Howdy, folks! ersatz_cats here. Several weeks ago, I was contacted out of the blue by the man behind YouTube channel Veritas Games. He was finalizing work on a massive documentary covering the evidence against Billy Mitchell. Of course, at the time, I had no idea how massive this documentary would be. An hour? Maybe two? Anyway, Veritas was inquiring whether I would be comfortable being publicly credited and thanked for my contributions to the research into Billy’s cheated Donkey Kong scores. (To be clear, while I have made some original contributions, there are many others also behind the overall body of research; I just happen to be the person publicly compiling and summarizing that work.) Of course, given the litigious leanings of Mr. Cheater, this was a good precaution, and one I also try to take before shining a spotlight on others who may not want that kind of attention. I thanked Veritas for his work, and told him, yeah, I’m pretty much already publicly on the hook as far as this project goes, lol.
Anyway, what I expected to be between one and two hours reviewing much of the already known points of discussion and pieces of evidence turned out to be nearly four hours of some of the most amazing work I have ever seen. This was an astonishing level of detail and thoroughness – and remember, that’s coming from me, and while I try to stay humble, I’d like to think I’m no slouch when it comes to diligence. Veritas found media I had somehow never seen, and discussed new investigative approaches which had been overlooked by so many others. My personal favorite was the way Veritas used an old viewing of a Steve Wiebe tape as a baseline to evaluate Team Billy’s speculative claim that various video compression and conversion processes could possibly affect the basic arcade and MAME signatures at issue. (Spoiler: They don’t.)
But it’s more than just the work and diligence itself. The video is fun, funny, and informative to watch, all the way from start to finish. And I’m not the only one who was impressed:
The whole video is such a treat. And of course, on a personal level, having invested so much time and effort into this project, it’s very gratifying to see a total stranger, who has no material interest other than a loyalty to the truth, come along and affirm that work. Bravo, Veritas! Thank you!!
And if you do appreciate quality content like this, please follow this link to Veritas’ Patreon, and help him make more amazing content like this in the future:
As someone who follow the dispute thread. I am Impressed as well with his works superb.
The only mistake I can think just during carlos realizing the truth, when he put the dispute thread screen shot jace hall receiving box of VHS and buying those 6 grands player… he put carlos story of richie knucklez copy , while the VHS on screen shot come from dywane, but it’s minor nitpick from me since richie also gave copy of the gameplays
It was a fantastic explanation of the MAME transitions for those of us who don’t know the back of a DK machine! I can’t wait to see how Team Billy’s “expert for hire” debunks it!
I am a college educator who teaches research skills to incoming students. I always tip my hat and raise my glass to those who love the truth and fight the lies that are so prevalent in our society…and at all levels. This individuals behind this new video and all of the work posted on this blog are fighting the good fight, shining examples to students.
Wow, this video was amazing. “Veritas” is obviously very skilled at presenting information in the video/audio format. Great way to bring the data to a larger and more general audience. I agree with K.J. that this is the best video on B.M. that I’ve ever seen. All the data is there and in an easily digestible form. Another thing to mention is that it’s obvious that a great deal of the info was pulled directly from ersatz_cats’ research so everyone who is enjoying and/or learning from this video owes a debt of gratitude to Walter for his many hours of painstaking research and assembly of the material. Great job ersatz_cats! And great collaboration. I appreciate you. Maybe another collaboration like this in the future related to the court stuff … who knows. I know I’d be willing to give a little patreon $$$ for that.
Thank you for the kind words! I do want to be clear though, while I’ve definitely done a lot of work and research into this case, most of that work has involved compiling and sourcing work of others. In other words, the evidence doesn’t belong to me. I’m just another person who came along later and built on what others before me had investigated. It was folks like Jeremy Young who took the real risk in publishing the initial MAME evidence in the first place. Veritas’ work was amazing, with a ton of his own original research that had nothing to do with me. I don’t want people to feel as though they can’t write or do videos about Billy and the evidence simply because I have also written about him previously.
Thats brilliant, easily explained to anyone
with videos like this it should be harder for silly game articles appearing with outdated wrong information but it seems to be never ending
Whos betting this video gets a strike at some point?
I felt bad laughing at Dwayne’s amateurish editing skills since we all have to start somewhere, but it was a hilarious way to further cement how he couldn’t have edited the tapes. There _is_ a kink I found with MAME that he didn’t cover, but I won’t bring it up until the lawsuit’s over.
Between this, your stuff, and Karl’s, I can’t see how anyone with any personal integrity or intelligence could support Mitchell.
Although Mitchell is the worst offender in this decades-long debacle, let us not forget his fellow travelers – people like Walter Day, Todd Rogers, Steve Sanders, Isiah Johnson, etc. They may not be Galactus-level scumbags like Mitchell is, but they’re dirty in all of this too. It especially chaps me when people try to portray Walter Day as a confused old man that just got swept away in all this – BULLSHIT.
He’s been in on all this since the beginning, same as Mitchell. He’s made money off of all this throughout the years too – patronization of his business, selling trading cards, appearance fees and all that, all the while getting to be the center of attention in his stupid referee shirt.
There also used to be a connection to these conmen with the Old School Gamer magazine. Dan Loosen, who owns the GOAT store and is also the organizer of the Midwest Gaming Classic used to be involved with that, can anyone confirm if he still is? I recall being amused at his reaction to his store’s flyers being in a Todd Rogers video when all that was blowing up – you were doing business with those conmen, dude…at least at that time you were.
Look up Steve Sanders’s law practice sometime. He’s the very definition of ambulance-chasing sleaze.
I’m just a regular old dude who likes games and was always intrigued by this story. And wow did this 4 hour doc knock this whole thing out of the park. Retro games, check. Courtroom drama, check. Billy’s dumbass hair, check. There’s nothing more satisfying than watching a professional manipulator get dunked on so hard. This guy should’ve charged for this movie. Thanks
This is exactly what we needed. A comprehensive look at the whole issue from an outside perspective. Even though Veritas certainly comes across as against Billy Mitchell through the tone of the piece, that’s very hard to not do when you actually sit down and look at the evidence and arguments being made. I suppose this could be mistaken as “bias”, but is it really bias?
I still think Veritas looked at the whole case objectively and professionally before coming to his conclusion.
It was great to be able to share this with some friends who vaguely heard about the scandal but never really had any context to make sense of what was going on. I think anyone who listens to this 4 hour documentary, regardless of their level of experience in the concept of arcade high scores, will be able to understand what is going on at least at a fundamental level.
That video is how I found your stuff, 3 weeks ago I didn’t know who Billy Mitchell was and now I have watched unbelievable amount of documentaries and excellent videos about the biggest cheater of the century.
Thank you! Honestly, you jumped in at a great time. Many of us have been waiting literal years for this cheater’s case to go to trial. You should only have to wait a few months.