So whats the opinion on Twin Galaxies here?

[mediamogul]

@clyde

I do have to agree. I mean, even with all the bad behavior and poor sportsmanship that's well documented about the guy, I still wouldn't have guessed he'd go to these great lengths to cheat like this.

[dankcushions]

to be fair to billy, king of kong was basically a pack of lies. i know often documentaries twist the truth for dramatic effect, but but it's crazy how much they invented just so they could make it into a good v evil kind of thing. you can read about it here: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1303

i'm sure he is an arsehole, but i'm not sure how many people would be pleasant after that kind of character assassination.

even this dodgy score - bear in mind that he hasn't been in the top 10 for donkey kong for years. that score is from 2010! i think the only reason it had any kind of scrutiny is because of this ongoing vilification of the man that king of kong imagined. that said, if it's dodgy... it's dodgy.

[mediamogul]

@dankcushions

It's interesting to consider that without whatever amount of embellishment that was added, the documentary wouldn't be as well known, or even fundamentally entertaining. As you say, this is par for the course with the most famous documentaries ever made and I've always been conflicted over it. The very first documentary ever made, 'Nanook of the North', was practically manufactured from whole cloth, right down to the subject's name not even being Nanook.

Another famous account that indirectly relates to retro video-gaming is the 1958 Walt Disney nature documentary, 'White Wilderness', that cemented a myth about lemmings for generations to come that they were prone to mass suicide during migration. While not only false, there have even been accusations that the poor creatures were coaxed into jumping to their deaths by the filmmakers. Most anyone's misconception of these animals can be directly traced back to seeing this documentary in the theater, their schools, or even the Disney Channel up until the mid to late 80s. The belief that this behavior existed of course also inspired the wildly popular 'Lemmings' series of games that persisted throughout the nineties.

I guess it all stems from film-making, even documentary film-making, being a commercial art, with the emphasis being on "commercial". The filmmaker's want to get paid, the audience wants to be entertained and unfortunately, at the crossroads comes compromise. Objectivity, integrity and the baseline truth are all too often sacrificed to simply produce a narrative that's easier to market. I for one was very entertained by the documentary, but it is a shame that it had to come at the expense of the whole truth. All that said, I still have my beliefs that Billy's a real piece of work and the level of dishonesty exhibited in his score submissions is appalling. However, you raise a good point that we're dealing with a real guy who is not likely just the black and white, mustache twirling villain portrayed in the doc.

[RedBatman]

@mediamogul You are right with most documentaries there are some things not entirely accurate.

[AndersHP]

@caver01 said in So whats the opinion on Twin Galaxies here?:

If nothing else, TG and others is a great reference for my own gaming. For example, during MAME ROW for Time Pilot we found out that our high scores were actually pretty admirable considering the best in the world.

I love that you bring this up, mate :-)

[ballboff]

I don't trust anything in the media. I think before someone records a documentary they already have a pretty good idea of which side they are on, and the recording usually focuses on that one side and tries their best to paint them in that light. I think billy has had a lot of rap in the past, but I suppose a cheat is a cheat. And it only makes the character in "pixels" more like billy. It's true that I also just referred to him as the guy in a suit with long hair in arcade videos, until I looked up his proper name.

[RedBatman]

@ballboff Pixels was okay, not great but it was okay for the time.

[kikinaak]

Eh, I understand competition and all that, but the only opponent I care about beating is my old score. I look at these professional E-sports teams and leagues and I just think, playing games is supposed to be fun, not a job. More powah to ya if you want to compare epeen with strangers across the planet, I'll just stick to enjoying the game.

As to how to stop score cheating, the only way is to control the environment. Nintendo has that one down with the world championships back in 90 and in recent years at E3. Lets roll with that. If theres this much interest in it, theres probably also enough money in it to be worth either digging up original arcade boards, or cutting a deal with whoever holds the copyright to run a rom for purposes of the event.

Right. And monkeys might fly out of my a...nyway, maybe a custom retropie build with checksums of officially allowed roms, emus with savestates disabled, and that pings an official server every so often with a timestamp and game state to check for tampering. Think of it like a closed B-net for competition emu players.

[RedBatman]

Well Billy Just lost his scores.

https://www.destructoid.com/billy-mitchell-s-scores-have-been-wiped-from-twin-galaxies-498411.phtml

[mediamogul]

@redbatman

I had multiple people call me today to see if I had heard. Every call was so manically charged it was as if they were asking if I had heard about a terrorist attack. Apparently people really don't like that guy.

[dankcushions]

i still can't get my head round his grift. a bunch of these scores were achieved in front of an audience (presumably a twin galaxies representative was there??), so is he miming playing a dk cabinet with a mame rig inside, playing back the perfect game?

[lilbud]

@dankcushions I believe a few of his scores were acheived in public, but not normally.

Billy set up at a mortgage brokers convention and set a record live, but no one truly saw him play. He played in a backroom and the video from his cabinet was split to go to the next room.

[mediamogul]

My brother's a comic book artist and this weekend he's signing some of his books at a convention in North Carolina. People were just beginning to set up their booths this morning when a guy walked by who caught his eye. My brother pulled the guy aside and commented that he was without a doubt the best Billy Mitchell cosplayer he had ever seen. The guy responded by saying, "I hope so. I am Billy Mitchell". They talked for a while and then he began setting up his own booth a few tables down. Apparently he's there with his own 'Donkey Kong' cabinet, signing autographs and representing the red, white and blue like only he can.

[RedBatman]

@mediamogul That's pretty funny

[mediamogul]

@redbatman

He ended up trading two signed hot sauce bottles for a print my brother had done of Wonder Woman. They took a picture together and what's really funny is that I've seen pics of my brother with actual celebrities, completely unfazed and this might very well be the only time I've seen him with that funny, half-way embarrassed grin you get when you're a legitimate fan of someone. Meanwhile, Billy's shooting a thumbs up with a look meant to convey just how truly awesome it is to be Billy Mitchell on any given Saturday afternoon.

[BobHarris]

I've never heard of the guy..on the pictures with fans he reminds me of Buddy Christ (Dogma):

[edmaul69]

@mediamogul i had gotten 1 of only 10 autographed pac-man / rocky mountain pinball showdown habanero hot sauces in a raffle. I was moving and it fell out of a box and shattered all over the sidewalk. I also had an autographed poster too. No clue where that went. I got 2 king of kong dvd’s, a playing card and a donkey kong jr marquee autographed by steve weibe when i watched him get the kill screen in donkey kong at the 1up bard here in denver.

[mediamogul]

@edmaul69

Very cool. Especially the live kill screen. I was thinking the other day that out of all these guys, I'd really like to meet Walter Day. He seems like a nice enough guy and I bet he's got some stories.

[Clyde]

@edmaul69 said in So whats the opinion on Twin Galaxies here?:

I was moving and it fell out of a box and shattered all over the sidewalk. I also had an autographed poster too. No clue where that went.

Some people would weep over the loss of such memorabilia. 😱

[edmaul69]

@mediamogul i would love to meet him. Dont know if there would ever be enough time for all the stories.