10 ms·
Donkey Kong champion wins defamation case against Australian YouTuber Karl Jobst
- ShrimpHawk 2y agoBilly Mitchell wins more in court than video games. Maybe he should have picked a different career growing up.
- robocat 2y agoOr it shows that court is just a different type of game, and that he's good at games. Although the judge saying he should have asked for more than $50k shows that maybe the grinding/stubbornness matters more for winning than the points.
- anotherhue 2y agoHow does he finance all these lawsuits?
- jhbadger 2y agoHis hot sauce sales? (as shown in The King of Kong)
- JohnBooty 2y agoPer Wikipedia: "Mitchell's family owns the Rickey's restaurants in Hollywood, Florida, and Pembroke Pines, Florida, and he sells Rickey's World Famous Hot Sauce" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell_(gamer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell_(gamer)
- PokemonNoGo 2y agoWorld famous ey? Wonder which world...
- sowbug 2y agoThe movie The King of Kong is a good intro to the sordid side of the world of competitive arcade gaming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Kong
- mwidell 2y agoThis is one of the greatest documentaries I have ever seen. The story is so intriguing, interesting and entertaining. Highly recommend.
- alt227 2y agoMake sure to follow up with the much lesser known Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade It covers a lot of the same material but gives a much wider context about that whole retro gaming scene which is shown in King of Kong
- jxjnskkzxxhx 2y agoThere's another with the same vibe for Tetris. I believe it's called fistful of quarters. Not nearly as good, but great soundtrack.
- jmarcher 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Order:_The_Tetris_Masters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Order:_The_Tetris_M... ?
- jxjnskkzxxhx 2y agoThat's the one I meant, great soundtrack. So I'm confusing names with something else.
- pathartl 2y agoFistful of quarters was the subtitle of King of Kong
- ryandrake 2y agoA professional video game player, a professional YouTube person and a $400K lawsuit? It hurts my brain realizing that these people have so much money at stake. Why the hell did I get two degrees and grind actual employment making actual things for 25 years?
- ge96 2y agoYou gotta have "it" (Epic Faith No More) to have millions of people tune into you on YT. I make technical videos but I'm not a Michael Reeves for ex. edit: I will say though, you don't have to make those ADHD type videos with screaming and quick cuts. There are other technical youtubers that are slower like Applied Science, Great Scott, 3 blue 1 brown, etc...
- Suppafly 2y ago>edit: I will say though, you don't have to make those ADHD type videos with screaming and quick cuts. There are other technical youtubers that are slower like Applied Science, Great Scott, 3 blue 1 brown, etc... This, you can make make good content and people will watch it. What a lot of aspiring youtubers don't realize is that good production (sound, lighting, animation, video quality in general, etc.) goes a long ways towards helping people find your content engaging. Luck is necessary too, but most of the big youtubers work a lot harder than those of us working normal 9-5s.
- amelius 2y ago> You gotta have "it" I wouldn't be surprised if the "it" part can be generated by some llm.
- ge96 2y agoMy opinion AI generated stuff has some tells But there are successful channels like Neural Viz though I think that still takes script writing
- tmtvl 2y agoFor every professional YouTube person and professional video game player there are thousands upon thousands of aspirants who don't get lucky and who can't support themselves that way. It's like game development: Notch got lucky and made it big, thousands of indie studios either just eke out a living (like Jeff Vogel's Spiderweb Software), or don't even manage that.
- tmtvl 2y agoOdd that this shows up on HN now, when I just started watching Karl's videos this past winter. It's a small internet. Anyhow, I wonder how much the degraded components would affect Donkey Kong and whether similar degradation could account for Todd Roger's record for Dragster. I also hope that other people Karl has called out aren't gonna go after him now, because with the financial loss and emotional grievance he's gonna be dealing with it would be hard to fend off additional lawsuits.
- alt227 2y agoHe has posted so many cocky videos about how Billy has no chance of winning the lawsuit. Im really looking forward to his post court update video.
- shadefinale 2y agoIn the dragster case, we don't have anything like video proof of the supposed record. There was an effort to examine the source code of the game and determine a theoretical best time which has been matched but not exceeded. To explain Todd's record would require some alternative way of having such a score such as proving he played on a prototype/alternate version of the game at the time he claimed to have set his record. Do note that this case has 0% to do with cheating in video games. The judge listed 5 'imputations' made by Karl which seem to be the main points/infractions and cheating, donkey kong, etc do not appear there. The scope of the judgement is related to Karl's statements about Billy's interactions with Apollo that ended up to be untrue.
- eviks 2y ago> He accused Mitchell of cheating, and “pursuing unmeritorious litigation” against others who had also accused him of cheating, the court judgment stated. Case in point!
- CSMastermind 2y agoThis is surprising to me. Karl's commentary seemed like it would be protected speech, at least in the United States. I'm unfamiliar with Australian law though.
- AdmiralAsshat 2y agoLibel is a much harder threshold to meet in the US, but if one could prove that Jobst falsely claimed that Mitchell "expressed glee when he heard that Apollo Legend had committed suicide" and that he knew it was false, you might be able to successfully sue in the US, as well, for the reputational damage.
- bryan0 2y agoJudge agreed that Mitchell had expressed joy. > Barlow found Mitchell did have an existing reputation as a cheat and for suing people who alleged he was a cheat, and found that Mitchell had expressed joy when he believed – incorrectly – on an earlier occasion that Apollo Legend may have died.
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago"Barlow found Mitchell did have an existing reputation as a cheat and for suing people who alleged he was a cheat, and found that Mitchell had expressed joy when he believed – incorrectly – on an earlier occasion that Apollo Legend may have died. But Barlow found Jobst had severely damaged Mitchell’s reputation and caused distress." Honestly, this judgment makes no sense to me. Mitchell was an absolute joke before Jobst's video and is still an absolute joke today. There is no way Jobst "further damaged" Mitchell's reputation.
- alt227 2y agoHe was known as a dick and a cheat before, Jobst went a step too far and inferred that he was responsible for somebodies death. That is a lot worse reputation than a cheater at video games and a serial lier.
- schlauerfox 2y agoI met Billy Mitchell briefly in 2015 at the now defunct Museum of Pinball in Banning, CA. He was promoting the world record for most people playing pinball simultaneously we participated in. I asked him about his depiction in the documentary and he replied something like "it's all true" with a lot of smirk and theatrical swagger. I got the impression he was a ruthless self promoter in all things he does, with his sauce business and his public ego and all the theater around the videogame records and most of what he was doing was all kayfabe as a heel, to use a wrestling term. Later he handed off a high level game of Ms. Pacman he was playing to me in good fun. He really is very good at the games. (I didn't last long). People are complicated.
- TehCorwiz 2y agoI'm half inclined to believe that all the controversy is part of the persona and the self-promotion. Andy Kaufman demonstrated it pretty well, the world love to hate a bully and they'll pay for the privilege.
- arresin 2y agoI’m glad I scrolled to see this. Really appreciate the insight thanks.
- frenchtoast8 2y agoFrom what I understand, the judge ruled that it wasn't defamation for Jobst to call Mitchell a cheater but saying he drove Apollo Legend to suicide was too far considering he didn't have a lot of reason to believe this: it was mostly based on online rumors about an apparent out of court financial settlement between Apollo and Mitchell which never existed. What probably drove the nail in the coffin is that Jobst did edit the video later to remove the claim, but after Mitchell sent legal action, he republished the original video. This might have felt vindictive to the judge. Now, Jobst did eventually ask Apollo's family for the facts, remove the claim and publish a retraction about a month later, but perhaps the judge thought this was too little too late. I don't agree that Mitchell's reputation was harmed as he brought attention to the video multiple times, but it's hard to argue against the facts: Jobst said something he wasn't sure was true, and when he learned it was false he kept it up anyway. Edit: fixed timeline, which is documented here: https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/20/karl-day-4/ https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/20/karl-day-4/
- Suppafly 2y ago>I don't agree that Mitchell's reputation was harmed Agreed, but only because his reputation is so bad, that pretty much any slander wouldn't make it worse.
- alt227 2y agoAs I said in my post below, Jobst went a step too far and inferred that he was responsible for somebodies death. That is a lot worse reputation than a cheater at video games and a serial lier.
- Suppafly 2y agoYeah, I haven't been following the specifics so much, but you can't just call someone a murderer over and over and expect to not get sued. I am still sorta surprised that Billy won though considering that he's essentially a public figure and has an already negative reputation. I suppose calling someone a murderer is a step too far though. Australian laws are probably a little different than America's too.
- gagabity 2y agoHis records have all been reinstated both by Twin Galaxies and Guinness Worls Records for whatever that's worth.
- endemic 2y agoNot much
- alt227 2y agoTwin Galaxis purposely created a seperate 'legacy' leader board to put his scores on, so that they were able to give him back his scores as part of a settlement without actually reinstating his score on to the proper leaderboards.
- mrandish 2y ago> for whatever that's worth. Very little because it's clear Mitchell aggressively sued and/or threatened to sue both Twin Galaxies and Guinness to an egregious extent and the reinstatements were minimal, reluctant and only done to finally get him to stop the constant legal harassment. Frame by frame analysis by multiple independent experts of the videotape of Mitchell's Donkey Kong record clearly shows he cheated. I don't think anyone (who isn't Mitchell, his lawyers or few friends) has any doubt Mitchell cheated and has repeatedly lied about it.
- mattas 2y agoA point of clarification: the defamation case wasn't about Karl Jobst accusing Billy Mitchell of cheating. It was about Jobst claiming that Mitchell was responsible for Apollo Legend's suicide.
- red-iron-pine 2y agowow everyone in this story sounds like a piece of shit
- bArray 2y agoUnfortunately it is not an April Fool's joke, but it should be. > Donkey Kong champion wins defamation case against Australian YouTuber Karl Jobst The title sounds as if he is still recognised as a Donkey Kong Champion, where clearly in the first sentence: > A professional YouTuber in Queensland has been ordered to pay $350,000 plus interest and costs to the former world record score holder for Donkey Kong, after the Brisbane district court found the YouTuber had defamed him “recklessly” with false claims of a link between a lawsuit and another YouTuber’s suicide. They describe him as a former world record score holder, but don't go as far as to state that it was revoked based on allegations of him cheating. I don't think that Karl did $350k+ worth of damages to Billy, to be honest I wasn't really aware of the suicide allegation anyway.
- alt227 2y ago> it was revoked based on allegations of him cheating Twin galaxies settled out of courst and reinstated his scores, albeit on a newly created 'legacy record database' instead of the actual leaderboards. So officially he was a world record holder at some time in the past, although everybody and their dog knows he cheated.
- kgwxd 2y agoIt’s disgusting how much the justice system rewards terrible people. Another conman gets his pay day, and I’m sure the judge got one too.
- 0dayz 2y agoSorry but in this case it was Jobst fuck up of either not having the evidence of the allegation or him incriminating himself with how he acted.
- tourmalinetaco 2y agoIt’s conman vs conman, Karl is a liar who tried to profit off of a suicide. Ironically, as bad of a person Billy is, Karl is actually far worse, given both his pickup artist past and this lawsuit.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]