On April 12, 2018, Twin Galaxies announced that an investigation conducted into Mitchell's submitted scores found conclusive evidence that Mitchell used an emulator for the footage of his two high scores. In particular, the footage of these two scores showed the game loading in a way that could not be reproduced on original hardware, but was visually identical to how the game loads when played on MAME.
[4] Twin Galaxies removed all of Mitchell's scores from their records and prohibited him from submitting scores in the future.
[31][32] Subsequently,
Guinness World Records released a statement that it would remove Mitchell's scores: "The Guinness World Records titles relating to Mr. Mitchell's highest scores on
Donkey Kong have all been disqualified due to Twin Galaxies being our source of verification for these achievements." The removal also includes Mitchell's
Pac-Man high score and first recorded perfect game: "Twin Galaxies was the original source of verification for these record titles and in line with their decision to remove all of Mr. Mitchell's records from their system, we have disqualified Mr. Mitchell as the holder of these two records."
[33]
Mitchell challenged these removals and threatened to sue both Twin Galaxies and Guinness if they did not restore his records.
[4][34] At the encouragement of his son, Mitchell used
Twitch to broadcast scores equal to his past records.
[4] The situation between Mitchell and Twin Galaxies also created tension between Mitchell and several of his friends and acquaintances in the video game community.
[4] In early 2019, Mitchell filed lawsuits against Twin Galaxies as well as Young and YouTuber Apollo Legend.
[35] After a judge ruled against Twin Galaxies' attempt to dismiss the case under California's anti-SLAPP laws, Twin Galaxies filed a counterclaim against Mitchell and Walter Day in late 2020, alleging that they defrauded Twin Galaxies's current owners by selling the site's assets with the knowledge that the database contained fake scores, thus reducing its reputation and therefore its monetary value.[36][37][38] In October 2021, a U.S. appeals court allowed Mitchell's suit against Twin Galaxies to proceed.[39]
Guinness World Records announced in June 2020 that after review, it could not find conclusive proof that Mitchell had used improper methods to achieve his high scores, and restored both Mitchell's Donkey Kong and Pac-Man records. Mitchell told
Ars Technica that Guinness had made the decision back in December 2019, but due to agreements related to prior legal actions he had against Guinness, they could not announce it until June 2020. Mitchell also said that his legal threats towards Guinness did not affect Guinness's decision to reinstate his records.
[6]