It’s a story that mixes all the ingredients of a thriller, even though it revolves around something as trivial as an Arcade Game. It’s all about long-time grudges, player’s rivalry that fuel their obsessions, rises to power and abrupt falls on an emotional ride that goes on for decades. If esports betting sites would have had the success they have nowadays, they would have had a blast from this dispute between Billy Mitchell and, well, Donkey Kong. Runner-uppers came chasing his number one spot, just after he established his greatness.
The road to “Video Game Player of the Century”
Because this is the title, he received in 1999 after being the first player to earn Pac Man’s perfect score of around 3.3 million points. But this came after a long streak of top scores in many different Arcade games.
He was the one to show the brutal ending of the world’s most famous plumber, Mario. Code limitations made the 133rd level of the game to reach an abrupt halt after only 4 seconds of the game, marking its end. He revealed the same coding limitations that made the 256th level of Pac-Man impossible to play, showing a distorted screen.
He held the record score for Ms. Pac Man for 16 years, the scoring record for Burger Time for 21 years, has been one of only five people to gain an over 10 million points in Centipede. But his saga remains the one revolving around Donkey Kong.
The first acknowledged highest score was set in 1982, by the same Billy Mitchell. And everything became a legend from then on.
Esports betting sites’ greatest regret: they weren’t there
The first life-long publicly declared enemy was made in the person of Roy Shildt. Mr. Awesome has been one of the first rivals for Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong supremacy. That is until Billy publicly accused him of being a cheater, the fact that was later on checked and established to be so, by Twin Galaxies, the creator of Donkey Kong. Making Roy Shildt one of the first proven cyber sports cheaters in the world.
Billy Mithcell is a complete showman, knowing precisely what the public wants, knowing how to create suspense and how to come on top after culminating moments. As well he did during his whole dispute with Donkey Kong’s highest score contender, Steve Wiebe.
The saga begins when Steve Wiebe sends Twin Galaxies a tape of him surpassing the million point barrier for Donkey Kong. Everyone got really excited, and it seemed that the gaming industry was going to be changing forever. Which it actually did, but for unfortunate Steve Wiebe, it took a turn for the worse. At a random check, a Donkey Kong machine has been found in Wiebe’s garage, being donated to him from Roy Shildt. Although a clear proof that Wiebe has cheated couldn’t be found, simply associating this result with potential interference from the proven cheater, Mr.Awesome, made the creators doubt its legitimacy and then cancel it altogether.
The documentary called “The King of Kong: A Fistful of quarters” found Wiebe doing the only thing he could, in order to clear his name. So, he constantly pursued overpassing Billy Mitchell’s high score, while permanently provoking him to a one-on-one battle, everything caught on tape.
Billy Mitchell has given his best performance as the perfect showman while meteorically appearing in this documentary, never engaging in a direct battle and although being portrayed as the villain, he simply won the dispute by not even showing up. Quite literally.
The final of the documentary had planned a record-breaking game from Steve Weibe, which was to take place in a public arcade, in the presence of Guinness World Record Book representatives. Weibe managed to score an exhilarating 985.600 points.
But the cheers of the crowd were soon dissipated when a 72-year-old lady came into the store with a VHS tape from Billy Mitchell. He had filmed himself while breaking his previous high score, with a stunning 1.047.200 points. The endgame: Guinness World Record Book, as well as Twin Galaxies, awarded the record to Billy Mitchell. Without him even being there.
Karma finds a way
The battle went on for many years, Weibe had his moment and surpassed everyone’s highest scores, then Mitchell came back again, then others have proven more worthy.
Shocking surprise of 2018 came when one of the Twin Galaxies representatives announced that Billy Mitchell’s highest score and the record was put under questioning, facing charges of cheating. And all of these, based on, and this is surely where karma steps in, the tape sent during that epic documentary.
Billy Mitchell has been found guilty of cheating in April 2018, and all of his records have been erased, and he has been banned from introducing any more new scores. There have been some confusing declarations and actions from Billy Mitchell while trying to reclaim his innocence and his throne, but one thing is certain: this is far from being over.