Arcade legend Billy Mitchell goes to court for erased Donkey Kong record

Arcade legend Billy Mitchell has sued world record organization Twin Galaxies for defamation. Mitchell claims that the organization falsely insinuates that Mitchell is a cheater and that the investigation into him was conducted subjectively. Twin Galaxies disputes the claims.

Twin Galaxies determined in April 2018 that Billy Mitchell had cheated in setting records in the arcade game Donkey Kong. The organization claimed that Mitchell did not make his records on original arcade hardware. The organization concluded this after its own investigation, after which Mitchell also lost his Guinness World Records records. Shortly after the announcement of Twin Galaxies, Mitchell said he would deny all the allegations.

Now Ars Technica has found court documents showing that Mitchell already filed a lawsuit against Twin Galaxies in April 2019. In these documents, he gave a different name and misspelled Twin Galaxies, presumably so that the document would stay out of the public eye. In the state of California, there is a one-year statute of limitations for defamation cases, presumably Mitchell sent the document only so the case wouldn’t become statute-barred.

According to the document amended in March 2020, Twin Galaxies defamated, saying that Mitchell did not legitimately achieve his record score. By claiming to be circumventing the organization’s rules, Twin Galaxies insinuated, according to Mitchell, that he was a cheater. Twin Galaxies was also already biased in the research, Mitchell said, and they only wanted to generate publicity and clicks with the research. The organization is also said to have ignored witness statements and, according to Mitchell, has only focused on ‘scientific’ evidence.

In a motion by which Twin Galaxies wants the case to be declared inadmissible, the organization writes that the comments of the site were only opinions. Since these were not presented as facts, it would not be defamation from a legal point of view. Also, the site did not make these comments lightly, but asked the community for a final judgment in this matter. Twin Galaxies also says they have no doubt that Mitchell did not hit his records on original hardware and that they have nothing personal against Mitchell. They would only want to ensure the integrity of the record list.

On July 6, the two sides meet in court. Then a judge considers the motion of Twin Galaxies, to have the case declared inadmissible.

A statement that Billy Mitchell gave in 2018