Billy Mitchell, once known as the King Of Kong due to his record-setting Donkey Kong skills, is facing the loss of his title for suspicions of cheating. Record-keeping site Twin Galaxies announced today that Mitchell's high scores are to be immediately removed and Mitchell himself banned from all future entries in the leaderboards. This is a heavy blow to Mitchell, who has been facing allegations of cheating since February, as the Guinness World Records tends to reference Twin Galaxies for its game-related records. With Twin Galaxies' decision, the king might have just lost his crown.

After a heavily-detailed allegation against Mitchell made the rounds, Twin Galaxies has been investigating his scores. In its final decision, available here, Twin Galaxies agrees with the claims that Mitchell achieved his high scores on an emulator of Donkey Kong instead of an actual arcade cabinet. This is in clear violation of the site's rule that "...submitting scores for the original arcade Donkey Kong competitive leaderboards requires the use of original arcade hardware only."

via: twitter.com/socceracad

The post that brought this scandal to light claimed that Mitchell used an emulator known as Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) to achieve his best scores. The evidence comes from Mitchell's old videos of his highest-scoring games, taken decades before Twitch or Youtube were a thing. In the videos, the accuser states, the Donkey Kong game seems to load in way that's more indicative of a computer than an arcade cabinet. The only conclusion one can draw, then, is that Mitchell was using an emulator.

Twin Galaxies does note that Mitchell got someone to investigate the claims on his behalf  "utilizing whatever original equipment Billy could provide, whose final finding was consistent with Twin Galaxies investigation and others." With that source and other 3rd parties assisting the investigation, the results unanimously found that Mitchell did indeed use a MAME emulator.

via: twitter.com/BillyPacman

Mitchell's take on this is... well, he hasn't actually commented. His official Twitter page now simply states "Official Twitter of Billy Mitchell, Pacman Champion" with a Pac-Man cover photo. As for his actual tweets, they are all retweets of his public appearances, interviews, and fans interacting with him. If he's at all torn up about this scandal, he certainly isn't showing it. Maybe someone should start looking into his Pac-Man achievements...