Guinness World Records reinstated retro video game legend Billy Mitchell's world record scores in classic arcade games such as Donkey Kong and Pac-Man.
Billy Mitchell set the record for the first perfect score in Pac-Man back in 1999 and for the first person to reach one million points in Donkey Kong in 2005. The records came under scrutiny in 2018 when Twin Galaxies International Scoreboard concluded that the records were not legitimate scores after undergoing an investigation. It concluded that the record for Donkey Kong was achieved on modified hardware, rendering the score illegitimate. Twin Galaxies partnered with Guinness to verify the video game records.
The decision by Guinness to reinstate the records comes just over two years after the decision to expunge his records from their database, a move that prompted Billy Mitchell to sue Twin Galaxies. The original decision was based heavily on video evidence by Twin Galaxies which showed apparent signs of emulator use. Twin Galaxies remains behind its decision to revoke Billy Mitchell's records, resulting in a split from Guinness.
The decision by Guinness to reinstate Mitchell's records came as a result of an appeal by Mitchell, leading to a new investigation by Guinness using existing evidence and new eyewitness testimony. Guinness concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prove with sufficient certainty that Mitchell's performance was illegitimate.
Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday explained the process, saying that they "reexamined the evidence. This involved reviewing both the existing evidence, and newly-sourced eyewitness testimony, plus some new expert gameplay analyzes and hardware verification. In the end we found there just wasn't sufficient evidence to support the disqualification across the board." In such cases where evidence is insufficient to justify a disqualification, the original adjudication is withheld, resulting in Mitchell's records being restored.
A large component in reversing the decision came from the analysis of Robbie Lakeman, who currently holds the record for highest score in Donkey Kong. Lakeman claimed that after reviewing the video evidence originally used by Twin Galaxies and reproducing similar gameplay himself, he found no reason to suspect that Mitchell's performances were illegitimate.
(Via Ars Technica.)