Christian, if you don't see a sound reason for excluding high MAME scores from the list, remember that there doesn't have to be a sound reason. I think that's the point that you and some others are missing. It's Richie's personal, aesthetic preference. He wants the 12 guys at the top of the arcade scoreboard. That's his right, regardless of how "sound" it is or isn't.
Aside from the personal reasons, it also makes sense from a business standpoint to promote action on the flagship scoreboard - the DK arcade list - maintained by the company that he now co-owns.
I could argue against the logic and fairness of his stance until my keyboard breaks, but those arguments simply don't matter. It's not a logical decision, it's a personal one. And if you put energy into logical arguments against personal/emotional standpoints on things, you're just gonna drive yourself crazy.
I totally agree with you that it's not entirely fair, for a whole bunch of players, for a whole bunch of reasons, but
it doesn't have to be fair.
If it's intended to be a tournament pitting the best Donkey Kong players against each other, I'm sure most would agree that this is not the best way to go about it... why do they think that the Kong Off should not be a tournament pitting the best Donkey Kong players against each other, and instead only some of the best?
I agree, it's not the best way to go about it!
But using a one-time personal best as the sole player selection criteria isn't the best way either.
Simple example: If Player A gets five 840-860K kill screens in twenty attempts, and Player B gets a single 880K kill screen on a total creampuff of a run when his previous PB was 650K, and never killscreens again in the next 30 attempts, is Player B a better player than A??? Of course not, but under Kong Off logic, B is the better player because his PB is higher! The system is already flawed. It doesn't value or test for consistency at all, which is actually very important in a tournament.
Another example: Ross isn't anywhere close to the top 12 in terms of personal best (on our list he's 21st), but anybody who knows their shit knows that he's a complete master of the game and has to be considered one of the top 5. FFS, much of what the top players are doing to get these high scores was invented by him! The scoreboard (at least as it stands) wouldn't tell you that though.
You can't really get a true, analytically-sound "who are truly the 12 best?" without doing a whole lot of serious poindextering. Nobody's gonna do that, and if someone did, few would understand the methodology (and then they'd argue about THAT). People are having a hard enough time understanding the scheme for the wildcard qualifier tournaments, let alone arcane player analyses. There's merit in sticking with "Arcade Top 12", warts and all, if for no other reason that it's simple, straightforward, and understandable to anyone.
The no-MAME decision sits okay with me because I don't think that the Kong Off is really a tournament of "the 12 best Donkey Kong players" anymore anyway. KO2 was the last year where that could be reasonably said, but it can't this year, or ever again. There are just too many high-level players now that are capable of putting up a competitive score for the weekend. The difference between 12th and 13th is going to be matter of inches, from now until the end of time. Space is tight and it's only going to get tighter. Counting #12 among "one of the best" but not #13 because #13's score is 2,700 points lower is just silly.
So, I think of the main lineup at the Kong Off as exactly what it is: a contest between the people who have the 12 highest scores on TG's DK arcade leaderboard, and who can make it to Denver. No more, no less! It will naturally include most of the best players, but not necessarily all.
Besides, if somebody did something truly remarkable on MAME, something that knocked it out of the park and really separated that player from the rest of the pack, like a 1.1, Richie would absolutely take that into consideration. In fact, according to Ken, Richie said that he would. But it'd have to be THAT remarkable. You'd basically have to be another Dean.
But if you're, say, 1,030 on MAME and the next score down is 1,020 arcade and the arcade guy ends up getting in because Richie has a bias, well, tough beans. There has to be some way of sifting through the pile-up at the bottom of the top 12, and "arcade takes precedence" is as good a way as any.
