Earlier today, famed King of Kong Billy Mitchell was accused of being a cheater in a 2010 record on Donkey Kong. This evidence was laid out by Jeremy Xelnia Young, comprehensively, on both Twin Galaxies and Donkey Kong Forums.
Judges under Donkey Kong Forums have since removed Mitchells scores from their database, but Twin Galaxies is taking all precautions into consideration. Young opened up a dispute utilizing the Twin Galaxies Dispute System on August 28th, 2017. Initially, forum members had discussed it and it petered out by the end of November.
(Editors Note: Twin Galaxies Editorial and the Adjudication Team are completely separate entities. Although the Editorial Team investigates on their own, the decision lies entirely on the Adjudication Team and is not influenced by Editorial.)
Back in January, Todd Rogers 35 year old record was cracked wide open with detailed analysis from Eric Omnigamer Koziel, an official statement from former Twin Galaxies referee Robert T Mruczek, and well as several other forms of legitimate evidence in the case. In the end, all of Rogers official records were scrubbed from the Twin Galaxies database and he was banned.
With the recent rulings on Todd Rogers, currently opened cases have been scrutinized and re-evaluated more heavily by the forum members. Young came back to the same thread today with a thorough analysis of why he believes Mitchell lied, including detailed pictures and captured gifs for comparison. Many websites misinterpreted the information that Twin Galaxies had made an official ruling on Mitchell, wrongly stating that Young was a TG judge and that it had been officially ruled, to the point that his name is trending on Twitter during publication of this post.
Accusations include that Mitchell was using MAME, an open source emulator, to obtain the score instead of a real Donkey Kong machine and that frames from his submission may have been spliced together. The score in question places him 12th place in this particular track at 1,062,800 points, behind Robbie Lakemans recent 1st place ranking at 1,230,100.
The Twin Galaxies Editorial team reached out to the Twin Galaxies Administration and Adjudication team for clarification and an official word on the matter.
Twin Galaxies, they said, is in the process of fully reviewing the compelling evidence provided by Jeremy Young to support his current score dispute case against Billy Mitchell's Donkey Kong score. We will do this thoroughly and impartially. In the meantime, we will continue to observe this discussion by experts in the community and will also examine any further evidence that may be provided during this review period.
So, there is no official ruling that has happened as of yet on the Twin Galaxies Scoreboards, but the matter is carefully being considered. As they did with the Todd Rogers case, they are likely putting this under the microscope, gathering all evidence, and thoroughly examining the validity of all information provided before reaching a decision. The Editorial team will continue to follow the story as it progresses.
Is anyone surprised? I mean, Twin Galaxies hasn't made an announcement one way or the other, but the evidence looks pretty damning. Also doesn't help that one of Billy's judges for one of his top scores, was banned last month. ---