YouTuber ordered to pay "King of Kong" Billy Mitchell $230,000 over defamation claims

In a nutshell: Billy Mitchell, the arcade gaming legend who has been embroiled in controversy for almost a decade now, has been awarded $230,000 in a defamation lawsuit against a YouTuber. Karl Jobst implied in a video that Mitchell's legal battle against a different YouTuber led to that person's suicide after it left him "deeply in debt." But a judge said Jobst had shown a "reckless disregard for the truth."

Mitchell has appeared in several documentaries related to his achievements in Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, including King of Kong in 2007. But in 2018, he was accused of using open-source emulator MAME, rather than the original arcade hardware, for some of his Donkey Kong high scores. Retro-gaming records website Twin Galaxies investigated and stripped Mitchell of his records. Guinness World Records did the same a day later.

Mitchell vowed to clear his name and threatened to sue ...