Guinness World Records Reinstates Pac-Man And Donkey Kong Records

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Guinness World Records has reinstated five records set by Billy Mitchell, which had previously been disqualified due to belief they had been achieved on an emulator. "In the light of compelling new evidence received by Guinness World Records, the Records Management Team has unanimously decided to reverse decisions made in April 2018 in regards to video game high scores achieved by Billy Mitchell between 1982 and 2010," Guinness World Records said in a statement. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2015/07/04/history-of-awesome-pac-man"] In a video statement, Guinness World Records’ editor-in-chief, Craig Glenday, explained that the new evidence comes in the form of new eyewitness accounts, expert gameplay analysis, and hardware verification. The team’s conclusion was that the evidence did not support the conclusions made in April 2018 that Mitchell had achieved his records using emulation instead of arcade machines. As such, all five records have been restored. Those five records are:

• Highest score on Donkey Kong - 874,300 Points - November 7, 1982
• First Perfect Score on Pac-Man - 3,333,360 Points - July 3, 1999
• Highest score on Donkey Kong - 1,047,200 Points - June 4, 2005
• Highest score on Donkey Kong - 1,050,200 Points - July 14, 2007
• Highest score on Donkey Kong - 1,062,800 Points - July 31, 2010

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2018/04/16/billy-mitchell-responds-to-having-records-stripped"] Mitchell is famously known as one of the players in cult gaming documentary The King of Kong, in which rival player Steve Wiebe attempted to beat his score. In 2018, Twin Galaxies - the company partnered with Guinness World Records to aid in the adjudication of video game records - deemed a set of score tapes submitted by Mitchell as not being set on “unmodified original DK arcade PCB as per the competitive rules”, which led to the disqualification of his records. The following year, Mitchell filed a lawsuit against Twin Galaxies for defamation. For more on classic games, check out how Pac-Man celebrated its 40th anniversary earlier this year and what makes Pac-Man such an icon. And for DK, check out this Donkey Kong speedrun that finishes the game in one minute. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter.

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