You pretty much can't go to these events and not meet him. You walk into Twin Galaxies or Arcade Expo and he's standing there in a suit greeting people, selling autographs. That's his JOB. He's a brand. The only advertising for this brand is these stupid records. For Christ's sake, Adam Sandler riffs on him in "Pixels."
He for sure took advantage of the situation and knew nobody could verify his claims. It wasn't until recently people have finally shown most of his scores are totally unattainable to begin with, something nobody could really refute until now.
It also makes Twin Galaxies look incredibly shady and their refusal to really adjust the high scores just makes it seem like they have some weird stake in it was well.
Yep. You even see some of that in King of Kong when Walter Day says that Billy Mitchell is good for Twin Galaxies.
I'd say it's part naivete (taking friends at their word), part incompetence (not fully vetting scores, especially early on), part complicity (gaming heroes make them seem like a stable of giants). Hard to know what % of each.
It's an incredibly narrow band of fame, of attention, by a weird subculture that 99% of humanity pays no attention to, but for some people I guess it's important.
