In April I wrote a post on the outcome of a lawsuit brought by Billy Mitchell against Karl Jobst, a resident of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. In this I gave some background to Billy Mitchell including the 2007 documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters which brought him wider public attention. As stated in the post, he is undoubtedly a pioneer of competitive gaming and was particularly skilled at the arcade classics Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. This captured my interest for a number of reasons, not least because the case took place in the city where I reside and I was familiar with both personalities involved before it began.
This led me (and I’m sure many), to re-watching the documentary which is the third time I believe I’ve sat down to watch it. This is relatively rare as far as documentaries go as it is not generally a genre that invites repeat viewings. On this re-watching, I found myself focusing more on the methods used to position Billy Mitchell as the antagonist. As mentioned in the previous video, I believe he consciously played up to this to some extent but the film also clearly positions him as such. If like most people, you were watching this as an entertaining window into the little world of competitive arcade gaming than you will more or less forget the details of afterwards, it would be fine but Mitchell being positioned as an antagonist had far reaching effects as the defamation lawsuit against Jobst certainly shows.