I was a big time classic video games collector, I discovered the best controller to use with it was the Starplex. Back when I had time to have my systems set up, that I totally kicked ass on Omega Race and several other games with that controller.
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Were you at any time, the gamer who signed any of the countless vanity boards out there as either ASS or FUK?
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