Almost everyone from the arcade gaming community is familiar with Billy Mitchell. Many magazines, publications and websites have featured him for his achievements. He is also widely known for his ultimate high scores in the classic arcade title “Donkey Kong” and many classic arcades.
A mid-2000s documentary by the name “The King of Kong” was also dedicated to Billy for his achievements as an all-time arcade champion.
Steve Wiebe was actually the first to score over a million points in Donkey Kong. The community did consider him the first to hit such a high score. But things got interesting later.
Soon enough, Billy provided a contentious videotape evidence which showed him scoring his own million point run. Considering the evidence as valid, Twin Galaxies accepted it and declared Billy as the number one high-scorer of all-time.
For the fact, Twin Galaxies is an American organization that tracks video game world records.
However, the case remained unsettled. Investigations regarding the Billy Mitchell case were going on since then. Investigations found out that Mitchell achieved his high scores on a modified Donkey Kong arcade machine. His achievements could not have been possible on an unmodified machine by any means.
Now was the time to change history.
Twin Galaxies removed Mitchell’s records for Donkey Kong and every other arcade game from their official listing. The organisation banned Billy from further participation and informed Guinness World Records about the same.
Twin Galaxy member Jeremy Young alleged Billy couldn’t have achieved such high scores without using an emulator. The organisation released a full report about the case. Billy wasn’t just using an emulated copy of the game but an unofficial tampered Donkey Kong arcade machine as well.
So there’s the story. Billy Mitchell, the God of arcade games, proved, that he isn’t exactly what we knew him as.
The current Donkey Kong record holder is 31-year old Robbie Lakeman, with a whopping score of 1,247,700.
As Eurogamer concluded, “Mitchell’s reputation now lies in tatters, and underdog Steve Wiebe finally holds the title of the first to post a million point Donkey Kong score”.
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