Billy vs. Steve

September 16, 2009 9:10 pm Sir Haxington Gaming

This isn’t about Microsoft vs. Apple.

I just finished watching King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a documentary about the crazy culture of professional arcade gaming. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading, because I’m going to spoil a lot. It’s a great documentary, so go check it out.

Anyway, the plot revolves around a guy name Billy Mitchel, who set a bunch of arcade records in the 80’s. 20 years later, a guy named Steve Weibe (pronounced Wee-bee) decides, “Hey I can beat Billy’s score in Donkey Kong,” buys a Donkey Kong cabinet and plays in his garage. Eventually he beats Billy’s score.

If only it were that easy. His 1,000,000+ score (something like 150k higher than Billy’s score) must be verified by the officials of “Twin Galaxies” who are the self appointed refs for classic arcade games. The rfefs end up coming to Steve’s house when only his wife is home and start ripping his cabinet apart to verify it. At this point, these guys sound officially insane.

The Twin Galaxy refs determine that because Steve knew some guy that had it out for Billy, the refs wouldn’t allow Steve’s score to be official. So, Billy retained the record. A little way into the future, an official arcade event is being held, so Steve shows up and beats the record again, in front of a crowd. Everything seems legit, until Billy mails in a tape he made a whole ago where he beats Steve’s new record. The tape is extremely sketchy, and even has streaks that go over the score at times, and the score changes in ways that are questionable. However, the refs at Twin Galaxies accept it and it becomes the new record. Billy is the champ again within hours of Steve’s record breaking score.

Through all of this, you’re finding this weird culture surrounding Billy. He has an army of people doing his bidding, the refs just willing accept whatever scores he submits, and best of all, he won’t show up to any events Steve attends. He keeps mailing in scores, while going on record saying you have to play in person and against another peoplr for the score to really matter. The next shot in the documentary is of his wife saying she’s never seen him play against anyone competitively. Brilliant.

So, another aracde event takes place and Billy walks in while Steve is playing Donkey Kong. Billy totally ignore him, and even slights him and walks off. Total douchebaggery is at hand.

However, because Steve is going to all these events and has the highest public Donkey Kong score, Twin Galaxies finally gives him the benefit of the doubt. They allow Steve to mail in his tapes without any question of his integrity because they know he’s a stand up guy. He actually shows up to the events being put on, even though he’s a middle school teacher and has a wife and kids.

At the end of the film, Steve beats Billy’s high score on tape and owns the highest public and taped record.

But, after the film is released, Billy goes in front of 300 people and beats Steve’s record. He’s the current record holder by a few thousand points.

So, what did all of this tell me? First of all, the pseudo-celebrity of arcade gaming that normally flies under the radar has a lot of politics going on. You have this seemingly evil genius who is trying to hold onto his Donkey Kong records from the 80’s by doing manipulative and underhanded actions, even through the official referees. However, at the end of the day, he’s still the champ, since he pulled of the highest score, in front of a bunch of people.

Secondly, Twin Galaxies is portrayed as being stuck in the 80’s. However, poking around their site, they track a lot of modern games. Although, since it’s mainly volunteer run, I think they missed the MLG boat for competitive gaming. They also seem to mainly track point and time based games. I still get the impression that the old school gamers think 3D games lack a certain skill that getting a million points in Donkey Kong takes. That might be true, but I’d love to play Billy or Steve in some CoD or Halo and see how their magical coordination skills holdup. I don’t buy that 2D is better than 3D somehow, or vice-versa, they’re two different beasts.

Someday, I’m going to try to have a beer with Steve. He lives in Redmond, so maybe I can get the really-real on this crazy mixed up world of professional arcade gaming. Is this really a battle of good vs. evil or was A Fistful of Quarters heavily sensationalized? I need to know.