After getting his gaming world records reinstated after cheating allegations, Billy Mitchell has now won another defamation lawsuit.
To many, the name Billy Mitchell will just make you think of the EastEnders character. But those intimately familiar with the world of video game speedruns and high scores will recognise him as the pro gamer who earned the highest score ever in the Donkey Kong arcade game by Nintendo.
They’ll also be aware of the scandals surrounding him, particularly how he was accused of cheating and had his world record for Donkey Kong (alongside his perfect Pac-Man score) redacted by Guinness World Records and Twin Galaxies, prompting Mitchell to accuse both organisations of defamation.
Those issues have long since been cleared up, but Mitchell is also at the centre of another lawsuit involving an Australian YouTuber, and the court case has ended in Mitchell’s favour.
As reported by The Guardian, a Brisbane court concurred that YouTuber and speedrunner Karl Jobst had defamed Mitchell in a 2021 video titled ‘The Biggest Conmen In Video Game History Strike Again!’ and so has to pay him over $350,000 (around £271,000) in damages.
For context, Jobst’s video alleged that Mitchell had cheated to obtain his high scores and had ‘pursuing unmeritorious litigation’ against other individuals over the same cheating allegations.
This included a YouTuber by the name of Benjamin ‘Apollo Legend’ Smith, who committed suicide in December 2020. Jobst made the damning accusation that Mitchell’s lawsuit contributed to this, going as far to say that Mitchell ‘hounded Apollo Legend to death.’
The video was later taken down and reuploaded with alterations to Jobst’s allegations against Mitchell. However, judge Ken Barlow still ruled that Jobst had made five defamatory imputations about Mitchell, which included a false assertion that Smith had to pay Mitchell ‘a large sum of money.’
While Barlow did acknowledge that Mitchell had a reputation for suing those who called him a cheater, the point of the case wasn’t to determine if Mitchell was guilty of cheating or not.
In the end, it was determined Jobst had damaged Mitchell’s reputation and caused distress. As such, the court awarded Mitchell $350,000 in damages, with Jobst needing to pay a further $40,000 in interest.
This comes more than a year after Mitchell reached a settlement with speedrunning website Twin Galaxies. Mitchell had sued it and Guinness World Records for defamation, after his records were rescinded.
While Guinness restored the records, Twin Galaxies countersued. A settlement was reached in January 2024, with Twin Galaxies restoring Mitchell’s scores to a historical database that serves as an archive, but not on the site’s main pages (per Ars Technica).
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