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[ThatGamingDude]

The story with Billy Mitchell's score removal from Guinness Book of World Records and Twin Galaxies continues.

Billy Mitchell has recently stated that he will take both above entities to court for defamation (As well as anything else he can probably throw into it) if they don't retract their statements and reinstate his scores.

Guinness has elected to not give Billy a response, which...yeah, makes sense. Somewhat of a David and Goliath story, but Guinness would likely just bury him in legal fees anyways.

This comes after over a year of quarreling over top high scores in both Donkey Kong and Pac-Man after it was determined he was using an arcade emulator, specifically MAME, or not abiding by the categories rules, to achieve the scores. This may seem like splitting hairs, who cares if it was MAME or the original hardware? The reason being is there are separate score lists for original hardware and MAME; MAME does not 100% accurately emulate the ROM which can lead to enemy logic being slightly different or more predictable, etc. The ROM can also be modified or patched to remove bugs, etc.

This response has come in after multiple people have accused Billy and others of colluding to produce and submit these scores. One of them being his own arcade technician, Carlos Pineiro, who originally verified Billy's scores for the dispute, now stating that he was told signing the verification would "Keep [Carlos] out of the litigation, and I knew it was wrong."

Twin Galaxies has given an official response, and they are not afraid of Billy's threats; the last line of their response being

Please advise Mr. Mitchell to tread lightly, and choose wisely.

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Dear Mr. Gibbons:

We are in receipt of your correspondence dated September 9th, 2019 and have thoroughly reviewed all of the materials that were provided in a fair, public, and unbiased form. Twin Galaxies' has always remained open to any new evidence or information that may help re-evaluate or further solidify a score dispute claim decision, and we appreciate Billy Mitchell's recent contribution. Please consider this Twin Galaxies' formal response to your demand for restoration of Mr. Mitchell's records to the Twin Galaxies video game achievement database.

Let there be no confusion, Mr. Mitchell's Donkey Kong scores of 1,047,200 (the King of Kong "tape"), 1,050,200 (the Mortgage Brokers score) as well as any other de-listed scores that were attributed to him will not be restored to the score database. There will be no retraction or reinstatement.

It should be noted that Twin Galaxies is under no obligation to maintain Mr. Mitchell's scores in its database. He has no divine right to be part of the Twin Galaxies community either. Twin Galaxies has unlimited authority to maintain the integrity of its score database. After a lengthy public debate, Twin Galaxies has determined that Mr. Mitchell's scores do not conform to the rules of the submission, and therefore they will be forever purged.

The removal of Mr. Mitchell's scores was not defamatory as set forth in greater detail herein. Should Mr. Mitchell make the ill-advised decision of bringing suit against Twin Galaxies for defamation, please take notice that we will vigorously and aggressively defend ourselves. Any suit by Mr. Mitchell will necessarily be a strategic lawsuit against public participation that will be immediately met with an anti-SLAPP motion. The motion will be successful, and we will seek all available remedies in that respect - including attorney's fees, and costs. And when Mr. Mitchell's case is dismissed, be sure that a malicious prosecution claim will follow soon thereafter. Please advise Mr. Mitchell to tread lightly, and choose wisely.

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I'll try to keep this thread updated with any new information, and if anyone would like me to do a type up of why Billy's scores and their legitimacy matter, I'll get to work on it today and add it to the OP. Being a second generation arcade rat (Neo Geo is my shit) this whole thing is incredibly interesting to me.

 

[Snakey125]

I mean, I would laugh at any legal docket with Billy Michell with woman on the fr-

Oh wait. That happened.


Shit.

 

[LostDonkey]

I remember watching a documentary about Donkey Kong high scores or something a few years back. Is this the same guy?

 

[Whitesnake]

For those unaware, many of Billy's scores have no evidence other than the word of people who he's friends with. He has been caught lying on numerous occassions about the boards he's using and continues to lie about them. When third parties are brought on to verify his scores and they say that the score wasn't legitimate, Billy threatens them to keep quiet or retract their statements.

Here's few videos on the subject for anyone interested:

Spoiler

 

[CuteFaceJay]

I remember watching a documentary about Donkey Kong high scores or something a few years back. Is this the same guy?

The King of Kongs?

 

[EightBit Man]

I wonder how Nintendo would handle the tribute to this guy in Donkey Kong Country Returns today.

 

[Snakey125]

For those unaware, many of Billy's scores have no evidence other than the word of people who he's friends with. He has been caught lying on numerous occassions about the boards he's using and continues to lie about them. When third parties are brought on to verify his scores and they say that the score wasn't legitimate, Billy threatens them to keep quiet or retract their statements.

Here's few videos on the subject for anyone interested:

Spoiler

It's worth noting that Billy also threatened to sue Apollo at one point for these videos.

So you know's it's gold

 

[deriks]

I though that he recorded a video doing the record a few months before

Well, we need to wait a little more

 

[ThatGamingDude]

I remember watching a documentary about Donkey Kong high scores or something a few years back. Is this the same guy?

Yep! It's the same guy.

The more and more information that comes out from people who surround Billy, as well as other competitors on the boards he's on, the more slimey the whole situation is.

Essentially, Whitesnake summed it up nicely

For those unaware, many of Billy's scores have no evidence other than the word of people who he's friends with. He has been caught lying on numerous occassions about the boards he's using and continues to lie about them. When third parties are brought on to verify his scores and they say that the score wasn't legitimate, Billy threatens them to keep quiet or retract their statements.

Here's few videos on the subject for anyone interested:

Spoiler

Anyone involved with saying "Billy isn't legit," immediately gets taken for a ride on the "I'll sue if you don't shut up," train and then completely shunned by Billy's circle, who did include some prominent members in Twin Galaxies.

He's even gone as far as stating his own previously submitted evidence was satire from him and his friends, and that because it was verified by Twin Galaxies referees previously, there should no reason to have current evidence

One of the original points is that he wanted to have them review the tapes, but they "somehow," got lost in translation and no one has the tapes now. People were able to find other versions of the tape, and when played back frame by frame, it is undoubtedly the way MAME loads the Donkey Kong ROM

Other news is that his Pac-Man perfect score timing is illegitimate; they either didn't accurately track the time or they let him have an unsanctioned break and didn't properly record it, whichever you prefer.

 

[Solarstrike]

He should be in the Guinness Book of World Records for meanest mullet