A Deal Is Struck in a Long-Running Quarrel. Over Donkey Kong.

Back in the 1980s, it seemed as if everyone with a spare quarter was playing the arcade game Donkey Kong, scooting up ramps and climbing ladders while avoiding barrels hurled by a giant ape.

For most players, the video game provided a few minutes of excitement before inevitable defeat. But a handful of top players had the superhuman ability to rescue Pauline, the damsel in distress, over and over again, earning one of the high scores not just in their own arcade but in the whole world.

Now a settlement has been reached in a long-running disagreement over disputed world records set by the arcade gamer Billy Mitchell.

While the arcade boom of the 1980s faded, some gamers pressed on in their pursuit of high scores, often playing on their own machines in basements and garages, long after most gamers had moved on to personal computers and home consoles.

People not immersed in that world first had a chance to hear about Mr. Mitchell in the critically acclaimed 2007 documentary “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.” It told the story of Steve Wiebe and his quest to be recognized as the first person to reach a million points in the game, beating a record set by Mr. Mitchell years earlier.

Mr. Mitchell wore the black hat in that film, which portrayed him, The New York Times’s review said, as “a pretentious, manipulative swine.”