[HN Gopher] Donkey Kong champion wins defamation case against Au...
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Donkey Kong champion wins defamation case against Australian
YouTuber Karl Jobst
Author : throw7
Score : 79 points
Date : 2025-04-01 14:27 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| ShrimpHawk wrote:
| Billy Mitchell wins more in court than video games. Maybe he
| should have picked a different career growing up.
| robocat wrote:
| Or 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 wrote:
| How does he finance all these lawsuits?
| jhbadger wrote:
| His hot sauce sales? (as shown in _The King of Kong_ )
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Per 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)
| sowbug wrote:
| The 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
| mwidell wrote:
| This is one of the greatest documentaries I have ever seen. The
| story is so intriguing, interesting and entertaining. Highly
| recommend.
| alt227 wrote:
| Make 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 wrote:
| There's another with the same vibe for Tetris. I believe it's
| called fistful of quarters. Not nearly as good, but great
| soundtrack.
| jmarcher wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Order:_The_Tetris_
| M... ?
| jxjnskkzxxhx wrote:
| That's the one I meant, great soundtrack. So I'm
| confusing names with something else.
| pathartl wrote:
| Fistful of quarters was the subtitle of King of Kong
| mega_dean wrote:
| The youtube channel Summoning Salt made a great video that
| covers the history of Tetris world records:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOJlg8g8_yw
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Highly recommend Summoning Salt in general. I never
| thought I'd find video game speed runs, records, etc,
| interesting, but his videos end up being very
| entertaining. His pacing, tone, and the way he works in
| music are very effective.
| BeetleB wrote:
| It's actually the example I give on why one should _not_
| watch documentaries. It 's extremely misleading (without
| actually lying):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24944741
|
| (I mean yes, Billy is a jerk for sure, but the documentary
| was way out of line).
| acomjean wrote:
| They did show Mitchell delivering a frogger(?) arcade
| machine so a senior could practice for a tournament, which
| was nice. I think it was an extra in the dvd.
|
| Billy to my mind is a bit annoying but he's a mild
| "villain" in the documentary. I mean it's video game high
| scores and very compulsive people..
|
| I should watch it again.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| You should definitely watch documentaries, as long as you
| first watch Orson Welles's masterpiece F for Fake as a pre-
| req. That or Abbas Kiarostami's Close Up. Then you are free
| to watch as many documentaries as you please.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| it needs a sequel to cover the last 7 years.
| sowbug wrote:
| 18
| ryandrake wrote:
| A 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 wrote:
| You 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 wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| > You gotta have "it"
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if the "it" part can be generated by
| some llm.
| ge96 wrote:
| My opinion AI generated stuff has some tells
|
| But there are successful channels like Neural Viz though I
| think that still takes script writing
| tmtvl wrote:
| For 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.
| moregrist wrote:
| You're spot on about the chances in a hit-based industry.
|
| That said, Jeff Vogel has spoken at length [0] about how he's
| stayed in business for 30-ish years with a middle class
| lifestyle. Including the lean times.
|
| I think it's pretty inspirational that there's a way to make
| game development work if your primary goal isn't getting
| rich, but to have a comfortable life and enjoy what you do.
|
| [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs
| amelius wrote:
| The main reason is probably that you're totally OK with what
| you make.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >Why the hell did I get two degrees and grind actual employment
| making actual things for 25 years?
|
| Likely because you didn't dedicate yourself to learning video
| production and weren't good enough at playing video games to
| sell yourself as some sort of professional video game promoter.
| I'm not sure why you think either of these guys work any less
| hard than you do.
| nadermx wrote:
| Because perhaps you chose the "safer" route of trying to get a
| job instead of choosing the more risky route of any sort of
| building something(s) and selling it, be it a product, skill or
| yourself.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Work in AI, you will finally be paid more
| globular-toast wrote:
| Presumably because your parents didn't own a restaurant
| business.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Odd 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 wrote:
| He 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 wrote:
| In 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| This 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 wrote:
| Libel 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 wrote:
| Judge 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 wrote:
| _" 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 wrote:
| He 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| I'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.
| Suppafly wrote:
| >There is no way Jobst "further damaged" Mitchell's reputation.
|
| There should be a legal class of people where it's acknowledged
| that nothing you say about them damages their reputation any
| worse than it already is.
| frenchtoast8 wrote:
| From 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/
| Suppafly wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| As 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 wrote:
| Yeah, 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.
| ndiddy wrote:
| AFAIK the entire lawsuit was about Jobst falsely accusing
| Mitchell of driving Apollo Legend to suicide and then not
| properly retracting it (Jobst buried the retraction at the end
| of an unrelated 30 minute video). The reason why Mitchell's
| cheating was brought up in the trial was that Jobst's side were
| attempting to say that all reputational harm Mitchell suffered
| during that period was caused by cheating accusations, not
| Jobst's suicide accusations (as if being accused of cheating at
| Donkey Kong is equivalent to being accused of driving someone
| to suicide). Mitchell was able to prove this was false by
| producing emails from events that specifically said that they
| weren't hiring him due to Jobst's suicide accusations.
|
| Additionally, Jobst kept making videos berating Mitchell during
| the course of the trial, which seems to have pissed off the
| judge. From the decision: "Mr Jobst's attitude seems to me to
| have been one of, "Well, if I'm going to be sued, I may as well
| go for broke and damn the consequences." Far from being
| evidence of his bona fides, I consider his conduct to be
| reckless and to show no regard for the truth or for the effect
| of his video on Mr Mitchell and his reputation."
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > Jobst's side were attempting to say that all reputational
| harm Mitchell suffered during that period was caused by
| cheating accusations
|
| The cheating and the other lies and the rampant lawsuits. I
| agree with that causing almost all the damage. I hadn't even
| heard of the particular badly substantiated piece among the
| real stuff.
|
| > (as if being accused of cheating at Donkey Kong is
| equivalent to being accused of driving someone to suicide)
|
| ...no, not as if that. That is not part of the argument.
| ndiddy wrote:
| I recommend you read the decision if you're interested in
| this subject: https://www.queenslandjudgments.com.au/casela
| w/qdc/2025/41/p...
|
| > Mr Mitchell said that John Weeks was the organiser of an
| auction of the world's largest collection of pinball and
| arcade gaming machines. Mr Mitchell had an agreement with
| him to host the auction for a fee of $50,000. After the
| publication of the video, Mr Weeks cancelled the agreement,
| apparently because of the negativity surrounding Mr
| Mitchell as a result of the video. Mr Mitchell later
| received an email from Mr Weeks confirming that
| cancellation, in which he said:
|
| > "As per our previous conversation, I apologize for our
| decision to withdraw our agreement with you to host you at
| our auction due to the allegations from Karl Jobst that you
| played a significant role in Apollo Legend's decision to
| take his own life. We made the decision strictly for
| business reasons and I do not feel personal discontent with
| you, but the negativity brought by the claims presented too
| large a risk to us strictly from a business perspective."
|
| > Mr Mitchell recalled that another person, Ryan Burger,
| who had booked him for three separate events, cancelled all
| three and has not since booked him to appear at any events.
| Mr Burger also sent him an email cancelling the third
| event, saying:
|
| > "Due to the toxicity and negativity brought by Karl
| Jobst's claim that you played a role in Apollo Legend's
| decision to take his own life, Old School Gamer Magazine
| feels compelled to withdraw its $5,000 per weekend paid
| appearance offer also for the Midwest Gaming Classic. I had
| hoped that this would have faded by now so we didn't have
| to cancel this event similar to Des Moines Gaming Classic
| and Planet Comicon appearances that we had withdrawn
| earlier this summer, but I think it's best that we allow
| some time to pass given the current climate."
|
| > Whether or not the reasons given in those emails were
| true, the withdrawal of the offers demonstrated a harmful
| effect of the video on Mr Mitchell's reputation and the
| receipt of the emails affected Mr Mitchell's personal
| reactions to the video.
|
| Jobst's team argued that the suicide accusation didn't
| cause any damage because Mitchell's already poor reputation
| and the other claims he made in the video meant that it
| couldn't be harmed further. The judge pointed out in his
| decision that the cheating allegations and the suicide
| allegations impacted different "sectors" of Mitchell's
| reputation and that "In seeking to prove that the plaintiff
| already had a bad reputation (whether as a defence to an
| allegation of harm to reputation or because of
| substantially true contextual imputations), the allegedly
| bad reputation must be relevant to that "sector" of the
| plaintiff's reputation that is, or may be, harmed by the
| imputations proved by the plaintiff." You're right that
| Jobst's team didn't literally argue that cheating at Donkey
| Kong is equivalent to being accused of driving someone to
| suicide.
| lesuorac wrote:
| My main concern would be these seem to be fabricated
| claims.
|
| Mr Mitchell still was invited to the auction and attended
| it [1].
|
| Ryan Burger seems to have never invited Mitchel to any
| events at all [2] prior to the video and yet shortly
| before the video was posted he invited him 3 times and
| canceled all of them?
|
| These guys seem to be people that Mitchell has been
| friends with for very long times so it seems more
| reasonable to me they'd help him out with an email or two
| when it's literally at no cost to them. Where's an email
| from some Stock Brokers convention reneging on an
| appearance deal or a merchandise supplier asking him to
| find a new supplier?
|
| That said, IIUC Australian is not as loose as the US is
| when making verbal claims about other people so claiming
| "Billy caused Apollo to kill himself" is a much weaker
| claim to make then "Billy is happy Apollo killed
| himself".
|
| [1]:
| https://www.desertsun.com/story/life/2021/09/24/museum-
| pinba...
|
| [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=Ryan+Burger+Billy+Mi
| tchell
| kodt wrote:
| Interesting that Mitchell won his case against Twin Galaxies.
| It sounded like the expert testimony supporting his claim that
| the video defects could occur from a "malfunctioning cabinet"
| was not believed by anyone knowledgeable in the Donkey Kong/and
| MAME community but seemingly was believed by the judge?
| alt227 wrote:
| He didnt win, they settled out of court.
|
| https://www.ign.com/articles/billy-mitchells-donkey-kong-
| rec...
|
| By all accounts it would have been a very interesting trial
| had it actually gone ahead.
| noboostforyou wrote:
| > and when he learned it was false he kept it up anyway.
|
| That fact alone loses him this case. Re-uploading a video you
| yourself had edited/removed makes it all but impossible to
| claim you didn't know.
| gagabity wrote:
| His records have all been reinstated both by Twin Galaxies and
| Guinness Worls Records for whatever that's worth.
| endemic wrote:
| Not much
| alt227 wrote:
| Twin 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| A 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 wrote:
| wow everyone in this story sounds like a piece of shit
| bArray wrote:
| Unfortunately 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 wrote:
| > 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.
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