Forensic Analysts Accuse Billy Mitchell of Cheating for Donkey Kong Record

A new forensic analysis of controversial Donkey Kong world records claims those records were scored on an emulator and not on original hardware, essentially accusing the record holder of cheating. From a report: The controversy revolves around Billy Mitchell, a well-known player who holds several records on classic arcade games such as Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, and the main character in the documentary King of Kong. For years, some people in the retro arcade game community have accused Mitchell of lying about his Donkey Kong records, prompting Twin Galaxies, an arcade game community that keeps track of high scores (among other things) and the Guinness World Records to strip Mitchell of its recognition, though the organization later reversed its decision. The new technical analysis focuses on Mitchell's Donkey Kong records of 1,047,200 and 1,050,200 points. The author of the analysis is Tanner Fokkens, a hardware engineer and a competitive Donkey Kong player. His report was backed by five other experts. The crux of the controversy and accusations against Mitchell is that he claimed to have scored those records on original Donkey Kong arcade hardware, while his critics accused him of using MAME, an emulator that is recognized as a legitimate way to play the game, but records scored on these two different platforms are recognized as two different categories of records. "MAME scores which are passed off as coming from original arcade are disqualified," Fokkens wrote in his report.

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