Billy Mitchell is known as the first man to play a million-point game in Donkey Kong, and also one of the few people in the world to ever play a perfect game of PAC-MAN. This morning, Mitchell was stripped of both of those accolades, and all of his high scores have been removed from the records of competitive high-score sanctioning authority Twin Galaxies.

The monumental decision comes just months after charges were brought against Mitchell, claiming that his high-score runs in Donkey Kong were achieved on an emulator, and not while playing on an original, unmodified, arcade cabinet motherboard. For scores to be verified and accepted by Twin Galaxies, all scores must be achieved on original hardware, and until very recently, it was believed that Mitchell had produced his scores legitimately. Frame-by-frame analysis of his gameplay footage, however, proves otherwise.

Basically, it comes down to this: When a Donkey Kong stage loads up, the on-screen pixels, objects, and art appear in a certain order, and in a distinct manner. When playing the game on an emulator, when you slow the footage down, you can visibly see the stage assets load up differently. The footage that Mitchell submitted for his record scores was, apparently, judged to be fed from an emulator.

Typically, judges have to be present in-person to see watch competitors play through their record runs, but for some reason, Mitchell was allowed to send in footage of his Donkey Kong playthrough as proof of his achievement. A man named Jeremy Young noticed the discrepancies in his footage, and brought it to the attention of Twin Galaxies back in February. The following investigation has led to Mitchell's banishment from Twin Galaxies as a competitor.

“Based on the complete body of evidence presented in this official dispute thread," the company said in an official statement, "Twin Galaxies administrative staff has unanimously decided to remove all of Billy Mitchell’s’ scores as well as ban him from participating in our competitive leaderboards.”

The assumption behind all of this, of course, is that Mitchell would be able to manipulate gameplay to his advantage while using an emulator. Save states, alternate input methods, and other means could be leveraged to bring that high score within reach, though the investigation did not conclude whether save states were used to manipulate the game. All they needed to close this case was proof that the game was not running on original hardware.

“From a Twin Galaxies viewpoint, the only important thing to know is whether or not the score performances are from an unmodified original DK arcade PCB as per the competitive rules,” the organization stated. “We now believe that they are not from an original unmodified DK arcade PCB, and so our investigation of the tape content ends with that conclusion and assertion.”

Thus we reach the end of an era, and now, Mitchell's long-time rival Steve Wiebe is recognized as the first man to score a million points in Donkey Kong. For more information on their rivalry, and Mitchell's legacy, you can check out the documentary King of Kong.



Posted: Apr 12, 2018 10:11 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: http://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/04/12/billy-mitchell-high-score-banned-donkey-kong-twin-galaxies/