Of course I’m not a legal expert but it seems like Twin Galaxies screwed the pooch wanting to prove that Billy was a cheat and a liar rather than just sticking to particulars of the case that was that Billy’s verification for his records did not meet the new ownerships’ standards for verification.
The record in question has video submitted by Billy. The tape shows that the game was recorded on MAME but that MAME is not allowed on that leaderboard. The evidence was a slam dunk in their favor.
Instead of just sticking to that, TG got emotional and claimed further impropriety between Billy and the former owner of TG, and between Billy and others. So much so that their lawyer compromised himself by spoiling the evidence and tampering with witnesses. All they needed to do is defend themselves and let Billy take himself down but instead they tried to bury Billy and ended up burying themselves instead.
I mean they settled, but hes still banned and they didnt reinstate his scores and TG didnt have to keep blowing money on lawyers.
TG blew it in that they got a less than optimal outcome than they could have (blew a bunch of money on lawyers, had to “archive” Billy’s scores) and Billy got a way better outcome than he deserved (gets to spin the archival as vindication, gets to continue to bully people with lawsuits)
It had been better for gaming history had they been able to win the lawsuit and put an end to Billy’s false claims.
Either way, though, it seems people still see him as a cheater, even if the lawsuit didnt prove him so.
Jesus, how much of a no-lifer do you have to be to sue over your runs getting turned down for not having sufficient proof of legitimacy
A big one. Billy is a dickhead.
Sucks. I wanted billy in jail for purjury and fraud. I wonder what this’ll mean for Karl’s trial
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“A ton of cases end up settling prior to trial, just to avoid the expense and for all the parties to get finality and certainty on their own terms,” Tashroudian told Ars.
“There were going to be an inordinate amount of costs involved, and both parties were facing a lot of uncertainty at trial, and they wanted to get the matter settled on their own terms without putting it to a jury.”
Tashroudian said that Twin Galaxies “had all of our ducks in a row” for an anticipated trial date, and that they were “very confident” in the facts they had laid out in filings during the discovery process.
As part of that apparent compromise, Mitchell was able to post a statement saying that “Twin Galaxies has reinstated all of the videogame world records that I achieved in my career.”
That section predates “modern adjudication protocols,” Twin Galaxies writes on the site, and is being provided “as a matter of archival integrity” to reflect “records under previous administrative standards.”
The “live modern version” of Twin Galaxies’ database still does not include Mitchell’s submissions as part of its Donkey Kong high scores list.
The original article contains 505 words, the summary contains 192 words. Saved 62%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
