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from the what-a-wicked-web-we-weave-when-first-we-practice-to-deceive dept.
Twin Galaxies, the long-running video game high score tracker recognized by Guinness World Records, has banned Billy Mitchell and removed all of his past scores from its listings after determining that two million-plus-point Donkey Kong performances he submitted were actually created with an emulator and not on original arcade hardware as he consistently claimed. The move means that the organization now recognizes Steve Wiebe as the first player to achieve a million-point game in Donkey Kong, a question central to the 2007 cult classic documentary The King of Kong.
Nearly two months ago, Mitchell's scores were also removed from the leaderboards at Donkey Kong Forum. Forum moderator Jeremy "Xelnia" Young cited frame-by-frame analysis of the board transitions in Mitchell's Donkey Kong tapes, which showed visual artifacts suggesting they were generated by early versions of the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) and not original Donkey Kong arcade hardware.
[...] The ban has no effect on the current world record in Donkey Kong, which currently sits at the 1.247 million points [score] set by Robbie Lakeman in February.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @12:41AM (24 children)
Who the fuck cares? Even nerds like me on this site should be utterly ashamed if they care about a high score record in a 40 year old video game.
I watched that stupid documentary The whole time thinking, "who the fuck cares? These people are insane. I literally consumes their whole life."
(Score: 5, Touché) by Booga1 on Friday April 13 2018, @12:56AM (19 children)
Well, obviously those people care enough about it to do it and others care enough to make documentaries about them.
You cared enough to watch it, so I guess you cared at least that much even if you hated it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 13 2018, @01:36AM (18 children)
You're pretty much right - but it's still awfully hard to find a damn to give about video game high scores. Except for the politics, those things in your list are actually pretty frivolous things. They amount to Rome's bread and circus, which served the purpose of keeping the masses occupied, and distracted.
My takeaway is, Mitchell has got to be an idiot to think he could get away with cheating, with so many eyes on his performance. As hard as it is to get excited that some guy can sit in front of a video game for hours/days to run up a high score, it's even harder to be concerned with an idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @01:43AM (3 children)
I find it even harder to give a damn about sports. At least in video games you can do impossible things like battling armies of aliens. In sports, people basically just throw/hit balls around. Big deal.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @01:46AM
At least we don't have an aristarchus submission. I hear he is going for the Hall of Fame for most rejected submissions in Donkey Kong.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @02:25AM (1 child)
“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”
― Ernest Hemingway
Just in case you aren't clear on Papa's meaning, sports put the participant's life on the line, big time. In his era motor racing (for example) didn't have all the safety features that racing has now.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday April 13 2018, @06:15PM
When compiling an authoritative list of things in a category, a good gatekeeper will conform to one of two forms:
All other forms are inferior.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Friday April 13 2018, @01:45AM (2 children)
> sit in front of a video game for hours/days to run up a high score
Still a better activity than baseball.
*ducks*
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 13 2018, @02:01AM (1 child)
Isn't that un-American or something? Not that I really care. The only times I actually got into baseball, was when my sons were playing. The most useless activities can become interesting if your loved ones are actively involved.
But, baseball at least offers some exercise for the players!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @09:13AM
As sitting on the couch in the 80s, then trying to rush into the kitchen for gathering/making snacks before trying to sprint back into your seat in time to not miss the few critical seconds of show after the break.
Why did I say 80s? Because with ads taking up 7 minutes or more of every half hour worth of show, you really do have time to get up, take a piss, go in and make a sandwich, etc without significantly exerting yourself over your otherwise sedentary lifestyle. Ahh the wonders and convenience of modern television. /sarc
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Friday April 13 2018, @03:21AM (1 child)
Of course, he could have been playing on a real, authentic arcade machine that someone had "refurbished" with new hardware including a nice x86 motherboard and emulator software. I've seen that at arcades near here, some with LCD flat-screen monitors retro-mounted into the arcade cabinet behind smoked plexiglass.
Sounds nutty, but I would imagine it's easier and cheaper than ordering original replacement parts.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tekk on Friday April 13 2018, @11:40AM
That's actually exactly what happened. Some of his videos were found to exhibit a mame bug when you went frame by frame through them, some of the videos showed off incorrect boards (there was a video of him playing DK Jr, then his friend "swapping in" a DK board, except the board he was holding wasn't a DK board. Stuff like that.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday April 13 2018, @08:37AM (1 child)
I always wanted to own a circus. My father, as everybody knows, owned Coney Island. And we had a great time demolishing it. He threw a party -- with so many sexy ladies -- and we all threw bricks. Tremendous! Many people say I'm the greatest showman in the history of the world. And if I had a circus it would be the greatest show. P.T. Barnum. We need P.T. Barnum a little bit, because we have to build up the image of our country. I have to be a cheerleader for our country. And an entertainer. Big, big parts of my job. The biggest. I thought Obama, when he got elected, would be a good cheerleader. That's the one thing I said. I said, you know, he'll unify the country, whether it's African American and white and all. You know, he'll unify. He didn't unify. He's been a great divider. I think it's on everybody. But he was the leader. He was the leader. He could've been a great cheerleader and he wasn't. And that's too bad.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 13 2018, @02:33PM
Sorry dude, but not everyone knows that. Some of us never heard of you until you did that moronic television show. Some of us even detested you because of that show. People who detest you don't bother to learn about your parent's possessions - unless maybe they want to sleep with you. Since you're not my type, that was straight out the window.
Yeah, I guess maybe they do. And, those people are probably those same people who wanted to sleep with you for your money. I don't know anyone who says such things about you.
If you had a circus, you would be one of the attractions from which children are barred.
Quinton Peron and Napolean Jinnies would probably welcome you to the Rams. I have no idea if the Rams have any standards, or what they might be. Maybe they'll accept an old homely white bastard such as yourself.
Imagine that. The man was elected president of the US, and he still aspires to make something of himself. Do you intend to join the circus first, or the cheerleaders?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday April 13 2018, @11:48AM (5 children)
Should anyone care about chess? The Soviets helped elevate chess from just a game to the premier measure of intelligence of individuals and entire nations. Their superiority at chess was supposed to be a reflection and product of their superiority in other areas. Then, on the heels of losing the race into space when the US landed men on the moon, Bobby Fischer embarrassed them at chess. A whole lot of people cared a lot about chess, thought it meant something to be the best.
The AI community certainly bought into the mystique. Hoped that if a computer could play chess well, it would be a short step from that to general intelligence. It took far longer than the overly optimistic hoped, but now computers have surpassed humans at chess. By doing so, they have shown several other things, and the main one is that chess isn't such a good measure of intelligence after all.
Nevertheless, Game Theory is an important area.
Our games tend to be much more deterministic and structured than reality, and that makes them amenable to computer players. Players have very well defined and very limited choices. On any particular turn in a chess game, a player will have at most only a few dozen choices of moves. We're beat at chess. Arcade games have only a little wider range of play, so I don't doubt that if it isn't already, AI will be better than us at all those kinds of games.
Meantime, I am impressed at the dedication of these players, to explore corner cases most of us never come near. It's cool. Sorry you don't see that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @01:09PM (3 children)
The Soviets didn't lose the space race, the moon wasn't the goal until the US moved the posts and said it was.
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Friday April 13 2018, @02:27PM (2 children)
More accurately, the Soviets didn't lose the space race because every "space first" (first satellite, first manned flight, first manned orbit, first probe to the moon, first probe to another planet, first useful space program that actually did something besides explode, etc.) except "first man on the moon" was achieved by the Soviets. They were simply space awesomesauce.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 13 2018, @03:05PM (1 child)
Including the first people to die in space [wikipedia.org] :/ And a few dogs.
If the N1 [wikipedia.org] had worked better instead of its innards ripping apart and catching fire whenever they launched it they would've had half a shot at beating us to the moon, even.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday April 13 2018, @05:29PM
To be fair, there have also been quite a few American lives lost in our efforts to master space travel. Difficult and dangerous objectives come with a risk attached. That the Russians have had casualties - perhaps in their haste to beat the US, or simply because of accidents that could not be foreseen - doesn't diminish their achievements in space.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 13 2018, @02:40PM
Chess is good. I'm only a mediocre player, but chess is good. Yes, it's alright to care about chess. It's even alright to enjoy a goofy song about playing chess in some town in Asia. I think it's even good to enjoy a little ass with the song . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBu-ewMRhkA [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 13 2018, @06:11PM
but it's still awfully hard to find a damn to give about video game high scores.
The actual high scores are by far the least interesting part of the movie. It's all the drama that surrounded them that made it funny and interesting.
These people are insane. I[t] literally consumes their whole life."
Exactly! Documentaries about sane people are boring.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @01:39AM
Wnat we do?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Friday April 13 2018, @01:44AM
Apparently not enough to turn it off though - and certainly enough to watch it in the first place.
But nitpick aside, people are bored. people want to be important. Given anything with enough of a user base - games, competitions, sports - there will always be a pointy end of the most gifted in whatever they are doing - and wherever you have people you will inevitably get drama develop over time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 13 2018, @08:06PM
I agree with OP.
What we have here is the equivalent of "Everyone gets a trophy." Basically we keep creating stupid categories ad nausea to a point where everyone will be #1 in some arbitrarily meaningless category, and thus feel special.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 14 2018, @12:19AM
It's actually very important. It keeps them from dazedly wandering around outside and snarling up traffic.
(Score: 4, Informative) by black6host on Friday April 13 2018, @01:33AM
And he was probably doping too! I know I was when I played Donkey Kong :)
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Friday April 13 2018, @01:34AM (1 child)
It is like the plot of the Adam Sandler movie Pixels come to the real world.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pixels/ [rottentomatoes.com]
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tekk on Friday April 13 2018, @11:42AM
My understanding is that was very intentional. There have been accusations of Billy cheating for years and years, but with the whole Twin Galaxies deal it's only now *officially* blowing up. The fact that the referee for many of Billy's scores was the guy found to have cheated on hundreds of 2600 records sealed it, before Twin Galaxies was able to fall back on "Well our ref seemed to think things were on the up and up" before he was revealed as a massive cheat.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 13 2018, @03:08PM (3 children)
Keep up with updates.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday April 13 2018, @03:34PM (2 children)
I know you're joking, but for everyone else, I don't think he would have been given a pass if he was found to be cheating on a modern release of MAME.
There's a different lesson here... I think you hit upon it -- Cheating is ok as long as you don't get caught!
It could be that the records he made were using a MAME emulator current for that time... because years have passed and the same glitches that existed then are not happening on current versions, and so it takes a true patriot to go and examine each version of mame and play the game and review a recording frame-by-frame to check for similar evidence of emulation on the original footage.
Not only is the lesson not to get caught cheating (not cheating often helps with this), but another lesson is don't be such a jerk that people become motivated to spend a great deal of time and effort and personal resources to take you down. That happens to people that even demonstrate true skill; arrogance knows no bounds.
Or, people can get good at something and try to ride that crest of fame or self-recognition that you conquered a challenge and actually learned how to do it.
I am hoping there'll be a hall of fame for people that come up with ingenious cheats, just so their creativity and effort in the avoidance of actually gaining the proper skills is well documented. It could be something akin to if there was ever a George Castanza guide to gaming or something (A Seinfeld character for those that don't recall the character--he wasn't a gamer but he was adverse to working), complete with good and bad examples of how to lose at cheating.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 13 2018, @03:58PM (1 child)
No, I mean he was caught because there were frame differences in an old version of MAME. Does the current version still have those frame differences?
Oh, so you did know I wasn't joking.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Osamabobama on Friday April 13 2018, @05:46PM
I'm afraid I don't get the joke (whether or not it exists). If the MAME version used for cheating was current at the time of the cheat, how would keeping up to date have helped?
There are three eras of MAME releases that are being referenced in this discussion, intentionally or otherwise:
Any updates would have meant the difference between 1 and 2. But possible glitches that provided evidence of cheating could also be in either 1 or 2, at least how that evidence is described in the summary.
A passible joke would be to suggest that he could have gotten away with cheating if only he had updated to 3, because the glitch was fixed in that version. But it wasn't available at the time! (Get it?) Well, I suppose I get that joke, but I was assured it wasn't there.
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