
Donkey Kong scoreboard strips high score claim - sanj
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/02/donkey-kong-scoreboard-strips-billy-mitchells-high-score-claims/
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ordinaryperson
HA!

The 2007 documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" is my favorite
movie of all-time, I must have watched it at least 40 times. Trailer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hBs2oFjSWk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hBs2oFjSWk)

For those who haven't seen the film, the contender Steve Wiebe sets a new
record live at an arcade tournament in Funspot (NH) but reigning champ Billy
Mitchell sends in a VHS tape with an even higher score.

The video gets fuzzy and looks suspicious but Mitchell's toadies in the group
immediately accept the score, despite refusing to previously accept a VHS tape
from the contender Steve Wiebe.

Since the movie came out both men were left in the dust by new players, but
recently the score-keepers slow-mo'ed Billy's tapes and the Donkey Kong levels
render the way MAME does them, not the actual arcade hardware. The current No.
2 ranked player (Wes Copeland) is basically corroborating this by running his
performance through an app and determining the point ratios are off (e.g., too
much from hammers).

Personally I don't think Billy's a bad guy, and the film actually shows him
performing selfless acts for others, but if this allegation is true -- and
it's hard to argue with the data -- I do think this seriously compromises his
integrity and position in classic gaming history.

~~~
sh33mp
Here's a no-nonsense video chronicling the progress of the Donkey Kong world
record:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAQ2vEHq2N4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAQ2vEHq2N4)

This guy has also made videos chronicling similar speedrun records for other
games, and they're fascinating to watch.

~~~
Endy
Summoning Salt is one of the best gaming youtubers I've run across. He
describes what he's talking about in both a technical and end-result sense,
and really makes a viewer understand the passion for games that these players
have.

~~~
mrguyorama
I do wish _he_ had a little more passion in his voice about the subject. It's
obvious he is thoroughly involved and cares from the material, but it
sometimes sounds like a recording of the absolute worst teacher you've ever
had

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azakai
The claim that it's statistically unlikely to get those random numbers isn't
entirely clear. When asked how unlikely it is, the response is "extremely
unlikely", but it's important to quantify that. It's possible he's playing 20x
more games than them, for example, and then we'd expect his best scores to
contain more unlikely results. But it's hard to say if they would be as
unlikely as what we see.

~~~
ordinaryperson
> It's possible he's playing 20x more games than them

Possible but unlikely b/c the person making this claim is the current No. 2
Donkey Kong player in the world Wes Copeland, not Joe Schmo off the street.

Even if Mitchell's disputed scores were accepted they would still be far off
Copeland's scores. So when the No. 2 player speaks it carries more weight than
just some random dude in his basement.

~~~
alexlrobertson
Wouldn’t a pro player be playing _less_ games? They’re playing longer, higher
scoring games not lots of average scoring games.

~~~
ldjb
Sort of. However, at that level, if you're in the middle of a game and aren't
on track to getting a high score, you're probably going to abandon the game
and try again from the beginning. Therefore there'll be a fairly high number
of games, a sizeable proportion of which are abandoned.

It's like when speedrunners attempt to complete games in the fastest time. If
they make a mistake at any point in the game that will cost them a lot of
time, they will most likely abandon the game and keep trying until they are
able to complete the game without making any costly mistakes.

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MrJagil
The Dragster Saga is quite an interesting read:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/7tsd89/todd_roger...](https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/7tsd89/todd_rogers_scores_to_be_removed_he_is_also_banned/)

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peterchane
I can't tell you how relieved I am that this is finally resolved.

~~~
fortythirteen
It's not resolved until Walter Day removes Billy's score and admits that he
propped him up with some shady officiating.

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LearnerHerzog
I saw _The King of Kong_ documentary when it first came out and remember Billy
Mitchell was so hateable. There is nothing humble about a man who answers his
phone: "World-Record headquarters, how can I help you?":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wef2qDT5j3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wef2qDT5j3I)

He was caught cheating back then too, if I remember correctly, by sending a
video that messed with the score. I am surprised they accept sent-in
submissions from _anybody_ in an age where videos are so easily edited, let
alone from a notorious cheater.

People like Mitchell will go as far as they can to win regardless of whether
or not they deserve it, and I'm interested in hearing what the thoughts are in
the industry around dealing with cheaters. I've seen some gamers beat records
while on Twitch, which I don't really know anything about first hand but it
_seems_ somewhat more legit than a sent-in video, as there are people watching
both the player and the game he's playing in real time.

Are there any Twitch features that can tell if a game is really being played
live?

Otherwise, are there any obvious moves that should/could be taken to ensure
legitimacy in gaming world records?

~~~
thatguy0900
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o1BBiPeDXM0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o1BBiPeDXM0)
here's a player getting caught cheating during a twitch run. He only gets
caught because a very experienced runner was also watching at the time, at the
end of the day faking is very easy, not sure what can be done about it other
than using special locked down computers or something.

~~~
LearnerHerzog
Wow, very interesting.

I recognize that name _Chibi_ and I think I've seen him getting picked on in
some other videos. He clearly just wants attention, and part of me feels bad
for him. Hopefully he's realized by now that cheating is no way to make
friends.

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sfa_aok
I was recently playing through Super Metroid on the SNES mini, and I ended up
watching a "World Record Progression" video on YouTube. Turns out there's a
series of these videos[0] done for a number of games - they're pretty well
done, and it's fascinating to hear the level of effort people put in to
shaving time off a World Record.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtUbO6rBht0daVIOGML3c8w/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtUbO6rBht0daVIOGML3c8w/videos)

~~~
lillesvin
Oh, Super Metroid is such an amazing speedrun. Over the last week's time,
Zoast has been setting new WRs at least 3 times and there's still at least 10
seconds to be saved with the current route + optimal RNG.

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classicsnoot
This is a different doc for a different game, but it is an interesting story
about the rise of MLG. It is called Smash and it follows some of the early
luminaries of competitive Super Smash Brothers Melee. Highly enjoyable and
fairly long.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSf2mgkRm7Q&list=PLoUHkRwnRH...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSf2mgkRm7Q&list=PLoUHkRwnRH-
IXbZfwlgiEN8eXmoj6DtKM)

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shaunxcode
I knew it! Not really. I suppose it could be said that maybe him placing that
(now apparently) artificial line in the sand made others go legitimately
further!

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sireat
This reminds of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borislav_Ivanov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borislav_Ivanov)

Technically never proven a cheater but the evidence is extremely convincing.

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13of40
If he was using an emulator, why would he splice instead of just altering the
output of the random number generator to be more favorable?

~~~
topmonk
Because the latter requires more technical knowledge that he probably didn't
have. He'd have to reverse engineer the machine code.

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gowld
He made good money for several years before the cheating was exposed. A good
investment.

~~~
Y_Y
In fairness he had lots of runs of DK and Pac-Man that were very good and
indisputable cheating-wise.

~~~
slphil
It's important to remember that most cheaters are actually good at the game
they're cheating at. They're just not as good as they want to be, so they
cheat. It's too obvious if they're clearly just not good at all -- a new chess
player playing like a Grandmaster because he is using some secret radio tech
in his shoes is obvious cheating, but a Master or Expert who needs advice from
his scheming coach for exactly one game to win a tournament? That's the more
common scenario.

Todd Rogers is a genuinely excellent video game player. He's also a blatant
cheater.

~~~
phire
It's quite common for professional video game players to get so consistently
good at the games they are playing that getting the top score becomes more
about luck than skill.

Sometimes this causes them to think that a game owes them a certain score/time
(maybe they they pass all the hard 1 in 20 RNG events and then a stupid 99 in
100 RNG fails them) and occasionally decide to cheat just to get that
score/time.

