Summary
In yet another chapter of the controversial saga of formerDonkey Kongrecord holder Billy Mitchell, Twin Galaxies has decided to restore his scores on its history website database. Billy Mitchell is one of the most infamous figures within the pro gamer landscape, having first risen to prominence during the arcade days of the 1980s and 1990s by setting records for such titles as the originalPac-ManandDonkey Kong. He would gain a new level of fame afterre-breaking the record score forDonkey Kongmultiple times during the 2000s, with his resulting rivalry with fellow gamer Steve Wiebe being chronicled in the 2007 documentaryThe King of Kong.
After being briefly dethroned by fellowDonkey Kongplayer Hank Chien, Mitchell would set a new record score once again in 2010 - though this would later be broken by Steve Wiebe a few months later. In 2018, an investigation into allegations of him using emulation software to inflate his famous scores led toBilly Mitchell being stripped of his recordsby Twin Galaxies, the video game database in charge of cataloging such achievements. Mitchell has fought this decision over the past several years, with the Guinness World Records eventually reinstating hisDonkey Kongrecords in 2020.
Despite this development, Twin Galaxies has maintained its own removal of Billy Mitchell’s controversialDonkey Kongscores - until now. In a statement posted to the officialTwin Galaxieswebsite earlier this week, it was announced that Mitchell’s scores will be reinstated, at least on Twin Galaxies’ old historical database of past achievements. This decision came after Twin Galaxies received testimony from Dr. Michael Zyda, an Emeritus Professor of engineering practice whom Mitchell enlisted to help in his six-year legal battle, questioning the accusations that led to his removal last November.
In Zyda’s two-page opinion, he claimed that he couldn’t verify if Billy Mitchell had indeed used emulation to falsify hisDonkey Kongscores, but that the scores in question could very well be produced on unmodified arcade cabinet hardware - and that the “anomalies” that led to Mitchell’s ban could be the result of malfunctioning hardware and the quality of the videotapes that some of the scores were originally documented on. In response to Zyda’s opinion, Twin Galaxies decided to reinstate Mitchell’s scores to the historical database, stating that its mission is to “verify that submissions meet verification guidelines, not to investigate how they are produced.”
Billy Mitchell was always a somewhat divisive figure, especially following his portrayal inThe King of Kongwhich painted him as an antagonist to Steve Wiebe. Twin Galaxies’ recent decision to reinstate his oldDonkey Kongscores after six years of controversy will likely compound this, though it is worth pointing out that Mitchell’s scores are only restored on Twin Galaxies’ historical database and not the current records, and Twin Galaxies has not verified whether Mitchell actually cheated in the first place.
