Billy Mitchell finally responded to the "Donkey Kong" cheating allegations against him. Mitchell emphasized that he is not knowledgeable in technology and that he does not know how to utilize the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) he was accused of using to record his scores.
In an exclusive conference call with GameSpot, together with "Donkey Kong" community's annual Kong-Off organizer Richie Knucklez, Mitchell finally broke his silence. He said that competitive games are important to him and although he had refused to talk at first, he was compelled to give his side since his friends are now being affected and are being called liars.
His response was made following Jeremy "Xelnia" Young's accusation that three of Mitchell's scores (1.04M, 1.05M and 1.06M) in the game were captured on a Personal Computer (PC) running MAME, which players can cheat. Young and those who have been questioning Mitchell's scores accuse him of cheating after seeing the difference in the way the image load when they ran the game on an arcade machine versus on MAME. Mitchell said that the possible reason why the way the image load was different was that he used a direct feed that took its signal straight off the arcade's board rather than from the monitor.
Mitchell's goal to clear his name, and consequently that of his friends, is to find the original tapes of the scores' direct feeds, which he believed Twin Galaxies has. Mitchell also said that he believed there is another tape wherein he will be seen playing the game in front of the audience. Meanwhile, Mitchell's 1.04M and 1.05M original tapes were uploaded to YouTube before sending them to Twin Galaxies by Dwayne Richard who Knucklez said had been a critic of Mitchell. Knucklez also said that a former Twin Galaxies referee whom according to Richard in his letter to Twin Galaxies was one of the recipients of the original tape told him that he will be sending the tape in support of Mitchell. At the end of the call, Mitchell became emotional as he wondered how he had been accused of cheating when his records were accomplished in front of an audience — people from Twin Galaxies included.
At the moment, Twin Galaxies is still investigating the matter, tracking down the tapes to prove the validity of Mitchell's scores.
