Every sporting event, even pee wee soccer (football for the UK guys) has some sort of judging.(posted 9583 days ago)The one fundamental thing I tried to accomplish with MAME was that everyone was competing on a level playing field. My thinking is that this is the single most important thing to do, if we wish to meaningfully compare scores. The only way to do that was to have standardized .cfg files for every game, something I am working slowly towards.
You can't stop cheating on MAME with 100% certainty.
However.... the best players in the world will video tape their games on the real thing, and the cheaters will not be able to do that. Armed with INPs and video tape, that player would fully deserve the World Champion designation. All the scores I've accomplished on MARP I've done before on the real thing, and I think there are players here who are, in fact, the best in the world.
If some elaborate cheating scheme bypasses all detection all I can say is: Ok, now play on the real thing, and send me the video tape. If the player in question refuses, the score is rescinded.
Simple.
I would think that such is so rare, that it has never happened. I'm happy with the current situation.
I saw Rick Fothergill play Ms Pacman in New Hampshire and get 901,000+ which back in 1985 I thought "no way is that humanly possible". I thought "no one will break 5 million on Galaga". Steve Krogman got 7 million at Funspot in NH, and I saw it with my own eyes.
The remote possibility of cheating does not cancel out the incredible skill of these players. I can say that the best players I've had the good fortune to see in action were 100% legit. Once again, I maintain that faking an INP file would be very VERY difficult.
My bigger concern is that everyone use the same difficulty settings. A Joust score of over 100 million is possible on the factory settings (and it was done in 67.5 hours!) but is this a true test of SKILL? No way! It's a true test of how much coffee you can drink or worse. That is why I'm always advocating the use of TG settings for Williams games, and other games. Joust with 5 men no extras is exciting, and factory settings are a colossal bore (that goes double for Gauntlet and Q*bert)
I've said my piece.
Mark