Donkey Kong ace stripped of standing
Twin Galaxies removes Billy Mitchell's high score and bans him after an investigation.
- She has a master's degree in journalism from Syracuse University.
Billy Mitchell had been the first to reach a 1 million point score in Donkey Kong.
There's a new Donkey Kong king.
After a review by Twin Galaxies, an organization that tracks world gaming records, gamer Billy Mitchell lost his high score for not only Donkey Kong but several other video games.
"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," Twin Galaxies said Thursday in a statement.
Mitchell had been the first million-point Donkey Kong record holder, but concerns were raised in February about whether he reached that score on an arcade machine, as required for Twin Galaxies' leaderboards. The statement also mentioned Twin Galaxies would notify the "Guinness Book of World Records."
Mitchell's standing now belongs to Steve Wiebe.
In a video statement posted to YouTube Sunday, Mitchell said "everything was done professionally, according to the rules, according to the scoreboard and the integrity that was set up." He went on to say he intends to produce witnesses and documents on the matter.
First published April 12 at 7:06 a.m. PT.
Update April 16 at 11:17 a.m. PT: Adds Billy Mitchell statement.