Billy Mitchell responds: ‘We will show ... everything was done according to the rules’

Billy Mitchell, whose entire playing record — including what was the first million-point game in Donkey Kong history — was thrown out on Thursday, issued a statement today in which he vowed that a full explanation for his questioned performances will be given soon.

Mitchell, speaking at the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee, said the following to Old School Gamer Magazine. Mitchell is a member of that publication’s advisory board.

The fact of the matter is, now, there is a true professional due diligence being done to investigate things that happened as far as 35 years ago, in a professional manner, not in a shock-jock mentality designed to create hits.

We will show that everything that has been done, everything was done professionally, according to the rules, according to the scoreboard, the integrity that was set up. Not 2014 forward by the current regime, who wants to reach back 35 years.

Everything will be transparent, everything will be available, I wish I had it in my hands right now, I wish I could hand it to you. But its taken a considerable amount of time, witnesses, documents, everything, everything will be made available to you, nothing will be withheld.

Three of Mitchell’s Donkey Kong performances, all one million points or more, had been under suspicion within the Donkey Kong high score community for some time. They were formally challenged in February under a new score dispute process instituted by Twin Galaxies, the longtime high score authority whose history is nearly as old as Mitchell’s competitive career.

Twin Galaxies found that Mitchell had not earned his scores on an unaltered, original arcade cabinet motherboard, per Twin Galaxies’ submission requirements for the category. Not only did it invalidate Mitchell’s Donkey Kong marks, it threw out every high score previously listed there (including the first “perfect game” of Pac-Man) and banned him from further participation in their leaderboards.