There’s an absurd argument raging over whether Billy Mitchell, the “Gamer of the Century,” is a cheater or not

The former “King of Kong”, Billy Mitchell, has fallen out of favor. After doubts about the authenticity of his records were raised, his achievements were removed from the leaderboards. Since then, a legal dispute has raged with the organization Twin Galaxies, which administers the leaderboards. Now new details have become public.

When gaming was still in its infancy and the term e-sports didn’t even exist, players of arcade titles like Space Invaders, Frogger or Pac-Man were all about the high score. In 1982, the American Walter Day came up with the idea of ​​creating a national list of the best.

Shortly thereafter, he created the Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard. The formation of the first professional video game team, the US National Video Game Team, followed shortly thereafter. Twin Galaxies finally gained more attention as the organizer of an arcade tournament, which was accompanied by a cover story in LIFE magazine.

In this tournament, the best players from different arcade titles competed against each other. Billy Mitchell also made his debut here. On his first appearance on a big stage, he immediately made a name for himself by defeating many of his competitors in a head-to-head comparison.

Many old games like Donkey Kong are still actively played today. This is similar to some old MMORPGs:

Billy Mitchell, the “King of Kong”

Mitchell is the prototype of an eccentric gamer. His trademarks are his look and his unusual ties. When he’s not bragging about one of his records, he’s trying to sell his own chilli sauce. If you can compare him to anyone at all, it’s only icons like Tiger Woods or Obi-Wan Kenobi.

After all, he was also the first player to deliver a perfect game in Pac-Man. In 1999 he managed to master all 256 levels and score 3,333,360 points. Not an easy thing: because the kill screen that the player sees at the last level makes it almost impossible to complete the game successfully.

With 933,900 points he broke the high score of Donkey Kong (twingalaxies.com), only to be outbid by a competitor shortly afterwards.

But Mitchell came back with a VHS recording to prove he was in a round Donkey Kong 1,047,200 points reached (via guinnessworldrecords.com). Despite being named record holder again, his video tapes are now facing criticism.

If you want to know more about the controversial figure Billy Mitchell, check out the following YouTube video:

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Did the record holder cheat? In 2018, Mitchell was accused of cheating in his record attempts.

Experts accuse him of not playing on the original hardware. This is how Mitchell is said to have used the MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) (via mamedev.org). As a result, he was stripped of some of his records.

Billy Mitchell and Twin Galaxies are therefore currently in a legal dispute. A court in California is now to clarify whether he cheated in his record attempts (via kotaku.com).

The court documents provide absurd details

Billy Mitchell has vehemently denied all allegations against him. He sees himself as a victim of a conspiracy by the current management of Twin Galaxies.

From the court documents we learn some curious details:

• Billy Mitchell’s family doctor is said to have refused treatment when he found out that Mitchell had cheated on Donkey Kong.
• He has experienced financial losses as a result of his records being revoked, among other things because no one invites him to video game festivals anymore. Mitchell also claims he was emotionally traumatized by the coverage.
• At the same time, however, Mitchell refuses to present any further proof of the authenticity of his record attempts. He avoids critical questions and doesn’t even want to be able to remember some details.

How the process will end is currently still completely open. What do you think of the “King of Kong”? Should records only be valid if they were played on the original hardware? Or is it generally okay to use emulators? Write it to us in the comments.

If you are interested in retro and arcade games, then have a look here: The first commercially successful game is already 50 years old – do you know it?