Soldato
Given the specialism of this section of the forum, this might be old news... well it is old news, but you know what I mean...
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923752/
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a 2007 American documentary film about competitive gaming directed by Seth Gordon. It follows Steve Wiebe in his attempts to take the high score record for the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong from the previous holder, Billy Mitchell. The film premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival and was released in US theaters in August 2007.
Walter Day is the founder of Twin Galaxies, an organization dedicated to tracking high scores in arcade games. Among the high-scoring players is restaurateur Billy Mitchell, who has held the high score for the 1981 game Donkey Kong since 2004.
In Redmond, Washington, out-of-work engineer Steve Wiebe has purchased a Donkey Kong cabinet to try to break the record. Using his mathematical knowledge to identify exploitable patterns in the game, Wiebe achieves a new record of 1,006,600 points – the first ever score over a million. He submits a tape to Twin Galaxies, which propels him to local celebrity in the Seattle area.
Mitchell and Twin Galaxies send two referees to investigate Wiebe's machine. They learn that the machine's circuit board was provided by Roy Shildt, a self-proclaimed fitness guru and pickup artist who claims the high score for Missile Command. Unbeknownst to Wiebe, Shildt and Mitchell have been at odds for years after Mitchell questioned Shildt's high score, causing Twin Galaxies to disqualify it. Twin Galaxies suspects that Shildt may have tampered with Wiebe's board, and does not recognize Wiebe's record.
Forum thread from 2008 - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/king-of-kong-a-fistful-of-quarters.17883891/
I watched this a few years ago and enjoyed it. Billy Mitchell seemed a very strange character, almost like he was still stuck in the 80s and had some sort of Lex Luther persona; how I imagine Alan Rickman would play the part of a competitive gamer and restaurateur / supervillian in an 80s film. He even has an ex wrestler/bodybuilder friend and fellow competitor who comes across as a henchman type iirc!
I had never heard of Twin Galaxies prior to the documentary, but they seemed to put every obstacle in the way of Steve Wiebe and took everything Billy Mitchell said as gospel. It almost comes across as a bit of a conspiracy in the film. I really didn't like the "referree" Walter Day in the film, he came across as very defensive of Billy Mitchell, when he should have been impartial (eg as the second link below sets out).
I was reading the news last week (meant to post then, but forgot all about it until now!) that Billy Mitchell was found to be cheating and has had his previous records stripped.
Some of the below may contain spoilers if you haven't seen the documentary, so read afterwards if you plan to watch it.
https://www.twingalaxies.com/feed_d...lls-donkey-kong-and-all-other-records-removed
https://www.twingalaxies.com/hectortelloc/wall/3659/a-message-from-walter-day
https://www.retrogamer.net/blog_post/twin-galaxies-disqualifies-billy-mitchell/
https://kotaku.com/after-donkey-kong-controversy-guinness-removes-all-of-1825240701
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/18/billy-mitchell-disgraced-donkey-kong-champ-defends/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/12/a...onkey-kong-score-is-invalidated/?guccounter=1
https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/steve-wiebe-interview-1202752495/
I've done a search and there's not much about it on the wider forum, other than a post in the Music, Box Office, TV & Books section - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...ch-last-night.18049585/page-452#post-31988045
I thought this may be of interest to those in this forum and I think I'll give it another watch in light of this.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923752/
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a 2007 American documentary film about competitive gaming directed by Seth Gordon. It follows Steve Wiebe in his attempts to take the high score record for the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong from the previous holder, Billy Mitchell. The film premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival and was released in US theaters in August 2007.
Walter Day is the founder of Twin Galaxies, an organization dedicated to tracking high scores in arcade games. Among the high-scoring players is restaurateur Billy Mitchell, who has held the high score for the 1981 game Donkey Kong since 2004.
In Redmond, Washington, out-of-work engineer Steve Wiebe has purchased a Donkey Kong cabinet to try to break the record. Using his mathematical knowledge to identify exploitable patterns in the game, Wiebe achieves a new record of 1,006,600 points – the first ever score over a million. He submits a tape to Twin Galaxies, which propels him to local celebrity in the Seattle area.
Mitchell and Twin Galaxies send two referees to investigate Wiebe's machine. They learn that the machine's circuit board was provided by Roy Shildt, a self-proclaimed fitness guru and pickup artist who claims the high score for Missile Command. Unbeknownst to Wiebe, Shildt and Mitchell have been at odds for years after Mitchell questioned Shildt's high score, causing Twin Galaxies to disqualify it. Twin Galaxies suspects that Shildt may have tampered with Wiebe's board, and does not recognize Wiebe's record.
Forum thread from 2008 - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/king-of-kong-a-fistful-of-quarters.17883891/
I watched this a few years ago and enjoyed it. Billy Mitchell seemed a very strange character, almost like he was still stuck in the 80s and had some sort of Lex Luther persona; how I imagine Alan Rickman would play the part of a competitive gamer and restaurateur / supervillian in an 80s film. He even has an ex wrestler/bodybuilder friend and fellow competitor who comes across as a henchman type iirc!
I had never heard of Twin Galaxies prior to the documentary, but they seemed to put every obstacle in the way of Steve Wiebe and took everything Billy Mitchell said as gospel. It almost comes across as a bit of a conspiracy in the film. I really didn't like the "referree" Walter Day in the film, he came across as very defensive of Billy Mitchell, when he should have been impartial (eg as the second link below sets out).
I was reading the news last week (meant to post then, but forgot all about it until now!) that Billy Mitchell was found to be cheating and has had his previous records stripped.
Some of the below may contain spoilers if you haven't seen the documentary, so read afterwards if you plan to watch it.
https://www.twingalaxies.com/feed_d...lls-donkey-kong-and-all-other-records-removed
https://www.twingalaxies.com/hectortelloc/wall/3659/a-message-from-walter-day
https://www.retrogamer.net/blog_post/twin-galaxies-disqualifies-billy-mitchell/
https://kotaku.com/after-donkey-kong-controversy-guinness-removes-all-of-1825240701
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/18/billy-mitchell-disgraced-donkey-kong-champ-defends/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/12/a...onkey-kong-score-is-invalidated/?guccounter=1
https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/steve-wiebe-interview-1202752495/
I've done a search and there's not much about it on the wider forum, other than a post in the Music, Box Office, TV & Books section - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...ch-last-night.18049585/page-452#post-31988045
I thought this may be of interest to those in this forum and I think I'll give it another watch in light of this.
