[IMG:L]Video games have long been turning youngsters into social outcasts. The jocks have their muscular bodies to win over the ladies while the sweaty, pimply teens stay indoors with their joysticks. The braniacs go on to high paying jobs while the obsessive gamers blow off studying to beat the newest first person shooter. Or has it always been that way? The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a new documentary that could change these stereotypical perceptions.
The film follows Steve Wiebe, a down on his luck schoolteacher laid off due to downsizing as he sets about a simple task to raise his spirits: Maybe he can just get the all time high score on Donkey Kong to offset some of the depressing circumstances. The title holder, Billy Mitchell, sabotages Wiebe’s every step. He contests the chip inside Wiebe’s Donkey Kong game, hordes a video tape of his own high score, and more Machiavellian tricks to maintain his dominance.
Filmmaker Seth Gordon lucked into the archetypical Hollywood story. He thought he’d just make a tongue-in-cheek sports movie where guys wiggling joysticks were the athletes training for the big game.
“Our original vision for it was like a sports movie where you do a portrait of the two competitors on their way to the contest or the competition,” said Gordon. “This competition happens to be Kong. That was our original notion for what it would be. Frankly, it got a lot more interesting as we went because of the lengths Billy went to to do the unexpected. Honestly, if he hadn’t done that, it would be a completely different movie. It’s hard to answer [how different it would be] because we ended up just covering what actually went down.”
Poor Wiebe was in for the long haul. Having already spent months perfecting his Donkey Kong game, he devoted the rest of his summer to proving he could do it live. He spent a week at the Funspot arcade in New Hampshire, where official scorekeepers Twin Galaxies watched him play. Like anything else, Donkey Kong is a skill that can be learned.
“There’s memorization,” said Wiebe. “There’s just knowing what to expect. It’s not always patterns exactly but the tendencies of the game. So the more you play it, the more aware of what could happen and you make educated guesses and are aware of the pitfalls. If you keep playing, it just becomes second nature, muscle memory. There are a couple screens that pretty much fall into that pattern but most of the game is random. You know the tendencies and you have an approach to the screen, so the more you play, the better your skills and the chances of getting a record score become greater when you play it more.”
[IMG:R]With Wiebe as the ultimate underdog and Mitchell as the evil champion, the story structure was obvious. Even the other gamers filled out Hollywood movie personas. Twin Galaxies scorekeeper Walter Day is the wise old sage of high scores. Steve Sanders is the shamed cheater who left video gaming but keeps an outsider’s perspective. Gordon lucked into his supporting cast as he lucked into the plot.
“Well, I knew that Steve [Wiebe] was interesting and I knew his story by itself was very sympathetic as a classic underdog figure in the sense that he’s been subject to a lot of undeserved misfortune,” said Gordon. “That makes for a great protagonist always. So I knew that would be interesting but I think the depth of the eccentricity in the characters that surround this world and surround this revelry, we just got lucky again and again and again. These people are not only one of a kind. They are also articulate about their perspective on the world and that makes for, I think, terrific entertainment.”
Entertaining characters are one thing. Have you ever watched someone else play a video game? It can be very tedious as you wait for your turn to play. Gordon makes watching extended Donkey Kong sessions exciting by focusing the events on Wiebe’s personal involvement with the competition.
“The gamers would love to watch me playing Donkey Kong, but the excitement stems from the competition,” said Wiebe. “The personalities that me and Billy competing for this brings on a whole new dimension than just playing a video game. Most people just laugh at the idea of a documentary on Donkey Kong. They can’t comprehend how it could be so interesting. The gamers will love it for the pure fascination of seeing a score put up on Donkey Kong but it even attracts someone who has no knowledge of video games because it could be any competitive sport. And all the characters remind people of somebody they know. It’s a reflection of life itself.”
The story continues as Mitchell still releases video tapes recording his latest high scores, and Wiebe contemplates defending his title in live competitions. “I’ll go play in public for sure,” Wiebe said. “During the school year, I’m busy teaching and all that so I don’t have time to play. And this summer, since I played all last summer, my wife has cracked the whip and I’m painting my house and doing all the chores. So there’s no time this summer to do it really.”
For Gordon, the documentary may continue with a follow-up segment shot exclusively for the DVD. Then, New Line Cinema has optioned the property and commissioned a script for a narrative film version. Expect an all star cast.
“I think that we’re going to be able to get some pretty good names just because the twists and turns of the story are so interesting,” said Gordon. “The one that that I think is exciting is Johnny Depp for Billy. I think Steve Carell or Nathan Fillion could be a great Wiebe. John C. Reilly needs to be in there somewhere. I feel like Paul Giamatti can be in there somewhere.”
[IMG:L]As most of the gamers in the film are parents themselves, this continued exposure makes it all the more difficult to teach their own children to keep gaming in perspective. “They’re already at a point where they’re playing too much now,” said Wiebe. “You’ve just got to define the times that they can play and definitely set laws down of not just let them play 24 hours a day. But when they see what can happen if you become good at a game, you get a movie made, things like that, it’s going to be kind of tough to do that.”
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters opens Friday.
