We have some shocking news to share regarding a notorious video game personality of years past, and Billy Mitchell.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, the onetime Donkey Kong gameplay record champion has won a defamation lawsuit vs. YouTuber Karl Jobst. Lest you question if this piece of news is some April Fool’s Day prank, here’s the news as reported by the Guardian, and here is a 45 minute video recording of the judge’s court decision. This is all real.
We reported on Karl Jobst’s videos about Billy Mitchell before. In July 2023, Jobst made a video about Mitchell being caught committing perjuries. In January 2024, we reported that Mitchell settled with video game record keeping organization Twin Galaxies.
Jobst created a GoFundMe to ask fans and supporters to fund his defense in the defamation lawsuit Mitchell filed vs. him. Jobst put this description on his crowdfund:
“Hello you Absolute Legends,
My name is Karl Jobst and I’m a youtuber who often reports on video game cheaters. Last year, Billy Mitchell, star of The King of Kong and proven video game cheater, sued me for defamation claiming damages of $450,000. In the past year alone, this lawsuit has cost almost $200,000 to defend, and will cost at least another $100,000 before it’s over.
The situation is already crazy, but has since gotten much worse as Billy Mitchell has sent me another defamation lawsuit for another $450,000. So that would mean I will need to defend two lawsuits at the same time, both being extremely expensive. But then it gets even worse because Billy is threatening me with even more lawsuits.
These lawsuits are unhinged and it is highly likely Billy will ultimately lose, but until we go to trial it requires a lot of money to deal with. I would appreciate any help that you are able to provide, as this affects not only me but my family as well. Obviously it’s bad enough to attack me when I’ve done nothing wrong, but to injure them as well takes things to another level.
Naturally, the more money I am able to raise, the better my legal defence will be. That’s just the way it works. If and when I defeat Mitchell in court, he will likely have to pay back a lot of the costs that I incurred. I will use that money to host a grand gaming tournament in his honour.
I appreciate all of the support!
-Karl”
Nowhere in this description does Jobst disclose that Mitchell wasn’t suing him for his claims that he cheated to earn his video game records. As it turns out, that’s because it wasn’t. Jobst made videos claiming that Mitchell was blackmailing another YouTuber, named Ben Smith/Apollo Legend. Jobst accused Mitchell of forcing Apollo to settle with him, after Apollo made his own Billy Mitchell cheating videos. Jobst then claimed Apollo went into debt to Mitchell, and this put Apollo in financial distress before he passed away.
Jobst’s defense emphasized that Mitchell’s name was already ruined because of the cheating allegations. However, the judge found the claims about Mitchell’s involvement with Apollo Legend defamatory. Mitchell shared two instances where he cancelled paid engagements, proving this accusation was demonstrably more damaging than the cheating allegations. The judge also found Jobst’s behavior in not fully retracting these claims as Mitchell requested to be unsatisfactory, leading to his loss in court.
As pointed out in this subreddit and this ResetERA thread, several contributors to Jobst’s GoFundMe felt that they were misled by Jobst, both in the GoFundMe and in his following videos and public posts. For his part, Jobst claims “I didn’t openly discuss certain details for obvious reasons but I was never trying to hide why I was being sued.”
We ourselves also thought this was an April Fool’s joke the first time we saw posts about it. But we have also provided the evidence, including video, that proves this is real. And if all of that still isn’t enough, here’s a tweet from Mitchell himself thanking the people who supported him. Suffice to say, we could be ruminating about this for the rest of the day, as we imagine many of you will be too.
