The King of Kong - Disputed Facts

Disputed Facts

Both Walter Day of Twin Galaxies and director Seth Gordon claim that there are inaccuracies in the film. Day believes that the documentary is dishonest in its portrayal of the actual events. In posts on a Twin Galaxies forum entitled "The King of Kong — Official Statement" he contends, among other things, that:

• In 2000, Tim Sczerby claimed to have reached a high score of 879,200 points. Steve Wiebe beat both this score and Billy Mitchell's 1982 score. (In response, the film's producers claim that "Tim Sczerby's consistently disputed record was impossible to verify and did not merit inclusion in the film.")
• Steve Wiebe actually held the high score record for almost 3 years, and when his videotaped score of 1,006,600 points was rejected, the record actually reverted to Wiebe's own previous record reached in 2003 — it did not revert to Billy Mitchell's 1982 score as implied by the film. However, there is evidence that Wiebe's 2003 score was reclassified to a different category months after its submission, leaving the earlier record in place.
• Mitchell's videotaped record sent to the Funspot event was actually discarded after the event, and Walter Day apologized "for the mistake of approving this videotape without the benefit of a complete verification process." The score was reverted to Wiebe's score achieved at Funspot.
• Gordon has claimed to have painted Billy Mitchell as a more light-hearted character than his real life persona concerning the movie. Gordon also claims that Billy Mitchell is "so much worse than we painted him out to be," but he chose to only include scenes that were necessary to tell the story, because the movie would have been "darker" had he not played with the facts.