Billy Mitchell (gamer)

William James Mitchell Jr. (born July 16, 1965) is an American video game player and restaurateur. He rose to national prominence in the 1980s when Life included him in a photo spread of game champions during the height of the golden age of arcade games.

Billy Mitchell
Mitchell at the 2014 Twin Galaxies
Personal information
BornWilliam James Mitchell Jr.
(1965-07-16) July 16, 1965
Holyoke, Massachusetts, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Career information
Games

On July 3, 1999, Mitchell became the first person to achieve a perfect score of 3,333,360 points on the original 1980 arcade version of the classic video game Pac-Man.[1] Twin Galaxies and Guinness World Records recognized Mitchell as the holder of several records on classic games including Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, and he has appeared in several documentaries on competitive gaming and retrogaming. A 2007 documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, follows his attempts to maintain the highest score on Donkey Kong after being challenged by newcomer Steve Wiebe.[1]

In 2018, Mitchell's high scores were challenged after members of the Twin Galaxies forums found discrepancies in the videos Mitchell had provided for The King of Kong, suggesting he may have used emulation software to falsify his score.[2] Both Twin Galaxies and Guinness invalided all of Mitchell's records, but Mitchell successfully appealed to reverse the Guinness removals in June 2020.[2][3] Twin Galaxies did not reverse their disqualifications, leading Mitchell to file defamation lawsuits against Twin Galaxies and others in 2020.

In addition, Mitchell's family owns the Rickey's restaurants in Hollywood, Florida and Pembroke Pines, Florida, and he sells Rickey's World Famous Hot Sauce.[4][5]

Biography

Early life and first records

Mitchell was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and grew up in South Florida. He attended Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School in 1983 and soon began work as a manager in the kitchen of his parents' restaurant, Rickey's Restaurant.[6]

In grade school, Mitchell became an avid pinball player.[6] He was initially uninterested in video games, but as they became more popular, according to Mitchell, "[e]veryone was standing around the Donkey Kong machine and I wanted that attention".[1] He began playing video games around age 16.[1] His interest was also spurred by a friendly rivalry with a classmate, the two trying to outscore each other on both Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.[6] Mitchell became curious whether Donkey Kong had a recorded world-record high score, and reached out to Walter Day at Twin Galaxies, at the time a single arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, that had started tracking such records. Day told him of a record of 1.4 million claimed by Steve Sanders. In November 1982, Life brought several notable arcade players, including Mitchell, to Ottumwa for a photoshoot. Knowing it was impossible to achieve the score Sanders had claimed, Mitchell demonstrated that the game had an impassable "kill screen" when he reached level 22, while subsequently setting a high score of 874,300 that stood for more than 18 years.[6] Around this time, Mitchell established a friendship with Robert Childs, who had a business buying and installing arcade cabinets in places like laundromats.[6]

In 1983, Day invited Mitchell along with several other players from the photoshoot to participate in the "Electronic Circus", a 40-city tour where the players would demonstrate their skill at the arcade games at each stop. But the idea fell through and Mitchell and others spent the summer months camping out at Twin Galaxies and competing for high scores on video games, with Mitchell focusing on only a few selected titles.[6] Later that summer, Day founded the U.S. National Video Game Team, a slimmer version of the Electronic Circus that aimed to make a stop in a major city in each US state, but the inaugural event had many snags.[6] Day continued to bring Mitchell on various trips to confirm high scores reported by players, with Mitchell frequently calling out bluffs.[6] By 1984, Day named Mitchell the Twin Galaxies' player of the year, but due to the 1983 video game crash, Twin Galaxies had to close down its storefront in March 1984, though it still tracked scores. After submitting a record score for BurgerTime in 1985, Mitchell moved away from video games for the next ten years, spending more time at his family's restaurant and eventually taking ownership of it.[6]

Pac-Man challenge

Pac-Man was released in 1980. Players had discovered that it too had a type of kill screen: on reaching level 256, half the screen would be filled with nonsense glyphs that made it impossible to complete the level and continue. Following a 1982 claim made by an eight-year-old player of reaching more than 6 million points, which gained national coverage after President Ronald Reagan wrote to congratulate the player,[1] Mitchell worked with his friend Chris Ayra in 1983 to determine that the highest possible score on Pac-Man was 3,333,360, which would require a perfect no-death run and collecting all possible points on the nonsense side of level 256's split-screen, requiring knowledge of where the edible dots were.[6]

In 1999, a group of Canadian players, including Rick Fothergill, were reportedly close to reaching the theoretical high score, leading Mitchell to return to video gaming to try to beat this group to the achievement. On May 8, 1999, Fothergill set the world record, just 90 points short of a perfect score. In response, on July 3, Mitchell achieved the perfect score at an arcade in Laconia, New Hampshire, and set the game's world record as recorded by Funspot and Twin Galaxies. For this, Namco, the makers of Pac-Man, brought Mitchell to Japan for the Tokyo Game Show that year to name him the "Video Game Player of the Century".[6] After returning in November 1999, Mitchell offered $100,000 to the first person who could pass the split-screen level.[7] The prize was not claimed by the January 1, 2000 deadline.

Mitchell (center) with fans on December 19, 2007

Return to gaming

In 2004, Mitchell achieved a Donkey Kong high score of 933,900 in front of multiple witnesses at the Midwest Gaming Classic.[8] Writing about Mitchell for the Oxford American in 2006, David Ramsey described Mitchell as "probably the greatest arcade video game player of all time".[1] In 2005, newcomer Steve Wiebe attempted to surpass Mitchell's score, an event documented in the 2007 film The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Wiebe attempted to have Mitchell present at these events to challenge him directly, typically at Funspot arcades, as public demonstrations of high scores were preferred over video tape. Mitchell had said, "To me, most important is to travel to a sanctioned location, like Funspot, that makes it official; if tomorrow Tiger Woods golfs a 59, big deal. If he does it at Augusta, that's where it counts."[9] Mitchell failed to appear at Wiebe's events, saying he had not played games for half a year and needed to retrain and practice for the competition.[10]

During Wiebe's attempts, he achieved a score of more than one million points on an arcade unit at his home, which was recorded on videotape and initially accepted by Twin Galaxies but later retracted, since Wiebe's unit used an unofficial "Double Donkey Board" that had circuitry for both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. Later in his attempts, Wiebe again managed a high score that beat Mitchell's 2004 record in front of multiple witnesses at a New Hampshire Funspot, which Twin Galaxies accepted. Just hours later, Mitchell submitted his own tape to Twin Galaxies which purported to show him achieving a new high score of 1,047,200, which bested Wiebe's score and which Twin Galaxies accepted as the new official world record. Wiebe and others at the New Hampshire location complained to Twin Galaxies, and eventually Mitchell's score was nullified due to being on tape rather than witnessed, giving Wiebe the record again.[11] After the film's release, Mitchell said he had not expected to be portrayed as a bad person, and that he had received hate mail and badgering phone calls because of the way the film was edited.[11] In addition to the King of Kong, Mitchell appears in several other documentaries during the 2000s and 2010s, including Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade (2007), The King of Arcades (2014), and Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler (2015).

On July 26, 2007, on the 25th anniversary of Mitchell's first record-setting performance, Mitchell again retook the Donkey Kong record with a score of 1,050,200.[12] This score was known as the "Mortgage Brokers" score as it was made while Mitchell was attending the annual convention for the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers.[6] It was surpassed on February 26, 2010, by Hank Chien, who temporarily held the record.[13] On July 24, 2010, Mitchell reclaimed the record with a score of 1,062,800 at the Boomers arcade in Dania, Florida.[6] It was the last time he held the record after it was broken by Wiebe later that year and others since then.[14][15][16]

Mitchell placed eighth out of eight in the Microsoft Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championships on June 4, 2007.[17] In 2008, he became the first video game player on a Topps Allen & Ginter trading card.[18]

In 2015, Mitchell filed a lawsuit against Cartoon Network saying that in Regular Show a character who cheats at video games called Garrett Bobby Ferguson (GBF) infringed on his likeness.[19][20] United States District Court for the District of New Jersey Judge Anne Elise Thompson threw out the lawsuit, saying that "the television character does not match the plaintiff in appearance".[21][22][23]

Billy Mitchell and Pac-Man give an approving "thumbs up" at the 2014 Twin Galaxies / Walter Day trading card event at the Icon art gallery in Fairfield, Iowa

Disputed records

In August 2017, Jeremy Young, a moderator on the Twin Galaxies online forums, expressed concern related to a video posted online by Childs of Mitchell's Boomers score. Mitchell had played both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong, Jr. that day, breaking records for both, but was using the same cabinet for it, with Childs having swapped the circuit board between the runs. The videos did not show the complete record-breaking runs, and Young believed there might have been issues with the board swap. Mitchell and Childs affirmed that some parts of the board-switching were staged, but that that part of the recording was made well after the records had been set on legitimate hardware.[6]

Young continued to investigate the Boomers video as well as the King of Kong and Mortgage Brokers scores, and in early 2018 posted evidence that both scores were made on MAME, arcade-emulated hardware, rather than actual hardware.[6] Young subsequently removed the three scores from the site as the use of MAME emulation was considered invalid for high-score recording.[8] Young's claim was backed up by Wes Copeland, a former holder of the Donkey Kong high score. Based on analysis of the scoring rate and frequencies of the game, he concluded that Mitchell's run showed a statistically unlikely rate of scoring.[8] Further, it was determined that the Boomers and Mortgage Brokers scores were witnessed by Twin Galaxies referee Todd Rogers, who had been accused of submitting fraudulent scores for himself, putting Mitchell's scores in doubt.[6]

Mitchell defended his scores on the East Side Dave Show shortly after this charge, saying, "I've never even played MAME. I don’t have MAME loaded in my home."[24] Mitchell added, "The film footage that he has, that Jeremy has, shows MAME play... I'm not disputing what he says. What I'm disputing is the fact that I want him to have the original tape."[24] Mitchell also suggested that the tape footage Young had may have been fabricated.[25] Young responded, "The amount of foresight, patience, and technical knowledge required would be staggering" to make such tapes.[24] To support his case, Mitchell said he sent Twin Galaxies recordings of the gameplay from these high-score efforts along with other secondary evidence to deny any cheating.[6]

On April 12, 2018, Twin Galaxies announced that an investigation conducted into Mitchell's submitted scores found conclusive evidence that Mitchell used an emulator for the footage of his two high scores. Twin Galaxies removed all of Mitchell's scores from their records and prohibited him from submitting scores in the future.[26][27] Subsequently, Guinness World Records released a statement that it would remove Mitchell's scores: "The Guinness World Records titles relating to Mr. Mitchell's highest scores on Donkey Kong have all been disqualified due to Twin Galaxies being our source of verification for these achievements." The removal also includes Mitchell's Pac-Man high score and first recorded perfect game: "Twin Galaxies was the original source of verification for these record titles and in line with their decision to remove all of Mr. Mitchell's records from their system, we have disqualified Mr. Mitchell as the holder of these two records."[28]

Mitchell has challenged these removals with his own evidence of the legitimacy of the high scores;[29][6] At the encouragement of his son, Mitchell has used Twitch to broadcast scores that beat his past efforts.[6] Mitchell recreated the perfect Pac-Man score at Funspot in Laconia in July 2019, and took first place at a Donkey Kong tournament in Australia the following month.[6]

The situation between Mitchell and Twin Galaxies has created tension between Mitchell and several of his friends and acquaintances in the video game community.[6] Following requests to both Twin Galaxies and Guinness to restore his records and retract "defamatory statements" about him,[29] Mitchell filed a lawsuit against Twin Galaxies in Los Angeles County in April 2019 for defamation, and filed another defamation lawsuit in Broward County, Florida against Twin Galaxies as well as Young and YouTuber Apollo Legend in May 2020.[30] The Los Angeles County lawsuit against Twin Galaxies is scheduled to be heard on October 15, 2020; Twin Galaxies plans to seek dismissal of the case under California's anti-SLAPP laws.[31]

Guinness World Records announced in June 2020 that after careful review of the past video evidence and other material submitted that it could not find conclusive proof that Mitchell has used any improper methods to achieve his high scores, and restored both Mitchell's Donkey Kong and Pac-Man records. Mitchell had told Ars Technica that Guinness had made the decision back in December 2019, but due to agreements related to prior legal actions he had against Guinness prior to that point, they could not announce it until June 2020.[32]

Personal life

Mitchell has three children and lives with his wife in Weston, Florida.[33]

Notable scores

Mitchell set high-score records on several games in the 1980s and 1990s. Since his initial high score in Donkey Kong in 1982 and return to record-breaking attempts between 2004 and 2010, others have matched or surpassed Mitchell's scores. None of these records is considered valid by Twin Galaxies or the Guinness Book of Records.

  • Mitchell and Chris Ayra reached the split-screen level 256 of Pac-Man in mid-1983.[1] In 1999, Mitchell claimed to be the first player to achieve a perfect score of 3,333,360 points.[34]
  • He set the first acknowledged highest overall score on Donkey Kong with 886,900 points in 1982.[1]
  • He set a new record score for Ms. Pac-Man of 703,560 in January 1985, which stood until it was surpassed in 2001 by Ayra.[35]
  • He set a record score for Donkey Kong Jr. of 957,300 in 2004.[36]
  • He set a record score for BurgerTime of 7,881,050 in 1984, which stood until 2005.[36][37]
  • On July 8, 1985, he became the fifth person to achieve a score on Centipede of more than 10 million points in marathon play.[36]
  • He recaptured the world records for both Donkey Kong (1,062,800 points) and Donkey Kong Jr. (1,270,900) on the weekend of July 24, 2010.[38] In 2015, both these records were surpassed.[36] The Donkey Kong record was removed by the Donkey Kong Forum in February 2018, which prompted Twin Galaxies to remove the records in April 2018 after an investigation stated Mitchell did not use an original unmodified version of the Donkey Kong arcade hardware but an emulator or other disallowed means.[27] Evidence was presented that the score was falsified.[39] However, Guinness World Records reversed their decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell's previous world records, based on new evidence including eyewitness reports and expert testimonials.[3]

Honors

On January 14, 1984, Mitchell was selected as one of the 1983 "Video Game Players of the Year" by Twin Galaxies and the U.S. National Video Game Team.[40]

On September 17, 1999, he was awarded "Video Game Player of the Century" at the 1999 Tokyo Game Show. In a ceremony on the Namco stage, company founder Masaya Nakamura presented Mitchell with an award commemorating the first "perfect" game on Pac-Man.[1]

On June 21, 2006, MTV selected Mitchell as one of "The 10 Most Influential Video Gamers of All Time". He was also nominated as leader of the Nerd Herd.[41]

gollark: We only have your word that that's the only difference, and there's really no way to check that the running version and uploaded version do match otherwise.
gollark: If I find Gollakr, I'll get him to review it.
gollark: Well, it's clearly not, the private key is redacted. That is sensible, yes, but on the other hand, it's a difference.
gollark: Well, this isn't the actual code running on the server, but it doesn't contain any obvious krist-stealing.
gollark: Eh, sure.

References
  1. Ramsey, David (Spring 2006). "The Perfect Man". Oxford American. Retrieved July 26, 2019.
  2. Crecente, Brian (April 12, 2018). "'King of Kong' Star Stripped of High Scores, Banned From Competition". Variety.
  3. "A statement from Guinness World Records: Billy Mitchell". Guinness World Records. June 17, 2020. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
  4. Modell, Josh (February 7, 2008). "The King Of Kong, continued: Donkey Kong champ Billy Mitchell calls The A.V. Club out of the blue". The A.V. Club.
  5. Kernicky, Kathleen (July 16, 1999). "HE PACS A MEAN GAME". Sun Sentinel.
  6. Harmon, Josh (September 30, 2019). "The Split-Screen Man". Electronic Gaming Monthly. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  7. "$100,000 Prize Promised to First Video Game Player to Solve Pac-Man's Mysterious "Split Screen"". Twin Galaxies. 24 November 1999. Archived from the original on 22 November 2006. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  8. "Donkey Kong scoreboard strips Billy Mitchell's high score claims". Ars Technica. Retrieved February 4, 2018.
  9. "Mitchell's perfect Pac-Man score dropped by Guinness". Laconia Daily Sun. April 17, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  10. Boyer, Crispin (February 4, 2008). "Killing Bill: King of Kong's Nemesis Talks Back: News from 1UP.com". Archived from the original on May 23, 2011. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  11. "Ex-'Donkey Kong' Champ Finally Speaks After Getting Bruised By New Doc". Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  12. Day, Walter (26 July 2007). "Man Shatters Donkey Kong World Record Exactly 25 Years After First Setting It in 1982". Twin Galaxies. Archived from the original on 21 February 2009. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  13. Plunkett, Luke (9 March 2010). "Salute Your New King Of Kong". Kotaku. Gizmodo Media Group. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  14. Bradford, Matthew (August 7, 2010). "BILLY MITCHELL TAKES BACK DONKEY KONG RECORDS". Twin Galaxies International. Archived from the original on August 15, 2010. Retrieved August 7, 2010.
  15. "Steve Wiebe regains Donkey Kong World Record from Billy Mitchell". Twin Galaxies. 20 September 2010. Archived from the original on 23 September 2010. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  16. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/robbie-lakeman-sets-new-donkey-kong-world-record-l/1100-6478551/
  17. Ransom-Wiley, James (7 June 2007). "Chasing pellets: Pac-Man tries to make history again". Engadget. Verizon Media. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  18. "Billy Mitchell Appears on TOPPS Gum Card". Twin Galaxies. 3 June 2008. Archived from the original on 11 May 2009. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  19. O'Connor, Brendan (November 23, 2015). "Judge Throws Out Former Donkey Kong Record Holder's Lawsuit Against Cartoon Network". Gawker. Archived from the original on November 27, 2015. Retrieved November 29, 2015.
  20. Phillips, Tom (November 24, 2015). "Donkey Kong diva denied in Cartoon Network depiction lawsuit". Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  21. Vanderbilt, Mike (November 24, 2015). "Billy Mitchell loses Regular Show lawsuit, doesn't care as long as he's trending". The A.V. Club. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  22. Associated Press (November 23, 2015). "Former 'Donkey Kong' record holder's cartoon lawsuit tossed". Archived from the original on November 28, 2015. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  23. "Former 'Donkey Kong' record holder's cartoon lawsuit tossed". Associated Press. November 23, 2015. Retrieved November 29, 2015.
  24. "Billy Mitchell Breaks Silence About Donkey Kong High Score Controversy". Kotaku. Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  25. Good, Owen S. (February 23, 2018). "The case against an all-time Donkey Kong great, explained". Polygon. Retrieved February 23, 2018.
  26. "Dispute Decision: Billy Mitchell's Donkey Kong & All Other Records Removed". Twin Galaxies. The taped Donkey Kong score performances of 1,047,200 (the King of Kong "tape"), 1,050,200 (the Mortgage Brokers score) that were historically used by Twin Galaxies to substantiate those scores and place them in the database were not produced by the direct feed output of an original unmodified Donkey Kong Arcade PCB.
  27. Crecente, Brian (April 12, 2018). "'King of Kong' Star Stripped of High Scores, Banned From Competition". Variety.com. Penske Business Media, LLC. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  28. Crecente, Brian (April 13, 2018). "Guinness World Records Disqualifies Billy Mitchell's Perfect 'Pac-Man' Run, Other Achievements". Variety. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
  29. Orland, Kyle (September 12, 2019). "Former Donkey Kong champ threatens to sue Guinness over record removal". Ars Technica. Retrieved September 12, 2019.
  30. Orland, Kyle (May 4, 2020). "Billy Mitchell takes his Donkey Kong high-score cheating case to court". Ars Technica. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
  31. Orland, Kyle (July 1, 2020). "Twin Galaxies says Billy Mitchell "flirts with perjury" in high-score case". Ars Technica. Retrieved July 21, 2020.
  32. Orland, Kyle (June 18, 2020). "Guinness reinstates Billy Mitchell's Donkey Kong, Pac-Man records". Ars Technica. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  33. Bryan, Susannah (April 12, 2018). "South Florida's Billy Mitchell no longer king of Donkey Kong". South Florida Sun Sentinel. Retrieved August 4, 2019.
  34. Great Big Story (July 21, 2016). Meet the Man Who Beat 'Pac-Man'. Retrieved 19 April 2019 – via YouTube.
  35. "Ms. Pac-Man points records". Twin Galaxies. Archived from the original on 23 June 2017. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  36. "Billy L Mitchell (profile)". Twin Galaxies International. Archived from the original on 23 January 2015. Retrieved August 7, 2010.
  37. Dean, Paul (5 September 2005). "bryan wagner burgertime world record". spyhunter007.com. Retrieved March 19, 2011.
  38. Bradford, Matthew (August 7, 2010). "BILLY MITCHELL TAKES BACK DONKEY KONG RECORDS". Twin Galaxies International. Archived from the original on August 15, 2010. Retrieved August 7, 2010.
  39. Orland, Kyle (February 3, 2018). "Donkey Kong scoreboard strips Billy Mitchell's high score claims [Updated]". Ars Technica. Condé Nast. Retrieved February 21, 2018.
  40. Harris, Steve (1 February 1984). "Twin Galaxies' Coronation Day Crowns Video's Best of '83". Twin Galaxies. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 19 April 2019.
  41. Totilo, Stephen (20 June 2006). "Playa Rater: The 10 Most Influential Video Gamers Of All Time". MTV News. MTV.com. Retrieved August 21, 2016.

Further reading
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