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No matter what games you play or how you play, most people have heard of or watched speedrunners work to play a game at the peak levels possible. Perhaps most well known for their participation in the massive charity events, Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) and Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ), the speedrunning community has been an integral and important voice in gaming.
However, the speedrunning community is currently embroiled in a fight over some of its oldest and most prestigious records, as one of its most famous members from the ‘90s has been accused of cheating, and is using lawsuits as an attempt to silence his opposition.
Speedrunning, records, and integrity
At its core, speedrunning is simply an expression of competitive gaming. It’s a way for players to play a game that is not inherently competitive and turn it into a race. This community is responsible for the creation and discovery of many strategies, glitches, and exploits that have tested the durability of modern games.
However, for many years the speedrunning community was a small(er) niche that was seldom heard about, let alone seen. Yet from this community spawned one of the first true celebrity gamers, Billy Mitchell.
By the mid 2000s Mitchell had already been an accomplished gamer and record holder. This is what led to him becoming the primary subject for the documentary film The King of Kong (2007), in which Mitchell claimed to achieve a new world record for the classic Donkey Kong arcade game, a high score of 1,047,200.
Suspicion about the validity of Billy Mitchell’s Kong record
Years after the record was submitted and accepted an investigation revealed that there were some discrepancies in Billy Mitchell’s record and what was expected from the game. The core issue is that there is evidence Mitchell’s run was completed using an emulator, called MAME, rather than an actual arcade board.
Although emulators are good enough for playing the game, they invalidate any records achieved due to various reasons including their vulnerability to manipulation, the inherent subtle differences between them and their originals, and so on.
Furthermore, it was discovered that one of the on site witnesses for Mitchell’s score was Todd Rogers, someone who had been kicked out of the speedrunning community for submitting and verifying fraudulent records, in addition to blatant lying. All of this led to Mitchell’s records being expunged in 2018.
Guinness World Records and the speedrunning community
Although much of the work in uncovering the suspicious activity was done years ago, Mitchell was recently reinstated by the Guinness World Record Association as having the Donkey Kong high score.
However, as YouTuber and member of the speedrunning community Karl Jobst pointed out, Guinness is not actually an authority on speedrunning or gaming in general, and as a result can not actually verify any records related to it.
However, Guinness does still have a high degree of recognition within more mainstream groups. When Guinness says something is a record, many take them at their word, which is why their reinstatement of Mitchell has been controversial within the speedrunning community.
Billy Mitchell sues accusers from the speedrunning community
Mitchell has also been active in a legal capacity too, as he reportedly has multiple ongoing lawsuits targeting both the official record keepers at Twin Galaxies as well as anyone who publicly claims that Mitchell’s scores were fraudulent.
During a recent video Jobst highlighted a lawsuit from Mitchell which accused Jobst of defamation, demanded that Jobst apologize, recant his statements, and pay restitution of $150,000.
However, it does not seem like these lawsuits are having the desired effect for Mitchell. Since the issue appears to be that Mitchell is upset about no longer being considered a world record holder by this community, it could be characterized as an attempt to reclaim a lost or damaged reputation.
Unfortunately, a reputation isn’t something that can be won with litigation. You can’t sue a group into respecting you, and attempts to do so are likely to have the opposite effect. I have no doubt the speedrunning community will move on after this, but I can’t be certain that Mitchell will do the same.
