Donkey Kong King Billy Mitchell III wins defamation proceeding against Brisbane YouTuber Karl Jobst

A legendary video gamer and original Donkey Kong high score holder has outplayed a Brisbane YouTuber, winning $350,000 in a high-profile defamation case, with a judge slamming the video maker’s claims.

William “Billy” James Mitchell leaving District Court, Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston

A legendary video gamer and original Donkey Kong high score holder has outplayed a Brisbane YouTuber after a judge slammed the video maker in a defamation proceedings.

Florida resident Billy Mitchell III, an icon in arcade gaming, was today awarded $350,000 plus interest against Brisbane YouTuber Karl Jobst who the court found posted a defamatory video that falsely claimed the American had driven another social media star to suicide due to legal action.

In Brisbane’s District Court Judge Ken Barlow said Mr Jobst had been reckless and vindictive.

“Mr Jobst was reckless in making the allegations, his assertions were based on a fallacy, namely, that Apollo Legend had paid Mr Mitchell a large sum of money. That was simply wrong, and he had no reasonable basis for asserting it,” he said.

“Mr Jobst clearly intended to be the knight who slew the Mitchell dragon. Unfortunately for him, his lance was not as strong as he believed it to be, and it has broken in the contest.

“I have found that all of this conduct has caused Mr Mitchell additional personal harm and additional harm to his reputation. It was severely aggravating conduct that merits an award of aggravated damages.”

Mr Mitchell, who travelled to Australia for the hearing last year but was not in court today, posted on Twitter that “Billy Mitchell always has a plan”.

“Nothing like the smell of victory in the evening air,” he said below a pinned tweet offering 20 per cent off his “world famous” hot sauce.

He also thanked his supporters stating he was grateful.

Meanwhile Mr Jobst tweeted that he would be considering his options.

“I lost. The judge found Billy to be a credible witness and believed his entire testimony. From that point on unfortunately there was really nothing that could have saved me. I will now obviously consider my options,” he said.

“I know many of you will be upset with this and I am sorry for that. Thank you again for all the support I have received and I will endeavour to work as hard as I can to repay all that you are owed.”

Karl Jobst leaving District Court, Brisbane. Picture: Liam Kidston

Apollo Legend posted a video in December 2020 explaining why he would be taking his own life and did not mention Mr Mitchell, his legal action or settlement agreement. He suicided shortly after the video.

Mr Jobst in May 2021 published a video entitled “The Biggest Conmen in Video Game History Strike Again!” about Mr Mitchell and another video gamer, the court heard.

In it he accused Mr Mitchell of cheating and of pursuing unmeritorious litigation against people who accused him of cheating.

Critically he also falsely linked the suicide of Apollo Legend – another YouTuber who posted videos about gaming – to stress arising from his legal settlement with Mr Mitchell, wrongly asserting that Apollo Legend had had to pay Mr Mitchell a large sum of money.

“This left him deeply in debt, which required him to find extra work, but with his ongoing health issues, this was all too much of a burden, and he ultimately took his own life,” Mr Jobst said in the video the court heard.

“Not that Billy Mitchell would ever care, though, in fact, when Billy Mitchell thought Apollo died earlier, he expressed joy at the thought.”

Mr Mitchell had launched legal action against Apollo Legend – who had accused him of cheating in Donkey Kong – but the suit was settled without Apollo having to pay any money, the court heard.

In response to Mr Jobst, Mr Mitchell made his own video refuting that Apollo had to pay him money and saying Mr Jobst had effectively accused him of murder, the court heard.

“He ended the video by saying ‘I plan to respond the way that everybody anticipates for me to respond, and Karl expect me’,” Judge Barlow said.

His lawyers served Mr Jobst with a concerns notice asserting he had defamed Mr Mitchell.

In response, Mr Jobst posted that letter on Twitter, claiming it to be “very exciting” and that any action would be an amazing experience.

Mr Jobst’s video had been online for 10 days before he removed the defamatory portion of it.

After Mr Mitchell’s legal letter he reinstated the defamatory portion of the video for another five days. The defamatory portion was again removed when Apollo’s brother responded to an email by Mr Jobst who had asked whether Apollo had to pay any money as part of his legal settlement with Mr Mitchell. Mr Jobst was informed he hadn’t.

More than half a million people had downloaded the video while it contained the offending passages, the court heard.

The Original Donkey Kong. Photo Supplied

Since then the edited video, which remains online, has attracted 8000 comments including 396 that Judge Barlow said “accused Mr Mitchell of causing Apollo Legend to commit suicide, and even called him a murderer, evil and a scumbag”.

Judge Barlow found Mr Jobst’s video made five defamatory imputations, particularly that Mr Mitchell had required Apollo Legend to pay him a large sum of money, which was the cause of, or had contributed to, Apollo Legend’s decision to commit suicide and that Mr Mitchell had hounded Apollo Legend to death.

Mr Jobst had denied those imputations were made and defended the claim on other grounds including that Mr Mitchell allegedly had a pre-existing bad reputation because he had been publicly exposed as a cheat and had been banned from submitting scores to Twin Galaxies – an organisation that keeps a database of game record holders that had previously been sued by Mr Mitchell.

Mr Jobst also alleged he ostracised people who challenged his records and he ran frivolous lawsuits against people who called him a cheat. He also asserted that Mr Mitchell had planned a fraudulent video in an attempt to prove that he had not cheated and he had callously expressed joy when he thought Apollo Legend had died on an earlier occasion.

“Mr Jobst asserted that (Mr Mitchell) had such a bad reputation that anything Mr Jobst said in the video did not damage his reputation further,” Judge Barlow said.

Judge Barlow found Mr Mitchell did have a reputation as a cheat, as having been banned by Twin Galaxies and for suing people who alleged he was a cheat. He also found he had callously expressed joy on an earlier occasion when he heard that Apollo Legend may have died (although he had not).

Judge Barlow found that he had not planned a fraudulent video, nor did he have a reputation for ostracising anyone he considered a threat to his achievements.

District Court Judge Ken Barlow said Mr Jobst had been reckless and vindictive. Picture: NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

Despite this Judge Barlow still found that “the defamatory imputations made by Mr Jobst had severely damaged Mr Mitchell’s reputation and had caused him considerable distress.”

For this Judge Barlow awarded $300,000 to Mr Mitchell who had been seeking $400,000.

Judge Barlow also found that Mr Jobst’s conduct after publishing the video was unjustifiable and caused additional personal hurt to Mr Mitchell and harm to his reputation.

This conduct included making the original imputations recklessly and without checking their truth, publishing the video twice, mocking Mr Mitchell’s complaint about the video and his legal action, failing to apologise and to withdraw the allegations, persisting in his contention that Mr Mitchell’s action against Apollo Legend had contributed to his decision to commit suicide, and having clear malice toward Mr Mitchell, including trying to use his defence of the litigation to “punish and destroy him”.

Judge Barlow was scathing of Mr Jobst’s decision to publish the video twice saying the second publication occurred when he did not know any more about his claims than when he first took the video down.

“His attitude appears to have been, well, if I’m going to be sued, I may as well go for broke and damn the consequences,” Judge Barlow said.

“It was reckless and showed an absolute disregard for the truth or for the effect of his video on Mr Mitchell and his reputation.”

Judge Barlow said Mr Jobst appeared to see himself as a “crusader” in defending the lawsuit.

In February 2024 as the trial was approaching Mr Jobst was interviewed online, the court heard.

“Billy Mitchell needs to be destroyed in court,” Mr Jobst said.

“So I am now the last chance, I am the last chance the public has to punish Billy.

“But man, if I win, oh boy, I’m not going to be a good winner.”

Mr Jobst argued that if any damages were to be awarded they should be minimal.

This was due to his retraction video, which apologised to viewers but not Mr Mitchell, that Judge Barlow found rather than having any mitigatory effect actually aggravated his conduct.

“He did not publish it in a way that would draw it to the attention of the original audience, but instead, essentially hid it from view,” he said.

Mr Jobst also submitted that Mr Mitchell had contributed himself to the harm he had suffered by republishing the offending passages of Mr Jobst’s video in his response video.

Mr Mitchell’s response video has been downloaded at least 155,000 times.

“This submission might be described as suggesting that Mr Mitchell called in an air strike on his own position,” Judge Barlow said.

“I disagree, both by making the response video and by bringing this proceeding against Mr Jobst, far from calling in an air strike on his own position, it was necessary for Mr Mitchell and reasonable for Mr Mitchell to identify the enemy’s position clearly in order to call in an air strike on it.

“That is what he has done.”

Judge Barlow awarded Mr Mitchell $50,000 for aggravated damages hinting he may have got more if he’d asked for it.

He awarded $40,446 in interest.

Judge Barlow reserved his decision on costs.

Mr Mitchell scored a world record on Donkey Kong in 1982 as a 17 year old when he also became the first person to reach the “kill screen” or end of the game.

The hot-sauce maker went on to achieve a number of world records and world firsts in video and arcade gaming including the first perfect score of 3,333,360 in Pac Man in 1999, setting a new world record and the first score of over a million points in Donkey Kong in 2005 and more records in the game in the following years.

In 2017 he was accused of having cheated in achieving his Donkey Kong world records by allegedly using computer emulation software instead of original arcade hardware, the court heard.

Twin Galaxies investigated and later concluded two of his world records scores were suspect and removed all of his scores and banned him from participating in its competitive leaderboards, the court heard.

Guinness World Records as a result disqualified Mr Mitchell as the holder of all his records, both in Donkey Kong and in Pac Man.

The records were later restored by Guinness, while Twin Galaxies – against whom Mr Mitchell initiated court proceedings – restored the scores to a historical leaderboard last year, the court heard.

This was after Mr Mitchell, during the legal proceedings, contended that he had undertaken the games on original Donkey Kong PCBs as seen by multiple witnesses and verified by independent engineers and the Twin Galaxies’ investigation were biased and inadequate.

The proceeding settled in January 2024 and as part of that Twin Galaxies published a statement on its website that Mr Mitchell had produced expert opinion that the game play on the tapes of Mr Mitchell’s record game plays could depict play on original unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware if the hardware involved was malfunctioning, likely due to degradation of components. Twin Galaxies said it noted that opinion and consequently would reinstate all of Mr Mitchell’s scores as part of the official historical database on its website and would permanently archive and remove from public display the dispute thread on its website concerning Mr Mitchell’s records.

In his decision today Judge Barlow said as part of his defence Mr Jobst did not attempt to prove the initial finding by Twin Galaxies was correct.

“To be clear, I was not required to decide, nor did I decide, whether Mr Mitchell had, in fact, cheated in gaining any of his world record scores,” Judge Barlow said.

“Mr Jobst did not attempt to prove that that finding by Twin Galaxies was correct.”

Originally published as Donkey Kong King Billy Mitchell III wins defamation proceeding against Brisbane YouTuber Karl Jobst