Billy Mitchell Threatens To Sue Guinness & Twin Galaxies

Billy Mitchell is back in the headlines again and, as you might expect, its for reasons that are more than a little unusual. If you are, incidentally, not aware of who this man is then that is no fault of your own. It’s a name largely only known by those who have some knowledge of classic arcade game high scores. Trust me though, once you learn a little about this guy, you’re going to want to find out more!

Put simply, however, he has largely traded over the last 25 years on the two main achievements he is associated with. Namely; being the first person to get a recorded ‘perfect game’ in Pac-Man and also being the former high score record holder in Donkey Kong.

The Controversy Begins

He did, however, shoot to notoriety early in 2018 when all of his recorded high scores were removed from gaming website Twin Galaxies. The removals were made over allegations that he had used an emulator to achieve the scores. This, despite him claiming he used a legitimate arcade system. While this might sound rather minor and insignificant, such things are taken very seriously by the competitive gaming community.

After a lot of extensive studies (including one that Billy Mitchell himself had commissioned), it was concluded (although not categorically) that he likely had used emulated software. As such, based on the perceived misrepresentation of his submission, his records were removed by Twin Galaxies and the Guinness Book of World Records.

Since then, Billy Mitchell has been on a ‘road to redemption’ to prove that he did legitimately produce those high-scores. In fairness, he has produced a lot of videos since confirming that he is capable of the records he originally submitted. One of which you can see below.

Following a legal document submission, however, things have kicked up into a new gear. Billy Mitchell, via his attorney, is officially threatening both Twin Galaxies and the Guinness Book of World Records with legal action unless they retract what he feels were defamatory comments about him. Does he have a legitimate point though?

What Do We Think?

I am no legal expert. As such, I can’t honestly make any kind of judgment as to whether this potential case has any merit. It does seem that for the moment at least, Twin Galaxies is treating this threat with some skepticism. In fairness, although I don’t profess to have seen every comment they have made on the subject, I have yet to find anything beyond the removal of his scores that could be considered ‘defamatory’. Even then, as above, they clearly felt that had a legitimate reason to do this.

Billy Mitchell, however, is no stranger to unusual legal action. He once sued Cartoon Network over an episode of ‘Regular Show’. One in which he felt the character ‘Garrett Bobby Ferguson’ misappropriated his likeness. It was, incidentally, an episode surrounding Mordecai and Rigby beating his high score in ‘Broken Bones’. He lost that case.

It will, however, be interesting to see where they (all) go from here. I do, however, suspect that this legal threat might be mostly bark rather than bite.

You can, incidentally, read Billy Mitchell’s full ‘Evidence Package’ via the link here!

What do you think? Do you think his legal threat has merit? – Let us know in the comments!