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Prior to his resignation in late 2017, Travis Kalanick, then CEO of Uber, was facing more than his share of scandals. But the most important (and by far the most important) of these was Kalanick's repeated assertion that he had "at one point got the second highest score in the world for the Nintendo video game Wii Tennis, "according to a New York Times profile. declared without qualification.
Ars dug deep to get the truth about this claim by publishing a 3,000 word statement that definitely proves (read: probably) that Kalanick was really confused as to what it means to have a "high score" in a game like Wii Sports Tennis.
Today, more than two years after this blockbuster report rocked the world of tech-executive video game competitors, new information has been revealed that could revolutionize our understanding of this story (read: useless) again. time.
Wait, what happened?
First, a partial recap: the closest thing Wii Sports Tennis must have a global "score" is the "skill level" of the player. This is the Elo style performance metric that comes and goes based on your performance compared to computer-controlled AI.
Based on a formula derived from a true obsession Wii Sports Tennis player, it takes about 160 perfect matches 40-Love against opponents of the game to raise your skill level to 2399. After that, the skill level approaches asymptotically but never reaches the mythical 2400, since the decimal place internal game is always rounded. to 2399 for on-screen display.
The only half credible claim to the contrary comes from an unsigned publication addressed to the late Web Host 250free in early 2007 (archived here). The anonymous poster (which posed with a Mii avatar named "Adam") wrote that it required "nearly 20,000 games" and over 900 hours of play over 78 days to pass through. a score of 2399 to 2400. A counter displayed on this page suggests that more than 60,000 people have read Adam's story.
The truth of this anonymous claim was still questionable, even with the "photographic evidence" of Adam posing in front of a screen displaying a score of 2400. For us, the important thing was that the claim itself existed online at the in the late 2000s, when Kalanick could find it plausibly and could cite it as proof that his 2399 rating was "tied for the second".
A message from the past
Do not forget all this and imagine my reaction when I received an e-mail with the following message: "I'm calling Adam Haller, and I'm the shirtless guy from the 2400's photo Wii Tennis. "
Haller, who later confirmed his identity with a more modern photo (in shirt), then exposed the details of his hoax more than 10 years ago (slightly edited here for clarity):
I just wanted to let you know that there was at one point a world ranking chart for Wii Tennis. It was not hosted directly by Nintendo but by a website similar to highscores.com (I do not remember the exact URL) [Editor’s note: He may be thinking of the defunct wii-records.com].
What I remember is that when I played this game, I had spent a few weeks reaching the score of 2399 and then I took the picture. Then I decided to use Photoshop for 2400 instead. Mainly to mess with one of my friends with whom I played a lot. I sent the photo to the ranking website and, for a time, they placed me first, but they continued to ask for a video confirmation, which I obviously could not tell them. give. They eventually removed me.
During the same period, I created a website on 250free.com to blog about it. I then submitted this website to Digg and created several fake accounts to reevaluate it a few times, until the site gets bigger. I've also posted the website to several others Wii Sports forums, under false accounts to give him extra hype. I feasted on people's comments about it, with some saying that they had been trying for weeks to reach the same goal, which is probably impossible to do. I thought it was funny to imagine people trying to take on this impossible feat.
…
I hope this information did not come out too late. I no longer like the idea that people spend a crazy time equaling the score of 2400, thinking that it is possible when this is not the case.
Here. "Adam" himself confessed that the claimed 2400 skill rating that was once widely recognized (read: on old web forums and an outdated online scoreboard with a half-remembered URL) was a hoax!
On the one hand, this is good news for Kalanick, who can now be sure that his supposed skill score of 2399 is not "tied for the second" in the world, but actually tied for the first time. ! This "ranking" is not really a "high score" feat that looks like a perfect game of Pac-Man or whatever it is, but it shows a decent amount of devotion and repetition from Kalanick. So good for him.
On the other hand, it does mean that Kalanick was apparently one of those who got caught by a shirtless trickster who had access to a digital camera and some basic knowledge of Photoshop in 2007. As usual, the moral from the story is to be extremely skeptical read on the internet. Even that!
Adam Haller's picture
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