Tim, I'm not going to argue about the process and philosophy behind storytelling and filmmaking, because a person can only discern that kind of stuff themselves. Nobody is going to convince you, with the bias that you have, that it made artistic sense to omit you from the movie. You either get that or you don't. No argument can transmit that understanding. And while I don't know what the "legal" definition of a documentary is, I know that it is not the responsibility of a documentary to be encyclopedic or comprehensive. Documentary filmmaking is an art, not a science.
You asked for fact-based rationale behind why you were omitted, so I'll be more black-and-white about it. You can ignore the facts or engage them, up to you, I'm just posting this for your edification because it's been a while since anyone introduced anything new to this discussion, at least in terms of specifics and primary sources (though some great points are being made).
In any case, you need to stop dropping the entirety of the blame on Ed and Seth for your score not being mentioned. Not only are they not solely responsible, I would go further to say that, of all the players involved, they were probably the LEAST responsible.
The fact of the matter is this: while the filmmakers didn't acknowledge you, the people in the scene didn't acknowledge you either, and that is, without a doubt, a major contributing factor for why the filmmakers made the determination that they made.
Let's start with their official position:
Here's the quote from the old KoK official site (which is now gone BTW):
"While our movie focuses on the rivalry between Billy and Steve, one other gamer has a very high-score in the Twin Galaxies database on Donkey Kong, Tim Sczerby. After repeated investigations into the validity of Tim's score, and after finding one dead end after another in our Twin-Galaxies-assisted attempts to reach Mr. Sczerby, we determined that his consistently disputed record was impossible to verify and did not merit inclusion in the film. The experts on the subject of Donkey Kong, especially Brian Kuh, always referred to Billy Mitchell as the reigning champion and maintained that his unrivaled skill put him on top of the record holder chart."So are they telling the truth, or is this smoke-screening bullshit?
The cynical view is that it's bullshit, but it's not that simple.
Some direct quotes from the movie:
Greg Bond:
"Steve deserves a lot of credit for that because he also... He also broke the record on Donkey Kong Jr. So he--he took two--He took two of Billy's titles, like, right away from him. And l don't mean to sound, you know, crude or anything. But he did. He did. Officially, he did." Brian Kuh:
"Um, for years and years, it was believed that Billy's record of 874,000 in 1982 was really the highest score anyone would ever get. And in fact, some of us have played this game every day or every week or every month since then, and no one's gotten close to that."Roy Shildt:
"That was the last world record that Bill ever had. That was the last one to go. He had five world records in 1985, he had the Donkey Kong, and then Steve Wiebe took it away."Billy Mitchell:
"The people who could get, besides myself, that have been seen getting to the end of Donkey Kong? Gee, now that I think about it, I don't think anybody has."And then we have Robert Mruczek, quoted earlier in this thread, who didn't exactly give your score a ringing endorsement. He talks about it in this shadowy, mysterious way: "I've never seen it, I don't know who verified it," etc.
With how suspicious Robert tends to be about everything and everyone who isn't known to the scene, I would not be surprised if he had an off-camera discussion with the filmmakers where he cast doubt on the score.
In any case, that's five people from the scene who say, in no uncertain terms, that Steve was the one to take Billy's 1982 record.
That doesn't make it true of course, but THE FILMMAKERS WERE RELYING ON THESE PEOPLE FOR THEIR INFORMATION.
When they hear "Billy was the champion until Steve came along", from one person after another, is it not understandable for them to come to the conclusion that this might be true? When not a single person from the scene acknowledged you (until of course after the movie came out and everybody in it wanted to complain about how "inaccurate" it was for pointing cameras at them as they said things that they later found embarrassing), what did you expect the filmmakers to do, other than to decide that it was probably best to stick to what they could be sure of, and steer clear of your score?
Or were all of those quotes scripted? What, was everybody in on the conspiracy?
It wasn't a conspiracy, and there was no malice either. People either didn't realize, didn't care, or had forgotten that you'd beaten Billy.
Even in this very tight-knit DK community, not everybody is aware of everything (to put it mildly). I see over and over, and am often surprised by, how much gets missed. The extent to which you have to smash people over the head with even the simplest things to actually get them into everybody's line of sight can be very frustrating.
In any case, not everybody always knows who beat whom, where everybody stands on every high score list, etc. It's a lot to keep track of.
The Donkey Kong world record was not on many peoples' radars in 2000. CAG as a whole was very "sleepy" at the time. Beating a (top-hammer only) world record by 5K was not huge news, and at least a couple of the people I quoted probably weren't even aware that it had happened.
Nobody sent Greg Bond or Roy Shildt or Brian Kuh certified letters letting them know that you had squeaked past Billy (and even if they had, all of them knew that Billy's PB was higher than 879K anyway).
And then in 2003 the "Billy vs. Steve" thing started, which was not, by the way, manufactured by the filmmakers. It was exaggerated and stylized a little, and simplified a lot, but it was definitely underway long before the movie was even a concept.
This interview is from Classic Gaming Expo, 2004. Two years before KoK. You were not mentioned in this interview either.
(Incidentally, Billy got 933K live at that very event, putting both Steve and Billy way ahead of you by the time the documentary got rolling.)
Skip to 13:00. Steve describes his history with DK.
Wiebe:
"I was scoring in the 900 thousands, encountered this kill screen, I go, 'well I have to get to that level again to see what happens'. The next time I got there I had two men so I was killed twice. So then I said, 'well what's the point of continuing?', that's probably what Billy thought. So I sold it, and I was always curious what the high score was so I looked on the Internet, about 5 years ago, and Twin Galaxies had a list of scores, and I saw it was 874,000 by Billy Mitchell... and I said 'well, I know I can beat 874,000' so I went and I bought another machine off Ebay."Steve isn't lying or covering you up here because this interview is from 2004 and he said that he checked out the record 5 years before, which would be 1999, before you came along, and when Billy was still on top.
And again, he's saying this before any movie of any kind had ever been thought of, so he's not strategically avoiding mention of you for the purpose of some grand scheme. There was no cover-up, because at that point there was no reason to cover anything up. Steve bought the machine and went after Junior and DK with the understanding that it was Billy's scores he was coming after. You came along inbetween.
Also, at 14:05, Steve says he bought his first DK machine in 1990, meaning that he was scoring in the 900Ks in 1990. Ten years before you took down Billy's 1982 score. I've said this before and I'll say it again: you never had the highest DK score, and you were not the first to beat Billy. Just because you appeared at the top of the TG list for a few years doesn't mean that you were the true record holder. This really is important.
In fact, omitting your score is not so much a lie as a simplification, one that actually serves the truth. The real-world fact is that Steve was ahead of you the whole time. They did a lot of condensing of reality in that movie, like combining what was actually four world record submissions into one, because it was completely necessary to do that in an 80-minute film aimed at non-CAG people who don't want to hear a bunch of boring details about Double Donkey Kong that they can't even understand.
So there you go. Ed and Seth didn't think that you were a significant part of this because the community didn't regard you as a significant part of this. Most in the community were (evidently) either unaware of you, or had forgotten you by the time the documentary got rolling. Given the circumstances of what was happening then between Billy and Steve, it's not hard to see why.
