Current Events > Have you been following the downfall of Billy Mitchell

(+) Yeah! (+)

For those who dont know hes basically the Donald Trump of gaming. He has a bunch of fake records and fake awards (including a fake Gamer of the Century award he says is from Namco but he had it made). In the last couple years his lies have been exposed and Twin Galaxies removed his records so he sued them. The problem is TG has good lawyers. The deposition (video below) is amazing.

It reminds me of when a guy wrote a non-authorized biography on Donald Trump, claiming he was only worth 200 million and not the 10 billion he said he was, so Trump sued him for defamation, but he had to prove the claim was false, and then Trump proved in court that he actually was only worth 200 million (which is how much he inherited).

https://youtu.be/9umbsmrFk08

I know the point of whether the stick was red or black seems like a silly detail, but the greater issue at hand is that the machine was running a MAME rom and wasnt an original board (there is other evidence of it being MAME beyond the non-original hardware; and being MAME means the game can be modified to make it easier). Also apparently if it was an 8-way stick not an original 4-way stick it makes certain motions easier to perform.

I wanna know how he can afford to keep a lawyer and keep doing these lawsuits that he keeps losing.

No, I dont really care

No but only because it feels like it's taking years to actually play out.

I too have been watching the Karl Jobst uploads. It is quite the ride.

his haircut is the most egregious thing hes ever done

Skankhair posted...

I know the point of whether the stick was red or black seems like a silly detail, but the greater issue at hand is that the machine was running a MAME rom and wasnt an original board (there is other evidence of it being MAME beyond the non-original hardware; and being MAME means the game can be modified to make it easier). Also apparently if it was an 8-way stick not an original 4-way stick it makes certain motions easier to perform.

His defense for this was that the video tapes everyone has seen were made for king of Kong and no one has actually seen the original tapes where he totally played the real arcade.

Except this defense makes literally the only evidence of his score "my friend can vouch for me"

It's like that time I got 2 million on an original Donkey Kong arcade cabinet last week remember?

Well the stick isn't a silly detail as it allowed for inputting two directions at once, which is absolutely not in the original game.

In practical play this makes a Huge difference, as you can "pre-move" onto or off of a ladder. In the normal game u can't do that, and so skill in DK is about switching directional axes quickly, amount a thousand other things.

The sad thing is, BM _is_ that good at DK and Pac-Man. Like lance Armstrong tho, it's often ppl who are very good that want to cheat, thinking they "deserve" it, b/c they know they could do it

The thing is, EVERYONE feels this frustration, it's part of competition.

I'm terrible at DK by the community standards. I might, however, be the best DK player on CE with scores approaching 200k. Then I'll get on twitch and struggle for 100k runs because it's hard to play DK on demand.

There is only 1 mechanic preventing me from reaching the kill screen: the infamous 4th elevator springs. These are, in my opinion and many others, the hardest feat in single-player gaming to master, at least in the mainstream. It's not an exaggeration. This one stupid ladder is harder than super meat boy, dark souls, and Cuphead combined. It's made more difficult by the fact that if you game over it takes like 20 or 30 minutes to get back.

I've trained for days, just doing the thing, using a savestate to just practice this one thing. I improved from like a 1/16 chance (purely random) to 1/2 success. But a 50% pass rate is not enough to beat that level the 18 or so times you need to to get a kill screen.

By my estimates I'd need about 200-500 hours of just doing this one maneuver to pass it maybe 80% of the time. The psychology of it is still devastating when you try to put those skills to use in a normal game, only to have everything else go wrong.

TL;DR fuck billy mitchell

Priere posted...

I wanna know how he can afford to keep a lawyer and keep doing these lawsuits that he keeps losing.

His best friend is a lawyer, he's in king of Kong, who was also a cheat at games in the 80s. His friend is doing the legal work for free, or Mitchell has convinced him somehow.

Robot2600 posted...

Well the stick isn't a silly detail as it allowed for inputting two directions at once, which is absolutely not in the original game.

This isn't really a defense of Billy or Anything but the red stick doesn't mean shit. The mechanism underneath it is what would be responsible for 4/8 way movement and there's no way to tell what that is.

It's possible they could have just replaced the stick.

But this is all irrelevant and missing forest for the trees. There's no need to go any further than the fact that there's zero evidence he actually got the scores he said he did by his own admission.

Billy Mitchell, while being a cheater and all around douche nozzle, is actually skilled at some games. Donald Trump is skilled at nothing, except conning rubes.

Robot2600 posted...

His best friend is a lawyer, he's in king of Kong, who was also a cheat at games in the 80s. His friend is doing the legal work for free, or Mitchell has convinced him somehow.

I've saw one hearing where Mitchell shows up without legal representation and makes an ass out of himself

Karl Jobst has been keeping me informed. It's good to see this asshole get his comeuppance. If he didn't try to sue everyone all the time, I might be a little more sympathetic to him.

Every so often I hear an update on the situation, and it keeps getting dumber lol

This dudes been falling for a long time. Catching Ls is his passion now.

Those red sticks were well-known to be 8-way sticks.

Even if it was a 4-way...lol it wasn't...that's still against the rules. Original hardware.

The most damning evidence of all, however, is on that barrel statistics; it's obvious he used savestate in mame.

Robot2600 posted...

Those red sticks were well-known to be 8-way sticks.

Even if it was a 4-way...lol it wasn't...that's still against the rules. Original hardware.

The most damning evidence of all, however, is on that barrel statistics; it's obvious he used savestate in mame.

Also the boot screen loads like a MAME ROM not the original hardware.

Has this been a 35 year war on his part?
That's pretty fucked up.

And very petty.

Yes, it's great entertainment. I'm surprised to see Silly Bitchell even has defenders tbh

Dude was obviously a cheater since The King of Kong film. His high score was recorded on VHS privately and only his friends provided verbal verification which is like nothing.

DeathVelvien posted...

Yes, it's great entertainment. I'm surprised to see Silly Bitchell even has defenders tbh

This. The guy was caught lying in the deposition, and still the guy in the video kept making excuses about how Karl was "lying" and was "out to get Billy".

The South Park episode was great.

He sounds more like the Frank Dux of video gaming.

Foppe posted...

The South Park episode was great.

I never seen that episode. But the Regular Show episode was cool.

Bishop9800 posted...

I never seen that episode. But the Regular Show episode was cool.

It is about Randy taking the biggest crap, and U2 Bono cant take being number two.

bigtiggie23 posted...

He sounds more like the Frank Dux of video gaming.

yeeeep

and this entire saga has been a hoot

cant wait for when its all over and karl jobs to put together a fool documentry discussing it all

The stick thing is mostly a problem because of claims Billy made in his court submissions, that he achieved these records with an authentic undoctored cabinet, which initially became a problem because people accused him of falsifying mods. Now we don't even know if he even played, and the stick in the picture contradicts his statement.

Even though it's extremely convincing one way, I would imagine Billy could just keep denying saying a 3rd party replaced the stick, but it's a complicated process that would probably also need to be proved that it was done on the day of. That burden will probably be on Billy I think?

But whether or not it improved his performances was never the question. It's the fact that his statement is contradicted by the existence of a modded cabinet

UnicornWizard posted...

I too have been watching the Karl Jobst uploads. It is quite the ride.

yeah good content from the Aussie

Reminder that billy mitchel returned and has a legitimate 1 million pt game on original hardware, if you can get kill screen the scores just become rng and grinding, so hes essentially as good as the best in the world

Robot2600 posted...

There is only 1 mechanic preventing me from reaching the kill screen: the infamous 4th elevator springs. These are, in my opinion and many others, the hardest feat in single-player gaming to master, at least in the mainstream. It's not an exaggeration. This one stupid ladder is harder than super meat boy, dark souls, and Cuphead combined. It's made more difficult by the fact that if you game over it takes like 20 or 30 minutes to get back.

Oh man, don't get me started on the springs. Like you gotta gun it as soon as one spring passes and watch carefully for where the next one appears and quickly abort and go back to the safe spot if you get a "long" spring... it requires reflexes and attention to detail that I just don't have.

No, but I could potentially be convinced to look into it one of these days.

I'm not that terribly interested in Donkey Kong (the original arcade game, not necessarily the character/franchise as a whole), Pac-Man, etc. These have always struck me as games that become very formulaic to play once you know how they work.

I remember when he sued a YouTuber names Apollo Legend for some stuff he said on YouTube, they actually met just before the lawsuit and Apollo was wearing like a stupid Billy Mitchell cosplay with like an obvious tape recorder to joke around that he was gonna record what Billy Mitchell was saying. We're talking a tape recorder that's like twelve inches tall and two inches thick with a physical microphone you can hold in your hand, Apollo took a picture with Billy Mitchell where he's holding it in his hands. It was clearly a gag.

Pretty sure Mitchell sued him because he feared for his safety or because he believed Apollo recorded him with a covert recording device or some bullshit. A lot of people were like "Mitchell is a shithead but if Apollo recorded him that was a stupid move". Then the stuff about the cosplay and the tape recorder came out and Mitchell got dunked on again.

Whether you liked Apollo Legend's videos or not, it's sad that he killed himself. It wasn't the lawsuit, though I'm sure it couldn't have helped - according to Apollo in a video announcing his suicide, it was something he was always planning to do because he lived with chronic pain. The shit that went down with Billy Mitchell was always gonna stick in my mind, but obviously with Apollo's suicide that incident is gonna stick with me for a long, long time.

Robot2600 posted...

By my estimates I'd need about 200-500 hours of just doing this one maneuver to pass it maybe 80% of the time. The psychology of it is still devastating when you try to put those skills to use in a normal game, only to have everything else go wrong.

200-500 hours of mind bending torture... fuck that :(.

especially with that goddamn spring laughing at me while trying to run under it.

Try fighting Narcis Prince in Super Punch-Out!!.

Only 1 out of 1,600 attempts will he just stand there and take a beating.

Also needs frame perfect inputs, and at the end, requires a quick duck, quick dodge, quick dodge into rapid supers.

One would need to be in an amphetamine psychosis to perform that quickly as needed.

Takes probably one year to master.

There's even a 29 page strategy guide just on this fight alone.

UndefeatedGOAT posted...

Reminder that billy mitchel returned and has a legitimate 1 million pt game on original hardware, if you can get kill screen the scores just become rng and grinding, so hes essentially as good as the best in the world

sure he has

Skankhair posted...

For those who dont know hes basically the Donald Trump of gaming. He has a bunch of fake records and fake awards (including a fake Gamer of the Century award he says is from Namco but he had it made). In the last couple years his lies have been exposed and Twin Galaxies removed his records so he sued them. The problem is TG has good lawyers. The deposition (video below) is amazing.

I know the point of whether the stick was red or black seems like a silly detail, but the greater issue at hand is that the machine was running a MAME rom and wasnt an original board (there is other evidence of it being MAME beyond the non-original hardware; and being MAME means the game can be modified to make it easier). Also apparently if it was an 8-way stick not an original 4-way stick it makes certain motions easier to perform.

I feel like Billy probably was good at games in the beginning and I have no reason to believe his Pac-Man records were fake, but he lost his edge as he got older, but not his ego, so felt he needed to cheat to maintain his reputation. Kind of a bit sad really. He had a ton of fans at Twin Galaxies and could've maintained it just by being a little magnanimous in defeat, but his ego couldn't take it. Now, I am sure he is despised. Well, can't say he didn't earn it

DragonClaw01 posted...

I feel like Billy probably was good at games in the beginning and I have no reason to believe his Pac-Man records were fake, but he lost his edge as he got older, but not his ego, so felt he needed to cheat to maintain his reputation. Kind of a bit sad really. He had a ton of fans at Twin Galaxies and could've maintained it just by being a little magnanimous in defeat, but his ego couldn't take it. Now, I am sure he is despised. Well, can't say he didn't earn it

His Pac-Man record was fake in the sense that he wasn't actually the first to play a perfect game of it, IIRC.

Remember https://www.engadget.com/2018-01-29-dragster-record-holder-stripped-of-his-title-after-35-years.html ?

Foppe posted...

Remember https://www.engadget.com/2018-01-29-dragster-record-holder-stripped-of-his-title-after-35-years.html ?

karls videos on todd toddgers are great

We need more fascinating characters similar to Billy Mitchell in the video game industry. Not necessarily cheaters, but those who grab headlines via there words, actions, and or scandals. Who's also made an impact in video games and are not just some random Twitch streamer who streams themselves playing for a living. Someone who's famous or infamous enough that they're worthy of being featured in a documentary someday.

I can't really think of many others that compare to Mitchell. Maybe Gabe Newell and Hideo Kojima, but they're not controversial figures with scandals.

Anyways I've kinda moved on from following what Billy Mitchell's been up too. Just reading the tidbits in the OP and a handful of posts whenever someone posts about him.

ShaneMcComez posted...

I can't really think of many others that compare to Mitchell. Maybe Gabe Newell and Hideo Kojima, but they're not controversial figures with scandals.

uhhh what about miyamoto he is far more note worthy than any of those 3 and he has no scandals or the like

UndefeatedGOAT posted...

Reminder that billy mitchel returned and has a legitimate 1 million pt game on original hardware, if you can get kill screen the scores just become rng and grinding, so hes essentially as good as the best in the world

Cool cope, still cheating

Looks like a meth head

UndefeatedGOAT posted...

Reminder that billy mitchel returned and has a legitimate 1 million pt game on original hardware, if you can get kill screen the scores just become rng and grinding, so hes essentially as good as the best in the world

It doesn't actually matter. By the time he did this, other people had gotten verified scores higher than him. His claim to fame wasn't having the highest score and never was. It was being the first person to get a million points.

Which there's no evidence that he did. And nobody gives a shit about him coming back 20 years late to the party and doing it.

Tyranthraxus posted...

His defense for this was that the video tapes everyone has seen were made for king of Kong and no one has actually seen the original tapes where he totally played the real arcade.

Except this defense makes literally the only evidence of his score "my friend can vouch for me"

It's like that time I got 2 million on an original Donkey Kong arcade cabinet last week remember?

I saw you get 2 million. It's true everyone. I don't have video or anything, but he did do it... seriously

Not really. I mean I hear about when he sues some YouTubers/streamers, but I don't actively follow the Saga. Especially since it's been going on for what feels like a decade.

Srk700 posted...

Not really. I mean I hear about when he sues some YouTubers/streamers, but I don't actively follow the Saga. Especially since it's been going on for what feels like a decade.

That's what makes it so bad

Being a pathetic liar is neither here nor there.

Harrasing people and companies with years of nonsense lawsuits is unforgivable

The Pac-Man score, while possibly legit, billy and his cronies covered up the fact that some guy reached the killscreen in the 80s. I forget the details but the guy took a poloroid of the KS and twin galaxies later said it didn't count, even though that was reasonable proof for the time.

Then, with their other hand, they were more than willing to let Todd Rogers just "claim" scores b/c his friends, who were refs, would say they saw it...

And yea, the mame screens prove he played on mame, but to be honest the cab could have been running mame somehow without Billy knowing. Mame scores in DK are seen as equal to arcade scores these days. No one in the DK (not TG) community is ever going to tell u mame doesn't count...

Unless u cheat and savestate. Which Billy does about every screen in DK on the video jobst does the deep dive into.

Billy used to stream on twitch, playing machines in random arcades, getting very chunky scores and hitting a perfect game in Pac-Man one time.

Anyway I feel like there was something else about the guy that got the first Pac-Man killscreen: like he was 40 point shy of a perfect score cause he didn't kill off all his extra lives or something really minor so they said it didn't count for that reason too, but idk exactly

Tyranthraxus posted...

It doesn't actually matter. By the time he did this, other people had gotten verified scores higher than him. His claim to fame wasn't having the highest score and never was. It was being the first person to get a million points.

Which there's no evidence that he did. And nobody gives a shit about him coming back 20 years late to the party and doing it.

Pretty much this. The guy is really good at these games, better than most people. But in terms of the scores he was getting, it's either unfounded or impossible.

Twin Galaxies were a large clique who were able to exaggerate and manipulate many high scores because they were the ONLY source in the 80s. Then 30+ years later, MAME emulation pretty much proved that a lot of it was bullshit.

He has been exposed more time than a serial flasher, and he finds away to get back on top.