Open up that 40 oz. of Bawls and pour one out for Walter Day, who just this past week announced his intentions to retire as head of the gaming world's official scorekeepers, Twin Galaxies. In an interview conducted by TG's Josh Houslander, the regularly pinstripe-clad referee and musician took the time to not only spell out his future plans (he's focusing on his music), but also detail the upcoming inauguration of the International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum in Ottumwa, Iowa (a town in Iowa that's vying for the title you see above).
"I like to dream big and shoot for the stars, and that's what I'm doing now," Day says in the lengthy video interview (found in full after the break). He says that he'll be on hand for the inaugural ceremonies on August 5 - 8, but in the future, Day will be little more than an attendee at various Twin Galaxies events. Everyone here at Joystiq would like to wish Day the best in his future endeavors.
Of course I am basing hate for Walter Day on the movie. That's the only place I've seen him from, and they only showed the bad. What good has he done for the "arcade scene"? Set up a database for world record high scores and...
... what else? What else has he done for gaming? What a useless job it is to be a referee for high score runs in games. Stand there watching people play games and telling them they won or lost. Stuff people can do themselves. Some referee. A false sense of entitlement, if you ask me.
The classic arcade high score scene was alive and well long before King of Kong painted Billy Mitchell in a bad light. Both Walter Day and Mitchell were important parts of standardizing and recording noteworthy accomplishments of gaming skill. I'd like to point out that while Mitchell is regularly subjected to disparaging words here in Joystiq comments, he put his own money up as rewards, and not insignificant amounts, several years ago in cooperation with Twin Galaxies for anyone who could set new world records in certain classic arcade games (and one of those was even "beat George Costanza's high score in Frogger," which was finally done recently--way too late for the prize money). Not only that, but he loaned his own Q*Bert machine to Doris Self to help her in her efforts to regain her former crown as "world's oldest video game world record holder." He's more than just "the evil jerk in King of Kong," and it really ticks me off that so many video game fans only think of him as that.
As for Walter Day, I wish him the best in his future plans. His contribution to the video game world will be remembered, maybe not in the same manner as Ralph Baer's, but certainly in the record books.
I wish video game competition was more popular and widespread. In my San Francisco area, there's nowhere to go to compete with other gamers on a regular basis. I hear there's a fighting game tournament down in San Jose, but that's about it.
Yeah I'm not sure why people are referring to the "evil" guy in King of Kong...he was always good, and I assume they're confusing him for someone else. Even if you thought he was a bad guy (for some reason) by the end of the movie you see he does the right thing.
On that note, Walter Day was awesome in Kong of Kong, and we could all tell his character and personality. Both my grandfathers are great, but if I were to have a third I'd choose him.
The way the movie is shot, it looks a hell of a lot like Walter was completely biased against Steve Wiebe, and like he was firmly in the Billy Mitchell fan club. If I'm remembering correctly, Steve Wiebe sent in a tape of him beating the record, and then Walter wouldn't accept it, instead saying that any broken records would need to be in front of a live audience, on a machine owned and operated by him (and thus checked for legitimacy) while he was looking on and making sure that no cheating was occurring. Later in the movie, Billy sent in a tape of himself beating Steve's high score, and it was accepted by Walter with no questions asked.
You can do a lot to make someone look like a douche in post, and it really all could have just been the filmmakers manipulating the course of events, but the movie certainly didn't make Walter Day look very good.
(If I've borked the timeline of events in the movie, it's because I haven't seen it since it premiered)
Issue #5 on that site leaves me with a weird impression of Walter. He's in touch with two dudes that say they want to go up to Steve's house and check the validity of his Donkey Kong machine. Instead of telling them...you know...that they shouldn't do it because it's extremely odd, he gives them instructions on what to look for when testing the machine. A
Maybe it's because BF:BC2 has been giving me connection issues all day, or maybe it's because I'm bored, but it is hard to read through those forum posts without coming away suspicious. There are e-mails copied and pasted from one party to the next in some of them, but never any confirmation by any party but Walter that they are legitimate e-mails. There also seems to be an explanation for everything, even things so minor that there isn't really any reason to explain them at all.
I'll say this though; Going by what he's written, the tape thing really is a non-issue. He takes all of the blame for it, and states that Steve Wiebe was the record holder for years after that event, which wasn't shown in the documentary and should have been. It's also news to me that Steve Wiebe had been a former record holder, and not just some guy that wanted to break the record. They really played up the David versus Goliath angle, which is apparently bull.
I haven't read Issue #5, but I thought this sentence from Issue #2 was pretty significant: "Interestingly, audiences watching the \"King of Kong\" are unaware that Steve Wiebe is already, at that time, the World Champion on Donkey Kong and remains so throughout the first 4/5ths of the movie, a fact that the movie plot doesn't reveal." Specifically, "[t]he events portrayed in the \"King of Kong\" movie generally took place between June 30, 2003 and April 9, 2006. During that time period Steve Wiebe was Twin Galaxies' official Donkey Kong World Champion from June 30, 2003 until January 30, 2006 - a period of 943 days."
That's what I was referencing. The documentary really only worked because Steve Wiebe was portrayed as the common man, trying to excel at something because the world had sort of collapsed around him. Documentaries are notorious for skewing facts to help fit a narrative, and that seems to have happened in this case to some extent.
Billy notwithstanding (he impugned his own character in the movie by acting the way he did), Walter could just be collateral damage from a documentary that needed clear cut villains in order to sell its hero. Walter makes mistakes throughout the multiple years depicted in the documentary (I didn't realize it took place over such a long period) but then again, who doesn't. His only fault may have been favoritism toward Billy (which makes sense according to his Wikipedia page; He's known Billy for decades) but he made that mistake at a time (likely the only time ever) when attention was focused on him due to the documentary.
Also, while I very much enjoyed King of Kong (got the poster on the wall behind me as I type) there's no doubt that the filmmakers presented an extremely one-sided view of events, as can be discovered with even a tiny bit of Google research. Everyone that's ever met Walter Day gives a much more positive account of him and that's the image I'm inclined to believe in.
Going to persue his music career? Lots of luck - if the rest of his stuff is anything like what we saw in the King of Kong, he's got an impossible journey ahead of him. That stuff was flat-out awful.
After watching the video, i came away with a different impression. It made me feel sad just how empty the lives of some of the people showcased in the movie really were. They had nothing going on in their lives except reliving something from their past.
Two examples I can come up with was that one guy that collects exotic and poisonous (correct me if I'm wrong) creatures. The other guy was the nerdy dude who said he learned everything from Mitchell and that only he can pull off some certain move, but when it came time for him to show off he couldn't muster any proof.
I don't think the bag to his left is weed. Looks more like dried basil. Also, best wishes to Walter. He really wasn't too bad in the King of Kong and he made up for his misdoings afterwards. Seems like a sincere kind of guy.
Good time to get out. Games aren't too big on keeping score like they used to. Given the whole scene is driven around aging games, the overall relevance will decline as more and more gamers become unaware of that Frogger and Donkey Kong is.
"Games aren't too big on keeping score like they used to."
Achievements, Trophies, and Online Leaderboards beg to differ. Keeping score is perhaps bigger than it ever was, for better or for worse. Of course, for the most part, keeping score has been supplanted in most modern games by keeping and comparing rigorous stats as well - but it's still all about doing something the most, doing something the best, or doing something first.
Mr. Awesome (Roy Shildt) is going to need to know who the new head of TG is so he can bitch about Billy Mitchell stealing his Missile Command score now.
I say give Walter a break, I met him in 2001 when I won a competition in Vegas at CGE (Classic Gaming Expo) and he is a nice guy. He made a mistake in King of Kong that he apologized for and did what he could to rectify so I don't see why anyone should dislike him. I fully approve of all the Billy Mitchell hate however as I think his actions in the movie speak for themselves.
Whilst I quite agree that "King of Kong" did paint Billy Mitchell in a bad light, and maybe he's not the kind of guy most people would want to go out for a beer with, the fact remains that you rarely get anyone that focused and motivated without being more than a little bit of an arse, to be brutally frank. It's the nature of the beast - Diego Maradona, Michael Schumacher, to give a couple of slightly poor analogies.
But, the ignorance regarding Walter Day is silly - if you truly don't know what he's done, then Google! But, if the comment was cynical and rhetoric in nature, then that's just shameful.
Whilst it's common knowledge that video games high scores were kept long before Walter Day had the idea, he was the guy who thought it'd be a good idea to collate it all - a mammoth task (remembering of course, no internet via which to gather that data in the first instance). Alright, maybe the whole thing might seem incredibly anal, but whatever floats your boat. Fact is, he did it, he did it first, and he did it well.
What can be excused, I guess, is that most posters wouldn't remember what the society was like back then (I don't intend to be derogatory - just stating a fact). I'm sure quite a few of the adults amongst us have admitted to someone at some time that they playing video games, to be met with laughter, scoffing, or various forms of detracting remarks; basically, that was a whole lot worse back then. Certainly, I remember some places being so bad as to being "found out" that you went to an arcade to play video games was tantamount to admitting to heroin addiction. Maybe I exaggerate, but I'm sure you get the point. Anyway, Walter Day was more than a little instrumental into promoting video games, and in fact got the Twin Galaxies programme on your TVs (not mine, because I'm in England and it was much worse for us - we don't even have video games programmes now).
I won't go into any more detail, but needless to say he had/has a belief and he stuck to it, promoted it, and furthermore, helped others. That's surely no bad thing?
Let's face it, in today's age when f***wits such as Paris Hilton, Lady Gaga and talentless "celebrity" are given such adulation, I can think of a much, much worse example of humanity to respect.
So, please, unless you've done something remarkably shining for humanity yourselves, I hardly think it prudent to be so rude about somebody deserving of respect.
