There’s New Drama in the Saga of ‘The King of Kong’

To me, there’s one clear and undisputed best video game movie ever: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a documentary about the battle between two gamers over the title of the best Donkey Kong player in the world. The film’s two protagonists, humble Steve Wiebe and hot sauce maven Billy Mitchell, trade the world record back and forth in an intense and surprisingly compelling struggle. The movie was released in 2007, but the saga of the Donkey Kong world record has continued, with several other people holding the record in the decade since the movie came out.

Now there’s another movie-worthy twist in the King of Kong story, via Kotaku. One of Mitchell’s post-King of Kong world records is now in dispute because, some allege, he achieved his high score on an emulator instead of an actual Donkey Kong arcade cabinet, which is a big no-no:

Video for Mitchell’s scores were directly captured from the game’s screen and do not show him playing on a cabinet. Twin Galaxies submissions require players to show video proof that they were playing the game at the time. At the time of Mitchell’s score, a referee also needed to be present to validate the scores. The referee for Mitchell’s 2010 scores was infamous Atari score-setter Todd Rogers who has been in the middle of a score dispute of his own. Last week, following a case built against his alleged score in the Atari 2600 game Dragster, Twin Galaxies concluded the score was “impossible” and removed all of Rogers scores from their records, banning him from further participation. When asked by Kotaku to discuss witnessing Mitchell’s record, Rogers did not reply.

You can read the entire sordid tale at Kotaku, but basically: Twin Galaxies, one of the governing bodies of these world records (and the one featured extensively in King of Kong), has now removed Mitchell’s record-breaking scores from their site because of this possible impropriety.

Look, I recognize we live in a world with too many sequels but c’mon: We need another King of Kong to catch us up on all of this crazy drama. There’s even an obvious title: The King of Kong Jr. Let’s go.