Twin Galaxies restores Billy Mitchell’s scores following legal settlement

Enlarge / Billy Mitchell (left) and Twin Galaxies owner Jace Hall (center) attend an event at the Arcade Expo 2015 in Banning, California. (credit: Datagod / TwinGalaxies forums)

The long, drawn-out legal fight between famed high-score chaser Billy Mitchell and “International Scoreboard” Twin Galaxies appears to be over. Twin Galaxies announced Tuesday morning that it “shall heretofore reinstate all of Mr. Mitchell’s scores as part of the official historical database on Twin Galaxies’ website.”

The statement comes days after Courthouse News reported that Mitchell and Twin Galaxies had reached a confidential settlement in a defamation case surrounding Mitchell’s 2018 removal from the Twin Galaxies scoreboard.

In its statement, Twin Galaxies relies on recent testimony from Dr. Michael Zayda, who was presented as an expert at the trial. Zayda’s testimony concluded that Mitchell’s submitted gameplay “could in fact depict play on original unmodified Donkey Kong arcade hardware if the hardware involved was malfunctioning, likely due to degradation of components.”