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Forums - Gaming Discussion - First King of Kong then King of Cheaters now King of Lawsuits?

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DonFerrari on 05 May 2020
Ka-pi96 said:
But... why?

I mean, is there like a cash prize or something for having the "record"? If not, then who gives a fuck whether your name is recorded in some book next to it or not?

In the end civil cases are always about money. So he is probably going for the defamation process wanting some reparation.



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vivster on 05 May 2020
Ka-pi96 said:
But... why?

I mean, is there like a cash prize or something for having the "record"? If not, then who gives a fuck whether your name is recorded in some book next to it or not?

There are people in this world who base their whole identity on the one achievement they got in their lives and they will fight until death to keep that achievement alive because if they lose it they basically lost their whole life. It's really sad.



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Mandalore76 on 05 May 2020
JWeinCom said:
COKTOE said:
"The most visible of all video gamers" I have to admire his humility. I guess at one time it was true. But there are pairs of tits on Twitch more famous than him now.

Is he in the right on this? Is the statement that "his scores were valid since they were recorded on “certified arcade boards in front of hundreds of people” accurate? This was a big part of his life. I remember reading about him in EGM almost 20 years ago. I don't like to see anybody get screwed, even if this not something I've particularly invested in. Hopefully the truth will come out.

Well I have to be careful about discussing this lest I be taken to court...

But yeah he cheated.

Essentially the way MAME (or another emulator) will load levels and such is different than how the original arcade boards will load screens.  So there are certain little visual things that happen on MAME that will not happen on legit hardware.  In the videos for at least two of his million+ scores there are certain visual effects that happen on MAME but not arcade hardware.   It seems pretty open shut.

Of course there's the possibility that he played on an emulator but still didn't cheat, but the use of emulators itself is a no-no, and leads to suspicion.

The videos show what they show so whoever he's essentially placing eye witness testimony against video evidence, and the video evidence is going to win out. 

Actually, they were never able to definitively prove that MAME was used.  Just that they were sure the scores were not recorded from an unmodified board arcade board.

- While we know for certain that an unmodified original DK arcade PCB did not output the display seen in the videotaped score performances, we cannot definitively conclude that what is on the tapes is MAME.

https://www.twingalaxies.com/feed_details.php/1047/billy-mitchells-donkey-kong-and-all-other-records-removed/4



Mandalore76 on 05 May 2020
Ka-pi96 said:
But... why?

I mean, is there like a cash prize or something for having the "record"? If not, then who gives a fuck whether your name is recorded in some book next to it or not?

I'm pretty sure Billy Mitchell carved out a decent life for himself over the years derived primarily from the notoriety of his video game records.

This is just from Wikipedia:

He rose to national prominence in the 1980s when Life included him in a photo spread of game champions during the height of the golden age of arcade games.

On July 3, 1999, Mitchell achieved the first perfect score of 3,333,360 points on the original Pac-Man... Mitchell achieved the perfect score at an arcade in Laconia, New Hampshire, and set the game's world record as recorded by Twin Galaxies. For this, Namco, the makers of Pac-Man, brought Mitchell to Japan for the Tokyo Game Show that year to name him the "Video Game Player of the Century". In a ceremony on the Namco stage, company founder Masaya Nakamura presented Mitchell with an award commemorating the first "perfect" game on Pac-Man.

Mitchell has appeared in several documentaries on competitive gaming and retrogaming, including Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade (2007), The King of Arcades (2014), and Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler (2015). The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

So yeah, there are cash incentives to having your name listed as a World Record holder.



sethnintendo on 05 May 2020
shikamaru317 said:
Lol, I like how he calls himself the "most visible of all video gamers". There are hundreds if not thousands of random youtubers and streamers with larger fanbases than him nowadays, let alone the super popular ones like pewdiepie and Ninja, and of course modern esports players. He's more infamous than famous these days. More people know about the character based on him in the movie Pixels, who was played by Peter Dinklage, than know the real Billy Mitchell.

Yea that ninja guy even had a stupid toy action figure made after him all with his douchey hair color included.  Heck they even sold wigs of his hair I believe.



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JWeinCom on 05 May 2020
NightlyPoe said:
JWeinCom said:

Don't know if anyone's been following this, but it's an interesting topic for me as a law student.  Based on my admittedly limited legal knowledge (1 semester of tort law) there's no chance in hell this lawsuit succeeds.  To argue defamation, you generally have to show that the defamer either knowingly lied, or acted with "a reckless disregard for truth" and neither of those seem to be the case met.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a nationwide standard only for public figures and that individual states might have lower thresholds for non-public figures?

Though, in this case, Mitchell's lawyers were kind enough to label him, "the most visible of all video gamers," so I suppose the standard applies either way.

You're partially right.

There's no nationwide standard for defamation.  What counts will vary from state to state, but in most places it has to be knowingly false or "reckless" regardless of whether or not the person is a celebrity or not.

There is however generally an expectation that public figures will be commented on.  So in most cases, public figures do have less protection than public figures.

The thing is though that if you're suing you have to prove damages.  Like, say if I said to you right now that you cheat in video games.  I don't know if you do, so at the very least I am being reckless.  But, how exactly is that going to effect your life beyond minor annoyance? You couldn't sue me for defamation, because my comments didn't do anything.

That's why Billy Mitchell is highligting his visibility.  The cheating allegation is only really damaging to him because it's ruining his pseudo-celebrity status.  So, if he was just a rando, he would have even less of a case then he does now.

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 05 May 2020