2007's King of Kong is one of the seminal video game documentaries. It charted the epic battle between legendary high-score holder and hot sauce-maker Billy Mitchell and the underdog Steve Wiebe. At the conclusion of the movie, Wiebe had made gaming history and the film has gone on to become a genuine classic.
However, a lot has happened in the world of Donkey Kong high scores since the movie was first shown. The record has changed hands multiple times, with the likes of Hank Chien, Wes Copeland, John McCurdy and Robbie Lakeman all claiming the title – Lakeman is the current champ with a score of 1,260,700.
Mitchell, meanwhile, has been involved in some serious drama following accusations that some of his scores were not achieved on original arcade hardware. He was stripped of his scores by Twin Galaxies back in 2018, only to have them reinstated recently by Guinness World Records. Lakeman is one of the people who has come out to publically support Mitchell during this process.
Ever since the drama began, Mitchell has been posting scores to prove his talent at the game, and recently achieved an impressive 1,092,100 – a new personal best.
https://twitter.com/BillyPacman/status/1276750792867840000
Interestingly, Wiebe recently announced he was returning to competitive play after a decade away and has also hit a new personal best recently, recording a score of 1,106,200 (his previous best score was 1,064,500, submitted in 2010) which means he joins the exclusive "1.1 million club".
Wiebe said:
I'm a ways away from any world record on Donkey Kong, but it sure felt good to cross the 1.1M mark. I was just doing a practice game before I was going to stream, and I had a good run for 1,106,200. I should be streaming everyday for the summer and hopefully, I can hit my next milestone of 1.15M soon.
King of Kong 2, you say? Stranger things have happened...
Comments (28)
One cheated got caught and the other didn't cheat. What else needs to be said here.....
Looks like Billy Mitchell is getting left behind, he needs to step up his game if he wants to beat Steve Wiebe, this is definitely a war zone happening here!
There is something strangely entertaining about seeing people compete for a high score in classic games! I loved the King of Kong myself as well.
King of Kong 2, coming to a cinema near you.
the whole billy thing is so convoluted at this point. He DOES have incredibly high legit scores, but he also submitted that wack tape. BUT as suspect as the tape is, there's no solid evidence that it's not legit. AND Twin Galaxies was pretty much bank rolled by billy for a time, and THEY accepted the tape in the first place. That completely invalidates them as any kind of reputable or competent record keeper, period. Then they strip him of his scores, and now guiness book gives him the records? Billy was definitely smeared really hard in the documentary, BUT he's not entirely honest person by some accounts. I think Billy is a die-by-the-sword capitalist, and has essentially outsmarted and exploited various institutions to uphold his legacy. He's a probable cheat, but also a legit arcade master. I would love another doc, but only about Billy.
I know this is a case of "to each his own", but I just can't understand only playing one computer game for all this time. I can't imagine still enjoying it. I've got this funny image in my mind of these guys going ape over seeing Donkey Kong 64.
@Crockin Now your comment is far more considered and less black and white than that first guys. All the first guy did was spout out what he read on some "news" media or "social" media site and decided that he doesn't like Billy and that's all there is to the story. I like a little more thought behind things personally.
@impurekind I just think Billy's saga is really complicated and interesting with no easy answer. He is totally hateable tho, so I get it
If they did a sequel, how could they call it "King of Kong" since neither one is currently "the king" anymore.
@JohnnyC
Going from a precise game like Pac-Man or the original Donkey Kong to a clunky 3D platformer would make me to ape too.
@BanjoPickles You realize that the Bad Boys also weren't actually bad, right? And Simba is a lion, which also can't actually be a king.
Say what you want, but Billy Mitchell is by FAR the most interesting person/character of anyone mentioned in this article. If it weren't for Billy, the King of Kong movie wouldn't have even been worth recording.
Can't wait to see what he has planned!
@Crockin
"BUT as suspect as the tape is, there's no solid evidence that it's not legit."
There literally is though. The tape clearly shows emulation-style loading.
Okay, Billy is a scoundrel but...
"New personal best tonight for the King of Kong: 1,092,100 points. The basement dwellers can talk from their keyboards. I’ll continue to smash out scores and keep winning. Billy Mitchell always has a plan."
This is GOLD. When King of Kong came out, I said that Billy Mitchell was the greatest screen villain since the original incarnations of Darth Vader and Hannibal Lector. I stand by this assessment. Long live Billy.
He shouldn’t insult the ‘basement dwellers’ (aka the original group of gamers to sustain that slight) too much, doubtless they’re one in the same with the audience still interested in arcade machine high scores
@NinChocolate My hunch is that he's playing a bad guy character much like a professional wrestler or Bobby Riggs when he played Billie Jean King in tennis. He WANTS to be hated. Infamy can get a person very famou$.
Just caught this again over the weekend on cable. Such a great story. I hope a sequel happens. There are some great characters in the gaming community.
Way to go, Billy! Sticking it to the jealous nerds, I like it.
@Muddy_4_Ever Yep, look at Dr. Disrespect, though he recently got banned from Twitch.
@BLD Wasn’t the tape proved to be legit, recently?
@BLD I misspoke. yes twin galaxies concluded this was not from an original board(though they have no conclusive evidence of what exactly it was from), which is fine and good and right. But this is also an institution that previously accepted that tape and recorded the score for what it was. To me, that makes the record keeper completely unreliable and biased, especially when you consider the close personal relationship with Billy. So ok, He fudged the tape, the institution he's cheating has also willingly moved the goal post for him. It goes beyond Billy sending a fraudulent tape.
@Muddy_4_Ever Completely agree on this. How better to stay in front of people if you can’t produce the high score? Be the villain.
Billy pretends that people who hate him are all just trolls but in reality it is everyone. He sits in his basement pumping out MAME videos so what's the difference?
I don't think he is playing anything, he disabled the comments on his YouTube videos because he got butt hurt.
Good for both of them. I tend to lean on the point that Billy Mitchell should eternally have an asterisk on any records legitimately earned moving forward, much like certain baseball teams deserve it due to steroids, signal stealing, and other black marks on their accomplishments.
I likewise think the officials that accepted the MAME video should likewise be treated as incompetent. Twin Galaxies probably shouldn't be the defacto judge of records. I would rather see a standard established for camera setups to record these things, post to Youtube requirement, and require archive raw footage to be stored someplace like archive.org for open-sourced review.
But I am not going to lose sleep over this. If Billy wants to continue to live on past glories, how is he any different than the millions of former high school QB's that relive their glory days of high school for the rest of their lives?
@Crockin This is a pretty wild stance. So nothing is worth taking a closer look at for inspection? Should we never reopen trials after new evidence is introduced because they've already been closed? And does that new evidence being introduced mean that judge and jury are useless?
@Bret i didn't say or imply that. My point is that story should definitely be re-examined and re-contextualized to include accountability for Twin Galaxies, who have played a pivotal role in the corruption of scorekeeping despite their recent condemnation of Billy Mitchell. To me, the issue is not JUST that Billy submitted the tape, it's also the fact that he was protected by Twin Galaxies for a long time. They knowingly and willingly changed the rules for him. Not a fraudulent tape if he's playing by the standards THEY set
When I say there is no easy answer, I mean it's a layered issue with with many considerations
@Crockin I agree Twin Galaxies is the authority on this by default and that alone leaves them susceptible to corruption. But honestly is anyone even making any money off these scores even from a promotional stance? I find it hard to believe there is enough demand to find a legitimate solution to audit twin galaxies.
@doctorhino I don't really know, probably not haha. I would imagine they have other sources of income to keep the lights on
@holygeez03
Come on, Steve Wiebe wasn’t colorful enough for ya? 😂
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