The founder, Walter Day, ran it from 1982-2010 (post King of Kong) when he sold it to focus on his music.
It's changed hands a couple of times since the but since 2014 it's been owned by Jace Hall, a video game producer in San Fernando Valley, CA.
If you believe Reddit gremlins he's the Worst Person In The World, but I have some sympathy for him, it's tough to adjudicate all of these disputes that can get super technical.
Who has the time for it? Even now that Jace is charging for refereeing, it's not a lucrative endeavor. But he had to know what he was getting when he bought it.
Huh, why is it the new owner that people are complaining about? Total outsider, but it seems to me that if anything the place is finally cleaning up a bit.
One example is the Todd Rogers case (he's briefly featured in The King of Kong).
Todd claimed to take a polaroid of a score of 5.51 seconds on Dragster that Activision later "verified" (i.e. acknowledged).
Recently several independent gamers running simulation software demonstrated the score was impossible, that 5.57 is the lowest limit achievable.
But despite the mounting technical evidence Jace initially refused to take action, saying he'd wait a few months before deciding. Then 5 days later, after Rogers' friend and former TG referee Robert Mruczek (featured in KoK) wrote a long blog post basically saying Rogers was a cheater, Jace stripped Rogers of his scores and banned him from competition.
The criticism is that he wasn't fast enough to act on technical evidence but then arbitrarily relies on testimony from one person.
But again, I sympathize with the guy. To overturn a 37-year-old record based on what an algorithm says and what Activision itself said in 1981 is tough. If he acted right away that would have p* off others. It's a thankless job, IMHO.
It's changed hands a couple of times since the but since 2014 it's been owned by Jace Hall, a video game producer in San Fernando Valley, CA.
If you believe Reddit gremlins he's the Worst Person In The World, but I have some sympathy for him, it's tough to adjudicate all of these disputes that can get super technical.
Who has the time for it? Even now that Jace is charging for refereeing, it's not a lucrative endeavor. But he had to know what he was getting when he bought it.