Twin Galaxies Statement

Twin Galaxies Editorial Staff,

January 16, 2024 5:00 PM

A Statement From Twin Galaxies:

Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong score performances of 1,047,200 (the King of Kong Score), 1,050,200 (the Mortgage Brokers score), and 1,062,800 (the Boomers score) were originally accepted and posted as record performances by Twin Galaxies based upon either video tape submission, live referee verification, or a combination of video tape submission and live referee verification.

On February 2, 2018, Twin Galaxies Adjudication began investigating a dispute claim filed by a community member asserting that these performances were not generated by unmodified original Donkey Kong arcade hardware as required by the leaderboard rules.

On April 12, 2018, Twin Galaxies removed all of Mr. Mitchell’s scores and banned Mr. Mitchell from competing on Twin Galaxies’ competitive leaderboards. This was centered upon a technical basis of what Twin Galaxies believed to be a demonstrated impossibility of original, unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware to produce images shown in the videotaped recordings of some of the disputed adjudicated performances. The basis for this decision was an independent investigation by Twin Galaxies, supported by a series of detailed submissions, experiments, and analyses by Twin Galaxies and from the Twin Galaxies community, each with varying degrees of technical expertise and access to equipment.

Recently, on behalf of Mr. Mitchell, Dr. Michael Zyda, an individual who holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer and Information Science from University of California, San Diego, a Master’s of Science in Computer and Information Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Doctorate of Science from the University of Washington School of Engineering, and who has been qualified as an expert by California and federal courts, concluded that the game play on the subject tapes could in fact depict play on original unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware if the hardware involved was malfunctioning likely due to degradation of components.

Twin Galaxies is committed to ensuring fairness for all parties and to allow and consider any new information that becomes available. In addition, Twin Galaxies seeks to disclose all and any evidence so that individuals can form their own judgments. To this end, Twin Galaxies openly and publicly takes note of Dr. Zyda’s expressed expert opinion in regard to providing a method by which the videotape content in question might have been produced.

Twin Galaxies' mandate is to verify that submissions meet verification guidelines, not to investigate how they are produced. This latter area remains available to experts such as Dr. Zyda and other interested parties, who may examine and assess these matters for their individual purposes. Twin Galaxies takes no official stance on the creation of submitted content but can recognize and acknowledge Dr. Zyda's expert opinion.

In fair consideration of the expert opinion provided by Dr. Zyda on behalf of Mr. Mitchell, and consistent with Twin Galaxies' dedication to the meticulous documentation and preservation of video game score history, Twin Galaxies shall heretofore reinstate all of Mr. Mitchell’s scores as part of the official historical database on Twin Galaxies’ website.

Additionally, upon closing of the matter, Twin Galaxies shall permanently archive and remove from online display the dispute thread titled “Dispute: xelnia - Arcade - Donkey Kong - Points [Hammer Allowed] - Player: Billy L Mitchell - Score: 1,062,800” located on the TwinGalaxies.com website, as well as all related statements and articles.



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