Billy "Video Game Player of the Century" Mitchell has been vindicated. Today, Guinness World Records reinstated the Donkey Kong and Pac-Man records that were stripped from Mitchell in 2018. Once again, Mitchell holds the first perfect score on Pac-Man and several records for the highest score on Donkey Kong. He has also redeemed recognition as the first player to reach the kill screen on Donkey Kong and the first gamer to score one million points on Donkey Kong. Mitchell, also known as the "King of Kong," had his records expunged by Guinness and Twin Galaxies after an investigation alleged some of his performances on Donkey Kong were not reached on arcade hardware.

Arcade expert and hot sauce mogul Billy Mitchell made a name for himself by earning record-breaking scores in games like Pac-Man and BurgerTime. Two years ago, de facto scorekeeper Twin Galaxies stripped Mitchell of his Donkey Kong records after concluding that his most recent score was not achieved on authentic arcade hardware. Mitchell refuted this, and in September of 2019, the gamer and his lawyer announced they'd be taking Twin Galaxies to court, after claiming that the company had defamed his name. According to Ars Technica, Mitchell had, in fact, already filed suit in April of 2019, as to avoid California's statute of limitations running its course. The case was served to Twin Galaxies this February, and a hearing will be held in July.

Billy Mitchell poses for the media in Ottumwa, Iowa, in 2009. Billy Mitchell poses for the media in Ottumwa, Iowa, in 2009. Billy Mitchell has broken his silence. The longtime Donkey Kong champ, never one to stay quiet long, pushed back Sunday against official scorekeepers' decisions last week to strip him of his best-known video game records. Twin Galaxies, the organization that tracks such records, disqualified his high scores and banned him from competition after an investigation turned up evidence that several of his Donkey Kong scores were set on inappropriate hardware.

When Twin Galaxies announced it'd stripped Billy "King of Kong" Mitchell's high scores from its forums yesterday, the gaming record-keeping outfit said it'd notified Guinness World Records of such. Today, Kotaku reports that Guinness will strip all of Mitchell's forged video game high scores including entries for Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong Jr. from its ledger as well. Guinness used Twin Galaxies as its source of verification, according to Kotaku. The outfit said it will begin looking for the deserving record-holder for the now-vacant Pac-Man high score and perfect score in the next few days, because like Twin Galaxies, Guinness no longer trusts anything that Mitchell has submitted in the past. Thankfully, it looks like we can finally put this whole mess behind us.