Slashdot Mirror


'King of Kong' Billy Mitchell Stripped Of Donkey Kong Record For Emulator Cheating (hothardware.com)

MojoKid writes: More drama is unfolding in the ultra-competitive retro arcade gaming scene... Billy Mitchell, the arcade legend who appeared as a central character opposite Steve Wiebe in the documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, has been accused of cheating his way into the record books for high scores in Donkey Kong. As a result, he's now been stripped of his 1.062 million score on the Donkey Kong Forums...

The legitimacy of his score was called into question by Donkey Kong high score judge Jeremy "Xelnia" Young laid out a body of evidence that seems to prove Mitchell recorded several of his high scores on the open source arcade emulator MAME, though he claimed his scores were obtained on an original arcade cabinet, and therefore were not subject to same strict authentication requirements. "It's possible they were recorded in one shot," Young says, but "Given the play style in Billy's videos, it's more likely that vanilla MAME's INP recording feature was abused."

Twin Galaxies recently threw out the 35-year-old record for the Atari 2600 game Dragster, and has now said they're "in the process of fully reviewing the compelling evidence provided by Jeremy Young."

15 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What's next? by bigdady92 · · Score: 2

    The only way to win Pong is not to play. /WOPR

    --
    Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
  2. Who cares? by PPH · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Do these titles have a lot of marketing value or command some stream of income? I mean, if they ever come to take away my record for being able to piss the farthest, I'm sure I'll still survive.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Who cares? by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      Speed running is a fairly big community and there are a lot of people streaming it on services like Twitch. Billy Mitchell made something of a career around hist record I believe, so I suppose it may be possible that other people might be able to. I don't know if it's something that can earn an average person a living if not doing it in conjunction with something else, but Games Done Quick just raised over $2 million for charity in a recent event that features speed running all manner of games over the course of a week so I think there's a lot of interest in it.

      Besides all of that, is it really any different than cheating in something else like cycling or other sports? People are just naturally pissed at other people who cheat.

    2. Re:Who cares? by Tempest_2084 · · Score: 2

      You'd be surprised. No it's not like being a movie star or famous singer, but they get some notoriety that can be translated into cash (sort of like a youtube celeb). I think mostly it's about ego. You're the best (in the world!) at something and for some people that's all they have going for them.

    3. Re:Who cares? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Imagine finding out that Luke Skywalker used auto-aim to make that shot on the Death Star. Imagine discovering that Columbus used sat nav to reach America.

      Okay, okay, but this is a big deal to people into these old games, because Mitchell has a lot of records. First person to get a perfect score on pacman, for example. But now any of them that were not done in public, which is most, are in doubt. Well, even the public ones... Did he modify the machines somehow?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Who cares? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2

      It's news for nerds, jackass. Get another website, this one's not for you.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  3. Re:I believe it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The movie was a pile of steaming lies but you are correct, he is not beyond cheating to get the attention

    However, he really is that good at playing those games

    I watched him play Ms PacMan blindfolded

  4. This is the End by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Twin Galaxies recently threw out the 35-year-old record for the Atari 2600 game Dragster,

    Nothing matters any more. Welcome to 2018.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  5. Twin Galaxies Credibly is shot they need big by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 2

    Twin Galaxies Credibly is shot they need big changes.

    Maybe stuff like refs can't have scores maybe or very least can't review friends and family

    Some things need ref review

    Clear rules about useing game bugs and what is a bug may need per game lists just like per game settings lists.

    each rom ver has it own list both on real hardware and emulators (some of the pinball scores don't list rom / software ver and there are small to big changes for each one)
     

  6. All this on top of ... by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 2

    his insubordination. What is this world coming to?

  7. Re:I believe it by Aighearach · · Score: 2

    This might be a subtle troll, but Ms Pacman was a big deal because it was one of the first video games with a random number generator.

    Regular Pacman you could memorize patterns for most of the levels. If you repeat those exact joystick and button movements, the ghosts move in the same way in response every time. When I was I was a kid playing Oregon Trail on the Apple ][, my dad could play Pacman with patterns memorized until past the "apple" level. My dad was using patterns with visual cues, but you could also learn to do it off of a clock and then do it blindfolded.

    Ms Pacman there were no patterns of that sort. Somebody playing with a blindfold is cheating.

  8. Does it matter??? by Excelcia · · Score: 2

    Does this really matter? A) the scores they are striking aren't even in the top 10 any more, and B) they are striking him from #20 on the high score list for playing on MAME when it was supposed to have been played on a console, and the current #3, #10, #13, and #15 on the same list were admittedly played on MAME? How does that even make sense?

    The man has a publicly viewed score of 933,900. It's not like he doesn't have the talent. It's a tempest in an emulated teapot if you ask me.

  9. Re:I believe it by pezpunk · · Score: 2

    actually what it proves is that he has LIED for YEARS about how he achieved those scores, and went to an awful lot of trouble to conceal it.

    the onus is always on the player to prove they achieved those scores. using an emulator makes it trivially easy to cheat, so it therefore removes any shred of "proof" that a video of him playing would have otherwise provided.

    --
    i could live a little longer in this prison
  10. Re: I believe it by pezpunk · · Score: 2

    which means his scores are invalid. it also means he's a cheat and a liar. why on earth would you defend this piece of shit?

    --
    i could live a little longer in this prison
  11. Re:And nobody with a life gave a shit. by pezpunk · · Score: 2

    the tagline for this website is literally "news for nerds" you stupid ignorant dipshit.

    --
    i could live a little longer in this prison