Billy Mitchell to challenge his Donkey Kong ban in court

The fallen king of Kong is taking high score organisation Twin Galaxies to court after his scores were struck from the record.

As we reported back in 2018, prominent gamer Billy Mitchell was stripped of his various records by Twin Galaxies after it was decided he had achieved his scores on emulated software and not official arcade boards.

Mitchell was already a well-known member of the gaming community due to his high score chasing over the years, although he shot to greater prominence after his antagonistic presence in the documentary King of Kong. Years after his appearance in Steve Wiebe's interpretation of events, Mitchell was stripped of his records after a lengthy investigation by high score website Twin Galaxies, whose owner Jason Hall has since claimed it to be "the most professionally documented and thoroughly investigated video game score of all time." The full statement from back in 2018 can be found here if you want to know more.

Mitchell has now responded to those claims. In fact, he did so last year, but those court documents only recently came to light thanks to the good folks over at ArsTechnica, which is where Mitchell confirmed the coming legal action and argued his side of events.

In short, Mitchell is suing for defamation, and his argument is that anyone who read Twin Galaxies statement at the time and saw their decision play out could only assume him to be a cheat (despite the site making sure that they didn't use such specific terminology), which he denies.

Twin Galaxies didn't offer a more recent comment, but their legal position has been laid out here. Their argument is that they were expressing nothing more than an opinion and that interpreting it otherwise "would have chilling effects on the freedom of speech."

Mitchell's argument is focused on his position that the result of the investigation by Twin Galaxies was "pre-ordained", but he's also unhappy that eyewitness accounts have been ruled out in favour of different evidence that seems to indicate his guilt.

"The most cursory unbiased investigation would have revealed beyond doubt that the record-breaking Donkey Kong scores were not played on emulation software in private places but were actually played on certified arcade boards in front of hundreds of people," Mitchell argued.

Assuming it's not called off, the court is due to hear more about this complaint on July 6, when Twin Galaxies presents its anti-SLAPP motion, a motion intended to dismiss the case before it goes further through the courts.