Billy Mitchell, known as the "King of Kong," has had his record-breaking "Donkey Kong" scores stripped from the Twin Galaxies leaderboards and possibly the Guinness Book of World Records after an investigation showed multiple instances of cheating.
Twin Galaxies announced the decision Thursday, stating that recordings of several of Mitchell’s record-breaking games were proven to be fake after a member of the video game organization, Jeremy Young, filed a dispute claim against him.
Young apparently noticed Mitchell’s recording of several scores, including his 1,047,200 Donkey Kong score — recognized as the first to break 1 million points — were not consistent with being played on an actual arcade machine, which is a requirement for the record, but were instead played on emulation software, which is not allowed.
Mitchell, who appeared in the documentary “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters,” is now banned from competing for high scores on the leaderboards going forward.
The investigation was conducted internally by Twin Galaxies with at least two third parties verifying their findings and other experts also giving input. There were long-running suspicions that Mitchell's games were not played correctly to be considered for the high score record, and this ruling sets them to rest.
Steve Wiebe, a long-time rival of Mitchell’s who also appeared in the documentary, will now have the record for first million-scoring player on "Donkey Kong."
The Guinness Book of World Records has not yet said whether it will strip Mitchell of his records in the book.
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