In 2007, the Donkey Kong rivalry between Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe was immortalized in The King of Kong documentary. The film chronicled Wiebe’s attempt to break Mitchell’s Donkey Kong world records, but he was seemingly thwarted at every turn by Mitchell, who was portrayed as a natural villain. Over a decade later, Mitchell’s tactics have seemingly caught up to him and his world records have been invalidated by Twin Galaxies, the leading tracker of video game high scores.
According to Variety, Twin Galaxies has determined that Mitchell’s video of his first million point Donkey Kong run was not from an original arcade motherboard. Members of Donkey Kong Forum had previously made a strong case that Mitchell’s recording came from an emulated version of Donkey Kong, and stripped Mitchell of his Donkey Kong scores in February. Now, Twin Galaxies has gone a step further by removing all of Mitchell’s high scores and banning him from competition. This effectively ends his career in competitive gaming.
Mitchell has yet to make a public statement about Twin Galaxies’ announcement, but Wiebe has now been officially recognized as the first player in the world to achieve a million point game in Donkey Kong. Wiebe and Mitchell’s records have long since fallen to other competitive Donkey Kong players, but Twin Galaxy’s decision does offer Wiebe additional validation for his accomplishments.
The records set by Mitchell had also been recognized by Guinness Book of World records, and it remains to be seen if he will be stripped of his high scores by that organization as well.
What do you think about the fall of Mitchell’s Donkey Kong scores? Avoid the barrels and leave us a comment below!
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