Howdy Sanji! I hate to say, it's a rather meaty topic, and (between the history, the score dispute, and the lawsuit) will probably be hard to give more than a surface overview in an hour. Sock already did a great run-down of how using MAME and passing it off as arcade must be treated as cheating, but I'll summarize some of the other stuff.
One important point to add to what Sock said is that Donkey Kong has what's called a "kill screen". Because of programming limitations, when you get to the 117th screen, your game ends. Thus, the world record isn't about trying to marathon the game for hours and days on end, but rather squeezing every bit of points one can along the way.
In the early 2000s, Billy started spreading word that he had a major gaming stunt on the way. See, for instance, the end of this MTV interview:
So Billy had some big gaming feat in store! Problem is, along came Steve Wiebe who, as seen in King of Kong, challenged Billy for DK supremacy. Perhaps Wiebe's rise threatened Billy's big plan? After Wiebe came on the scene, out came these "direct feed" Donkey Kong tapes from Billy, claimed to have been recorded by hooking equipment directly to an arcade cabinet's video output. Each has a different story associated with it. Two of these scores in particular had "live" events with "witnesses", although the stories around those events have not stood up to scrutiny. There was continuing competition between Billy and Wiebe, and newcomers like Hank Chien, but while Hank's and Steve's scores were obviously authentic, Billy kept relying on these mysterious "direct feed" tapes, which were always just a little higher than his competitor.
In 2011, they started having DK tournaments called the "Kong Off". Billy's poor showings in those live events (compared to his taped records, which he claimed to have done on his first or second attempts of the day) were major red flags, along with some other circumstantial evidence pointing to shenanigans. Nothing was conclusive, until in early 2018 people took a closer look at how MAME (an emulator) draws screens differently than arcade does.
Turns out, Billy's tapes didn't match arcade, and were a perfect match for MAME! Several MAME identifiers are seen throughout Billy's tapes, and a few possible arcade identifiers are never seen.
The score dispute went on for about two months in early 2018, over at the Twin Galaxies website. (Actually, it was open longer than that, but it languished until the MAME evidence was published in February.) Billy had an opportunity to present a defense, and he did have some people volunteering on his behalf, but he did very little himself. TG tested DK equipment, as did an independent party named Chris Gleed, and they determined the MAME screens could not be produced by genuine arcade.
Billy's own tech, Carlos Pineiro, came to the same conclusion. Billy was also unable (or unwilling) to directly answer questions.
TG ruled on the evidence, and took down Billy's scores and banned him. Guinness, who got their gaming info from TG, followed suit.
Billy started doing a PR tour, streaming on Twitch, and doing a "Road to Redemption" panel at SFGE. His big story was that a guy named Dwayne Richard edited the tapes to frame him. (How Dwayne was supposedly able to edit single frames of a VHS tape, or how he knew about these minute MAME differences, or why he would do this and then never tell anyone, Billy never explains.) As ridiculous as this theory was,
in February 2019, an old MTV interview was discovered where TG ref Robert Mruczek shows off Billy's recently submitted tape. In the video, you see some of the same MAME signatures, which Billy was claiming were added by Dwayne years later. Billy never responded to this evidence, and basically pretended it never existed. (He even accused Mruczek of stealing that tape! Though that was later debunked as well.) Billy also streamed DK on Twitch around this time. He claims to have redone each of the contested scores exactly on the nose,
but that is a flat out lie.In September 2019, Billy submitted a legal threat along with an evidence packet, full of (to be frank) nonsense, bad faith arguments, and witness statements from his friends who swear they saw him do these scores on real equipment (even though the story is that none of them had access to the equipment inside the cabinet). The people who followed the dispute closely were not swayed, and Twin Galaxies did not change their ruling. However, this packet was also submitted to Guinness, who had since severed their ties with TG. Months later,
Guinness chose to reinstate Billy's scores (despite some hilarious contradictions in Billy's claims), citing unspecified evidence (just broad things like "witness statements"), and suggesting the matter is in dispute. (Whether Billy's threat of lawsuit had anything to do with it, we can't say for sure.)
Earlier this year, Billy filed an actual lawsuit against Twin Galaxies for defamation. This lawsuit was full of the same poor attempts at evidence as his September 2019 evidence packet, as well as attempts to paint TG's current owner Jace Hall as unreasonable and acting with malice (something which Billy will have to establish for defamation, as he is a public figure). The ins and outs of what's being argued would take a while to sort out in detail.
Here's a taste of some of it. Twin Galaxies also made
many of the early filings available here.In late October, the court ruled on two big motions in this case. First, TG had filed an "anti-SLAPP" motion (based on a law which allows frivolous cases to get tossed out of court). Part of the rules for this is that, for ruling on anti-SLAPP, the plaintiff's (Billy's) case has to be considered in the best possible light. Even if Billy lies through his teeth - which is what he did - those lies have to be taken at face value when ruling on anti-SLAPP, and those lies and the evidence around them can then be hashed out later on. The court ruled against TG on anti-SLAPP, allowing Billy's case to proceed. On the other end, TG moved for the court to require Billy to pay an "undertaking" - basically, a deposit that will be used if TG later wins and is awarded legal fees. This was awarded based on the fact that Billy is out of state (he lives in Florida and the suit is in California), and that TG was found to be likely to prevail in this case in the end. The court granted the entire amount TG requested as an undertaking, which I'm told is rare.
I wrote about these rulings here.The counter-lawsuit, which made news recently thanks to
this great video by Karl Jobst, was filed recently by TG. Basically, TG is alleging that Billy, along with Twin Galaxies' founder Walter Day, conspired to artificially inflate Billy's achievements, to promote his scores they knew were fake, and to suppress scores of his competitors, all to inflate TG's value for eventual resale. In other words, Billy and Walter knowingly sought out to defraud Jace Hall in their sale of TG to him. I would say the evidence supports this conclusion, but I'd leave you to make your own conclusion. Also, a number of other things are alleged in the lawsuit, including that Walter Day and Billy Mitchell interfered with Guinness' relationship with Jace's Twin Galaxies in order to punish TG for its ruling in Billy's score dispute. If you want more about the counter-suit, I did a write-up..... Oh wait, that's what this thread right here is. Scroll up for that. Anyway, the most recent news is that TG appealed the court's anti-SLAPP ruling (which means this case could still get tossed), but that appeal means the counter-suit is temporarily on hold.
If you want to know more about the actual evidence against Billy,
I maintain a long write-up here. I know, it's pretty long, but that's because there's a lot to go through. Most of the other questions you might have will probably be answered there.
