Former Donkey Kong record-holder Billy Mitchell sues Aussie YouTuber for $450k over cheating allegations

A professional gamer who held the world record score for arcade game Donkey Kong is suing a Brisbane YouTuber who accused him of cheating to get the high scores.

A professional gamer who formerly held the highest score in the world for Donkey Kong is suing an Australian YouTuber over accusations he cheated to achieve the arcade record.

American gaming icon William ‘Billy’ James Mitchell is seeking almost half a million dollars in defamation damages from Karl Jobst, after the Brisbane-based content creator and video game speedrunner outlined damning allegations Mr Mitchell cheated his way to the high scores.

The case is due to go to trial, with Brisbane District Court on Monday briefly being told five days was required in the court circuit.

William ‘Billy’ James Mitchell is suing a YouTuber who alleges he cheated to achieve his high score in the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong. Picture: Supplied / Instagram

Mr Mitchell is a former world record holder for the highest score in the classic arcade game Donkey Kong (pictured). Picture: Supplied / Nintendo

Mr Mitchell, a professional gamer based in Florida who has been inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame, is widely recognised for holding former world record scores for the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong.

He has alleged Mr Jobst defamed him through several statements he claims are untrue, including that Mr Mitchell was “publicly exposed as having cheated” to achieve the high scores.

The other statements Mr Mitchell says are untrue include him being banned from submitting scores to the video game database Twin Galaxies – which officiates high scores for classic video games – “for cheating”, that he had planned to create a video he could “fraudulently use as evidence” he achieved a score of 1,062,800 in Donkey Kong, and that he “callously expressed joy” at the thought of another YouTuber’s death.

The final statement Mr Mitchell claims is untrue is that he “uses litigation to force third parties to recognise his achievements in video gaming”.

It is alleged Mr Jobst aired the statements over YouTube.

Mr Jobst is defending the claim, relying on a statutory defence of contextual truth to the five statements Mr Mitchell alleges are false.

YouTuber Karl Jobst (pictured) is defending Mr Mitchell’s claim he was defamed over allegations he cheated to achieve his high score, among other statements. Picture: Supplied / YouTube

Mr Mitchell is seeking $450,000 in damages.

A further mention will take place after District Court Judge Michael Kent KC on Monday said there was difficulty with his availability for the pending trial.

Michael De Waard, Mr Jobst’s barrister, confirmed the trial was still listed for five days.

The civil case has tracked progressively through the courts since 2021, with Mr Mitchell being ordered to stump another $15,000 in security for Mr Jobst’s legal costs in 2022 – in addition to another $50,000 he placed into his solicitor’s trust account in November 2021.

Last year Mr Jobst’s legal team attempted to have paragraph’s of Mr Mitchell’s Further Amended Statement of Claim struck out over concerns the statement would “prejudice or delay the fair trial of a proceeding”.

But Judge Kent denied this, instead ordering Mr Mitchell’s team to provide further and better particulars of the statement of claim.

“Apart from many of the issues simply not being egregious and being more in the nature of further particulars or simply greater precision and consistency of language, there is also the consideration of the efficient, expedient and co-operative conduct of litigation, avoiding undue delay, expense and technicality and facilitating the purpose of the rules,” his judgment states.

Separately, Mr Mitchell sued Twin Galaxies in the US for defamation after the organisation suspended his records and banned him from competing on their competitive leaderboards in 2018.

In a statement, Twin Galaxies said they had determined Mr Mitchell could not have achieved his Donkey Kong records on “original, unmodified arcade” hardware.

“The basis for this decision was an independent investigation by Twin Galaxies, supported by a series of detailed submissions, experiments, and analyses by Twin Galaxies and from the Twin Galaxies community, each with varying degrees of technical expertise and access to equipment,” the statement continued.

One statement Mr Mitchell claims is untrue is that he planned to create a video he could “fraudulently” use as evidence he achieved a score of 1,062,800 in Donkey Kong (pictured). Picture: Supplied

The parties settled in January this year.

Mr Mitchell’s scores were reinstated but in the same statement Twin Galaxies clarified the scores were only restored on their “official historical database” of their website.

Mr Mitchell rose to prominence through the video game scene in the 1980s and 1990s for his high scores in Donkey Kong, Pac Man and Burger Time, among others.

He was featured in the highly praised 2007 documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, which detailed the competition between himself and fellow gamer Steve Wiebe to achieve the world record for Donkey Kong.

Mr Jobst boasts more than a million subscribers on his YouTube channel where he is known for his investigative work on cheating and fraud allegations in the gaming community.

He set his own speedrunning world record for the Nintendo 64 game Goldeneye 007 after finishing the first level Dam in just 52 seconds.

Originally published as Former Donkey Kong record-holder Billy Mitchell sues Aussie YouTuber for $450k over cheating allegations