Billy Mitchell is Banned

[H.E.R.O.]

One of the ironies is that his toady Steve Sanders had a 'claim' to fame saying he broke 3 million on Donkey Kong (before the days of needing to have proof and you could just write into any videogame magazine as well as Twin Galaxies & they'd take it on faith) & Mitchell says he's the one that confronted Sanders at the vaunted Time magazine shoot about it & made him tell the truth. Sanders even wrote a book called 'How to win at Donkey Kong' at one point.

[+HatNJ]

He didn't say much

 

[enoofu]

Needs proofs that he didn't cheat, some of the peeps that outed him are electrical engineers, computer programmers, and hardcore gamer's.

 

So i'm guessing he is either going the Knight Templar, Pirates, or

 

[PFG 9000]

I was shocked to see him at the Midwest Gaming Classic, both yesterday and today. He was walking around yesterday in a gleaming white suit like some A-list celebrity. I couldn't believe he'd show his face in a gaming forum such as the MGC, but apparently he's going to stick to his story and act like gamers still fawn over him.

[Tanooki]

I guess going by the choices above your post, clearly it's ALIENS as he feels HIS truth is out there, so BELIEVE!

[Flojomojo]

This is probably the best thing to happen to him since the King of Kong exposure. It doesn't matter to him if he's right or wrong, he's going to spray FUD around as if all the evidence is "fake news." He's the center of attention which is exactly what he wants.

 

There's another way that "facts don't matter." I hated his douchey persona before and now I have even more of a reason to feel that way. I'm unlikely to be convinced otherwise.

[NinjaWarrior]

Plain as Simple he's a Dick

[StopDrop&Retro]

I haven't been following this too closely here, just the articles that pop up on new sites.

 

But one thing I don't get is why are people saying this contradicts or invalidates the information presented in the King of Kong documentary? If anything, I feel the film has been vindicated. I clearly remember the creator of Twin Galaxies writing a formal apology to Wiebe stating that they were giving preferential treatment to Mitchell, they also presented video evidence that Mitchell's surprise VHS tape had clearly been doctored and I recall the last scenes with Mitchell in it had his friend nodding in approval of Wiebe while Mitchell just stares defiantly even though he knew he'd been caught.

 

My takeaway from the documentary in light of these new revelations is that it expertly presented evidence that Mitchell was not all he's cracked up to be or is an outright fraud years before anyone dared say so. So I don't get why people feel the documentary was a misstep.

Edited April 16, 2018 by StopDrop&Retro

[Opry99er]

Yea, I saw him today on the second flight of stairs/escalator at the front entrance. Someone said *Thats a cool suit* and he said something like *Yea, Im the second best-dressed guy here* or something like that.

 

Right out in front of the inflatable Sonic the Hedgehog next to the window. I didnt recognize him at the time, but thats what he was wearing today!! Cant forget that.

[Dr Manhattan]

If you watch his official statement video it appears he's getting ready to launch a counter offense against TG and his accusers. I'm actually intrigued to see what he comes up with. I still believe his Pac-Man records should be allowed to stay. As for his Donkey Kong record the guy should just sit down at a machine and break a million points, if he still can. I'm wondering if that's an issue here. Can he still do it?

[deepthaw]

If you watch his official statement video it appears he's getting ready to launch a counter offense against TG and his accusers. I'm actually intrigued to see what he comes up with. I still believe his Pac-Man records should be allowed to stay. As for his Donkey Kong record the guy should just sit down at a machine and break a million points, if he still can. I'm wondering if that's an issue here. Can he still do it?

 

The problem with letting his Pac-Man scores stand is that it shows that so long as you don't get caught, cheating is fine. That'd almost encourage more cheating because people would know only those attempts for which they were caught would get tossed.

[Airshack]

Last summer while introducing my nephew to retro gaming at an Austin TX gaming show, we came upon Billy M in the lobby. We were struck by what an oddball he appeared to be with his cheeseball suit and strange mullet haircut. Kind of a King of nerds really. I feel sorry for the guy.

 

 

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[BassGuitari]

I was shocked to see him at the Midwest Gaming Classic, both yesterday and today. He was walking around yesterday in a gleaming white suit like some A-list celebrity. I couldn't believe he'd show his face in a gaming forum such as the MGC, but apparently he's going to stick to his story and act like gamers still fawn over him.

 

Nobody wears gleaming white suits except South American drug lords. Or maybe the guys you see in local Memorial Day Mattress Blowout commercials. Yet, that's what you get with Billy: either snow-white or jet-black suits with a corny U.S. flag tie and a veneer of sales-celebrity bullshit. Good Billy or Evil Billy. The whole video game thing is actually secondary to me with this guy. I don't really even care if his scores are legit or not. IMO, a subject as objectively trivial as video game high scores do not merit this kind of seriousness. "But he unscrupulously profited from it, wah." Well, don't put people like Billy Mitchell on a pedestal in the first place and give them platforms to profiteer from, then. *shrug*

 

No, it's just him. He's just too much, man. His whole schtick, everything. If you watch the way he interacts with people and carries himself, you can't help but think, "Is this guy serious? Is he for real? This can't be a real person." He's like a walking caricature of himself.

 

When I first arrived for setup Friday afternoon, literally one of the first things I saw was him talking to a group of kids, who seemed to be enamored with him for some reason. And all weekend, he seemed to have fans chatting him up. I was baffled, too--I figured a place like MGC would be the last place he'd want to show his face in light of all this stuff blowing up, but I clearly have a lot to learn about Gene Simmons' First Law of Publicity.

 

A sort of funny, surreal, related story: Late Friday night, I was heading back toward the Museum area, which was a relatively fair distance from wherever I was coming from. The main halls were very empty and quiet, as any stragglers who still happened to be around were finishing setting up in their areas. Maybe there was a custodian changing a trashcan liner or something. Not much else going on.

 

So I'm walking back in this absolutely cavernous convention center hallway, alone. (Seriously, the place is huge.) And then I see somebody approaching from the opposite end of the hall, also alone. Small, swallowed in the vastness of the space. Much as I was. As we got closer I recognized him to be Billy Mitchell, wearing a weathering face that fell somewhere between defiant determination and despondency. Might have just been sleepy--I know I was.

 

But there he was, this character who exists for crowds and publicity, consumed in solitude and silence, alone with himself in this enormous convention center. A show boat with no one on it. A perfect encapsulation of what I imagine must be the very essence of the man, although in fairness, I don't actually know the guy. But as far as his public persona is concerned, it was definitely an art moment. I wish I'd snapped a pic with my phone.

 

As we passed, we exchanged glances. Ever the showman, he flashed his trademark grin and saluted with his trademark thumbs-up. I flipped him off.

 

(Okay, that last part isn't true, but everything up to "I wish I'd snapped a pic..." absolutely happened. )

Edited April 16, 2018 by BassGuitari

[Punisher5.0]

He didn't say much

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaHwbXjm-T8

He sounded like Rod Blagojevich

[retrocore9]

 

 

The problem with letting his Pac-Man scores stand is that it shows that so long as you don't get caught, cheating is fine. That'd almost encourage more cheating because people would know only those attempts for which they were caught would get tossed.

 

 

The Pac Man scores are his real legacy in my opinion. Are you saying that he possibly cheated to get those also? Were the Pac Man scores done in a public forum?

[MotoRacer]

 

The Pac Man scores are his real legacy in my opinion. Are you saying that he possibly cheated to get those also? Were the Pac Man scores done in a public forum?

 

Barry Bonds used steroids, but not for his whole career. I'm sure had some amazing, non steroidy games under his belt. Yet he's banned from the hall of fame because of what he did later in his career.

 

Why should this be any different? If you had a tennis player that was amazing, then one day decided to take a pistol and shoot the other contender that he wasn't able to beat, do you say "Well, he murdered Jim, but I say.... he was phenomenal in 2017!"

 

No.

 

He's a cheat, and he should have THOUGHT about his 'legit' records before he cheated to keep his spot.

[+frankodragon]

He looks like one of those sleazy car dealers you'd see on television during the Late Late Movie.

 

[Skippy B. Coyote]

I'll be straight with you guys (and gals)... there's really only three people I've ever looked up to as an idol or role model or whatever you want to call it. The first two are Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and the third is Billy Mitchell. Throughout this whole accusation process I've been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, because in spite of his portrayal as the villian in King of Kong he's actually a darn nice guy and I've always found him to be something of an inspiration.

 

He's got this larger-than-life persona that, while slightly intimidating, just exudes greatness and self-confidence. To some people that may make him seem like a bit of a dick, but I've always wished that I could be that cool, collected, and self-confident whenever I've gone into a high score competition. And watching Billy Mitchell play and listening to his presentations on competitive classic gaming taught me a few things, namely to always "Believe that you can do it" and "Never give up", as he would say.

 

I took his messages to heart and as of last month I just hit 50 world record high scores on HighScore.com. I know they're unofficial records and nothing as prestigious as holding a Twin Galaxies of Guinness world record, but they still mean something to me and I'm not sure I would have had the guts to even try if it wasn't for Billy Mitchell's inspiration.

 

So yeah... maybe he cheated somewhere along the line or maybe he didn't and this is all one big witch hunt, but I'd still like to think the best of him and I appreciate all the inspiration he gave me. If he truly did no wrong then I'm glad to see him out there at conventions defending his integrity, and regardless of how this all turns out I still think that the world needs people like Billy Mitchell in it. Larger-than-life legends that little people lacking in self-confidence can look up to and draw inspiration from, so maybe one day they might be great too.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Jin

[Opry99er]

Yea, I get the persona... As a touring musician in the not-so-distant past, I found it necessary to create a character for road trips... it helped kind of set the tone and keep me grounded (which sounds strange--but hear me out). I would design this person before the road trip, and for 2 or 3 weeks, I would be this created person. After a couple of years of doing this, it became who I was. I ceased to be me, and became this character. It wasn't bad... I wasn't a dick, but I can tell you that I got to be the character I always wanted to be. All my best qualities and none of my bad qualities. To those who came to see me play, I actually WAS this character.

 

I never really lost sight of what was real, though, and I had my family to keep me grounded. It wasn't until a few years of being off the road and working a real job that I realized the whole thing was kind of strange... while I was in it, it was the most normal thing in the world. Perhaps Billy never had that grounding force to bring him back to reality when he needed to... I tell you, if I hadn't had kids and the recession hadn't hit the regional touring acts as hard as it did, I would have remained that person forever. And I would have loved it... getting to be "great" personified. But it would have always been not-quite-reality...

 

I get it. Perhaps he has never been humbled... I have been humbled... it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Perhaps his time is now, and we can learn to think about Billy as a person and not a persona.

[NE146]

Billy's on the mooooooffff

 

[Lendorien]

When Rogers was booted I thought it was a good time to get into playing the TG game, as there are a few games I can play at a near world record level. Now I'm wondering if there is ever going to be any point. Who didn't think it would be awesome to have a world record as a kid? I know I have always thought it would be pretty cool. TG has damaged itself beyond anything that looks like trust to me at this point. Now that TG has had to send notice to GWR twice in a few months I'm thinking GWR will probably start agreeing with me soon.

 

TLDR: I'm all for killing the entire score board and starting over, else I can see no way to trust anything on it. Very unfair to people that actually earned their record, but I just can't see another way to regain lost trust.

 

The thing is, Twin Galaxies is under new management. The old Walter Day era was where the bad records came from. Lack of diligence and consistency and bad actors led to a lot of the fraud in the records.

 

What else can Jace Hall, the new owner do? He wants to make TG a e-sports hub. IF he's to do that, he's got to build credibility for his organization. That means, when serious allegations come up, he can't sweep them under the rug. I see this as a positive thing. It shows that they're trying to create a sense of integrity in the organization that wasn't there before.

 

And honestly? I think they did their due diligence in this case. The proof is incontrovertible. The tape shows something that is not original hardware... something Mitchell presented himself as using when he set his record. We can argue about why that was or if Mitchell knew, but as far as Twin Galaxies is concerned, the record was not done on real hardware and might have been done through various cheat methods. In the end, that's what matters to Twin Galaxies because their integrity is on the line if they validate records that turn out to be fraudulent.

 

 

I'll be straight with you guys (and gals)... there's really only three people I've ever looked up to as an idol or role model or whatever you want to call it. The first two are Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and the third is Billy Mitchell. Throughout this whole accusation process I've been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, because in spite of his portrayal as the villian in King of Kong he's actually a darn nice guy and I've always found him to be something of an inspiration.

 

He's got this larger-than-life persona that, while slightly intimidating, just exudes greatness and self-confidence. To some people that may make him seem like a bit of a dick, but I've always wished that I could be that cool, collected, and self-confident whenever I've gone into a high score competition. And watching Billy Mitchell play and listening to his presentations on competitive classic gaming taught me a few things, namely to always "Believe that you can do it" and "Never give up", as he would say.

 

I took his messages to heart and as of last month I just hit 50 world record high scores on HighScore.com. I know they're unofficial records and nothing as prestigious as holding a Twin Galaxies of Guinness world record, but they still mean something to me and I'm not sure I would have had the guts to even try if it wasn't for Billy Mitchell's inspiration.

 

So yeah... maybe he cheated somewhere along the line or maybe he didn't and this is all one big witch hunt, but I'd still like to think the best of him and I appreciate all the inspiration he gave me. If he truly did no wrong then I'm glad to see him out there at conventions defending his integrity, and regardless of how this all turns out I still think that the world needs people like Billy Mitchell in it. Larger-than-life legends that little people lacking in self-confidence can look up to and draw inspiration from, so maybe one day they might be great too.

I totally get what you're saying and I agree. Heroes are wonderful things. They inspire us and they help us strive for greater things. But we also need to remember that heroes are usually larger than life and the reality of their hero-dom is often very different than what we perceive from the outside. So take inspiration in what he represented and take his fall from grace as a warning. Success is a great thing to achieve, but not at the expense of other very important things, such as integrity.

Edited April 17, 2018 by Lendorien

[Mayhem]

 

The Pac Man scores are his real legacy in my opinion. Are you saying that he possibly cheated to get those also? Were the Pac Man scores done in a public forum?

 

There's not really any disputing about Billy getting a perfect Pac-Man game. The rumour out there is there's possible evidence he wasn't the first though...

[enoofu]

Believe the issue is that he been cheating for awhile in many games, though to cheat well he is a capable gamer.

[keepdreamin]

I don't see why Twin Galaxies should be involved in eSports (modern software) in any capacity. Companies whose games are predominantly played in competition should have someone or a small team on payroll to over see goings on to ensure nothing is amiss. Would be part of marketing.

Edited April 17, 2018 by keepdreamin

[rayik]

If you watch his official statement video it appears he's getting ready to launch a counter offense against TG and his accusers. I'm actually intrigued to see what he comes up with. I still believe his Pac-Man records should be allowed to stay. As for his Donkey Kong record the guy should just sit down at a machine and break a million points, if he still can. I'm wondering if that's an issue here. Can he still do it?

The TG investigation was open 7 months before a decision was made. He could have presented whatever he wanted during that time. To be presented in the future means to me he has nothing to present.

 

I'm still waiting for his simple statement that the games were played on a DK arcade machine. He has never answered that question. His latest statement is that scores were obtained in accordance with then existing TG rules. Very lawyer like answer. He's avoiding making any statement about whether he played on a DK arcade machine.