In which we explain exactly how Billy Mitchell cheated. Yes, MAME. You're watching the Free Play Podcast. Full episodes available exclusively at / freeplayarcade .
Clearly Billy is an innocent victim of the Mandela effect replacing all his original arcade donkey kong videos with mame videos. Its not his fault the universe changed when he wasn't looking.
Son Nguyen if the Mandela effect could happen to the Bernstein bears or make the world suddenly become round when everyone knew it was flat it could happen to anyone.
One reason I quit playing is because of cheat codes. Your score did not matter anymore. The cheaters cheat, and every great score is suspicious and tainted. (This shows my age) Back then, I didn't even know there were cheat codes, and beating Mario fair and square is one of my happiest memories. The pressure of the last Mario/the last life, wow, knowing if you got beat, you lose it all and start over. And I had no way of knowing I was about to win. I was just expecting to go to the next level. When I won, I ran thru the house like zoomies, screaming.
Same here. Also, I can’t play without 1K followers in TikTok which I already deleted because of annoying comments and they kept saying TikTok will be banned.
No one ever clarifies WHY M.A.M.E. handles Donkey Kong screen draws differently from the original ROM. If the whole point is for emulation to be as close to 100% "authentic" as possible, and "the Donkey Kong game has been optimized a million times" for M.A.M.E., why does such an obvious discrepancy persist? I'm really curious!
The answer, which they did not discuss here, is that the screen drawing differently was from a very old version of MAME. Newer versions are much more accurate.
"optimizing" a game in this context means to perfect a run through the game. It's a common term in speedrunning. Also, authenticity is not always the goal of an emulator (many aim to produce BETTER results than the original game did), and you have to understand those emulators were and are a work in progress, so even those who aim for perfect authenticity need to start somewhere and then improve over the years. DK ran on obscure arcade hardware and not a widely used home console system, so the goal of early emulators was to get it running with passable results at first, and there were certainly some compromises early on. In later versions, accuracy improved.
Hey, I didn’t realize that FreePlay Arcade had a RU-vid channel! I am looking forward to browsing the content. My son and I have been coming in to the Richardson location for many years now. Hope to be back soon.
What if BM cheated and didn't realise he actually did. I mean, obviously the tape proved it was mame, but what if he played this game on mame and got a score of 1mil+ thinking it was an oem board? It is after all an emulation. And its truly like for like, the recording is vhs too, which means it's a straight recording of a manual playthrough. The camera is recording the screen, it's not like there were files spliced together from a pc and rendered in Sony Vegas or Adobe. He has legit 1mil+ scores on live streams. Not making excuses but rather giving a different view on the whole debacle.
In light of recent pictures coming to light showing that BM replaced the original joystick with an eight way stick on his cabinet, you can't really trust any score he produces.
@@s15240drifter69 I saw that on a Karl Jobst video. Indeed, the joystick is different, but is it actually an 8 way? 🤔 Most cheap joysticks come with 4 way and 8 way gates. It's legitimately 50/50 unless someone can verify what joystick it actually is. Also to play devil's advocate, the rules are "genuine nintendo hardware" for the world records. Okay then, exactly what Donkey Kong cabinet is 100% original parts? Microswitches break, they are replaced with aftermarket ones because the original parts just aren't available. I mean, for instance, if the 1P button isn't original, by even pressing it voids your score before you even play a game. It's a bit ridiculous. But yes, the joystick isn't original. But the microswitches on an original donkey kong joystick aren't original either. And if they are, you can be damn well sure those they aren't working very well, and are most probably out of order or faulty.
Playing on MAME isn't cheating; playing on MAME and submitting it as original hardware game-play is. Because the only reason one would do that is so they can use save-states and cheap their way thru, but submit it without the anti-cheating proof that MAME players need to include for the score to be concidered legitimate. So if Billy is caught lying about this, then he likely cheated. And even if he didn't cheat, he didn't submit the score with the REQUIRED anti-cheat proof, thus disqualifying his scrore.
How I hate the "just because he used Mame does not mean he was cheating!"-argument. Yeah of course.. if he did not intend to cheat, would he really risk getting exposed (and go through all the trouble to make it look like authentic hardware)? If I would set on breaking a legit world record (!), I would do EVERYTHING that no one could accuse me of cheating!
I agree with this also however,what if he did mix up tapes with practice runs,what if twin galaxy did,what if his tape was switched ? I honestly think billy needs to be given benefit of doubt,he has proven himself with both dk and Pac man live twice over and was a Pac man champion before donkey Kong,I really need to think .. why would he fuck up when I don't think he needed to,why cheat when you don't need to ?
@@patrickhawthorneLS "I agree with this also however,what if he did mix up tapes with practice runs,what if twin galaxy did,what if his tape was switched ?" You might as well ask 'what if the coffee stain on Todd Rogers Dragster-Highscore was real?". It does not work this way. You can always construct obscure excuses like this, but if a world record is set, especially by someone with that much media presence and who's personality is completely build around it, then you would make ABSOLUTELY sure that nothing goes wrong, you ensure MAXIMUM TRANSPARENCY and you absolutely make sure there is CONCRETE proof for what you did. If not, you can be sure there is a reason. "I honestly think billy needs to be given benefit of doubt" Nope, he does not. Why should he? The opposite is true, IF ANYONE needs to proof himself, it's Billy Mitchell and his gang of corrupt friends like Walter Day or Todd Rogers. "he has proven himself with both dk and Pac man" We already know he lied and cheated about DK. Everyone can see it. No need to defend such an obvious liar. Also, his proof of a "perfect game" in Pac man actually happened in front of a crowd, only... it was not a perfect game. : D
He didn't cheat at Pac-Man but he wasn't the first to get a perfect Pac-Man game. Billy and Walter Day conveniently left out that information in the late 90s.
@@mind-of-neoEmulation is allowed, but there are specific rules in place to prevent the use of save-states. But by lying that it was original hardware, it wouldn't go thru the checks that prevent save-states. So emulation is fine, but not if it wasn't submitted with the proper proof requirements.
Save states on emulators are like cheating, and I feel like they make games less fun in a lot of ways. I’m not a pretentious collector type, so I use emulation a lot for older games; but I don’t use save states. It’s a form of cheating.
Or maybe some people find the games more enjoyable that way. Not everyone has the time, willpower or skill to brute force through a game when they die at the same spot dozens of times and have to backtrack 10 min every time they do. Maybe it's even their only way to even see the game at its fullest. And for people like those, it's great that they have this option. That said, I do approach game the same way as you do: I try my hardest to play the game the way it was originally and avoid quicksaves etc as much as I can. I can add a lot to the experience and nostalgia I have for those games.
@@kyx5631 I agree with Talio. One reason I quit playing is because of cheat codes. Your score did not matter anymore. The cheaters cheat, and every great score is suspicious and tainted. (This shows my age) Back then, I didn't even know there were cheat codes, and beating Mario fair and square is one of my happiest memories. The pressure of the last Mario/the last life, wow, knowing if you got beat, you lose it all and start over. And I had no way of knowing I was on the last level. I was just expecting to go to the next level. When I won, I ran thru the house like zoomies, screaming.
Unless you can prove that he used a save state to gain an advantage the record should still count. The game play is just as difficult as an original board
Erm... no. Just no. If you claim a record, it's up to you to prove that it's legit. And there are rules in certain categories for a REASON. That said, what do you think his reasons were for breaking those rules, playing on an emulator and going to all the trouble of making it look like it was the original hardware (which he owns, so playing on this would be no problem for him)? Hmmmmmmmmmmm... I think you can figure it out for yourself. AND you can see that he cheated in the EXTREME amout of "luck" (which you can manipulate with mame) he got in his run, it would be like winning the lottery 10 times in a row and NO of the other top score runs have this.
But BM scored 874,000 on his first man at the LIFE magazine shoot in 1982 before MAME existed. Any quirky DK screen draws were caused by BM use of an early video capture device which takes signal directly off of the DK board. It’s clearly seen in lawsuit footage of BM
So? No-one's questioning THAT score. 😂 Which I don't think even has recordings. Cuz it was '82. But regardless, the scores that DO have footage show the graphical error. And it's not from the capture device, since he specified the exact one used, and one of the groups that BM had helping him at one point got the same model and tried it out. There were no graphical errors. ...Not that they needed to test that. That's an error in rendering. Recording problems could not cause that specific kind of error. But either way, they found that the device made a perfect copy of the gameplay.
Never heard of billy Mitchell cause I don’t play video games. But first thing I noticed about him is he looks like Chris Ferguson , also a cheater. And I know poker
Billy first set a record for donkey Kong in 1982 and continued to set the world record for donkey Kong there after Mame emulator 1st release was 1997 WHY cheat,why use save states,why hook up elaborate electronics with pc hardware into an arcade cabinet to cheat when YOU DIDN'T NEED TO ? So he played on mame,I highly doubt he played on mame to cheat,it would make alot more sense to practice on mame if you don't always have access to a cab At the end of the day,he didn't brute force the game when he got cought out using mame,there's plenty of full video of footage of him destroying both Pac man and donkey Kong live and enough witness testimony that he had done in the past Including Pac man which he mastered before donkey Kong,I find it more difficult to believe that he cheated for the sake of it because he couldn't do donkey Kong but could do Pac man yet proved that he could also do donkey Kong anyway Also .. back Then,I don't even think there were any devices that would allow you to hook up an old Windows pc to an arcade cga/vga monitor and anything other than that type of screen would show more discrepancies than the screen refresh issue Think about it,are we talking mid to late 80s ? Or mid 90s .. would be Windows 95 or 98,there weren't really any off the shelf devices,JAPC boards for arcades came out much much later,something I use in my arcade so I can run a pc through it and yet I also know that you need special graphics drivers to get it to display anything,it's not easy from a software side either So what we would need to be seing is him,with a pc inside the cab or at least the pc monitor inside the cab,he would have had to mount it into the cab and had a wire running out to the pc,and he would also have either had to hard wire the arcade controls to the pc or play the game with a pc controller but look like he is playing with the arcade controls I have read the rules on twin galaxy,he was supposed to walk around the cab showing the back door open and the control panel open in his recording So basically everyone would have to be lying He could of course have just pointed a camera at a pc screen and cut out any footage of his hands on the controls,or anything around the pc screen by cropping it,and he would have also had to hook up a stick that sounds like the arcade stick and buttons as you can hear him using the controls like any arcade controls,you can hear them,the question would be,was this allowed,was he allowed to submit a game time without doing the checks ? Yet wait ... He did ACTUALLY play both games and destroy them in front of a live audience at least twice Personally I think billy needs to be given the benefit of the doubt,how are we to know that his submitted footage is even his ? What if there was some sort of sabotage? Billy was a big personality back Then and I bet not everyone liked him,I bet some would love to take him down... He has proven himself without a shadow of doubt in his ability to do Pac man and donkey Kong twice over All this is,is that it gives sour RU-vidrs and forum lurkers someone to hate on and trash talk about,this is why this guy billy keeps getting brought back up when most are fed up seing it I would have preferred to see billy NOT go down the route of suing folk but dragging his name all over the ground would make many resort to that when you are trying to salvage your name and integrity,it's typical that certain RU-vidrs call him out and make long drawn out videos to trash him then make more about how he has filed a law suit against them which just creates more hate,try walking in billy shoes for a second and ask yourself,would you stand back and allow random RU-vidrs to slander your name ? But said RU-vidrs almost revel in it because they are still making money off views
@@johnhorne3052 Guiness was facing his layers and so they made a reatreat. Guiness is a total joke nowadays anyway. Twin galaxies was not so easily intimidated, so his scores are not listed there anywhere at all, anymore. BTW, I don't have to tell you, you can check and see how he lied & cheated for yourself very easily.
Please post a video of him cheating just saying he cheated doesn’t prove anything but seeing is believing I want to see him cheating where is the video
Nah not really. Only by the Guinness noobs who have no clue. Donkeyforum and TG didn't because its clear he isn't telling the truth, with his written testimonials by his friends. The way he played dk on the tapes is impossible according to dk experts
He threatened to sue them, so they backed down. I guess that disproves all the evidence that indicates that he's a pathetic lying piece of shit. Imagine your entire life revolving around a fake high score in a video game
@@MH-yp6wg Strange how he still can repeat what he did and still find new things before anyone else. I don't remember much about this controversy now but I dived deep into it a year ago and the deniers conspiracy theories were worse than the flat eather's. Put what they say he lied about up against what you agree he really has done and it makes no sense why he should cheat.
