Title is misleading. Twin Galaxies hasn't reinstated Billy's scores as legitimate high scores on their current record table.<p>Instead, they have created an archived record table as the scores were before ownership changed hands to Jace Hall. They've essentially created a mini wayback machine. The archived table is not the default when you visit their website, you have to manually change to it.<p>I don't agree with dropping the counterclaim against Billy, considering how much he cost TG in legal fees for a frivolous lawsuit, but hopefully he still gets some pain from his Karl Jobst lawsuit.
There's a very long expose on the entire Billy Mitchell cheating scandal that's been unfolding over the last several years by Veritas. Worth a watch if you're interested in how his cheating and usage of MAME was first uncovered.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PySD_FiEl5c" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PySD_FiEl5c</a>
As Guinness World Records is little more than an advertising agency, their reinstatement of his records doesn't hold much weight for me.<p>Edit: before downvoting, give this a read: <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/3/6/8157639/guinness-world-record-business" rel="nofollow">https://www.vox.com/2015/3/6/8157639/guinness-world-record-b...</a> or <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/20/552203402/episode-795-is-record-breaking-broken" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/20/552203402/epis...</a>
YouTube fellow Karl Jobst has a number of videos chronicling this saga. He also happens to be involved in legal action with Mitchell which he claims is more likely to go to trial.
It's absolutely insane to me that this grown man has fought tooth and nail to protect his status as a high-scorer (or the overall best high score ever) for a video game from the 80s that nobody cares about.<p>The drama around it is the only interesting thing about it.
<a href="https://perfectpacman.com/" rel="nofollow">https://perfectpacman.com/</a><p>This site has many long, detailed analyses of Mitchell's scores and conduct for his records in Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Pac-Man. While the DK records are more popular, Mitchell previously owned the perfectpacman.com domain and has made several claims about his Pac-Man scores and whether Namco gave him an additional award. The site includes extensive commentary on his lawsuits with links to filings. It also includes descriptions of financial transactions between Mitchell, Twin Galaxies, and related parties over the years. (Sorry to be vague, I'm not interested in getting sued for attempting to accurately summarize events. It's a shame that Ars Technica, which presumably has a legal budget, doesn't do a better job reporting.)
I remember watching the king of Kong documentary. Was pretty good. Will say that after reading the article I am slightly perplexed. Billy sued because Twin galaxies was presented with a photo of him using a different joy stick? Basically saying he didn't play on a stock system, so he sued for libel, didn't win or lose and just settled?
<i>In its statement, Twin Galaxies cites recent testimony from Dr. Michael Zyda, who was presented as an expert at the trial. Zayda's testimony concluded that Mitchell's submitted gameplay "could in fact depict play on original unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware if the hardware involved was malfunctioning, likely due to degradation of components.”</i>
TG put up a historical record of the scores before it changed ownership, Billy’s scores are in that one, not currently updated high score tables.<p>The real “victory” for him is getting the dispute thread deleted from the forum (and obv not having to pay for lawyers during a trial that imo he was going lose)
>Zayda's testimony concluded that Mitchell's submitted gameplay "could in fact depict play on original unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware if the hardware involved was malfunctioning, likely due to degradation of components."<p>So either he cheated, or he was using malfunctioning hardware? Like that was his defense? Prick.
Billy has spent his entire life litigating anyone who calls out his blatant cheating, and spending an incredible amount of court resources to bully anyone who challenges him, it's disgusting.