Artifact #1 The King of Kong

My topic for my Comm 3060 class is how video games are represented in the media. For my reports I wanted to get more than just online or newspaper articles, so first I went to documentaries. There are a few out there that I still want to see, but this one was the most readily available and after watching it, I am glad I did.

The documentary is called The King of Kong. It follows two men, Steve Wiebe (pronounced Weebee) and Billy Mitchell, as they compete for the world record high score in the class arcade game Donkey Kong. This movie had a lot more to it than I realized, it turned out to be a very interesting biography on video game culture and the people who have more or less dedicated their lives to it.

I want to point out too that this movie was released in 2007, so it is still very recent.

Onto the Critical Process!

Description: As I already said, this movie follows primarily two men, Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell, as they battle back and forth to obtain the world record high score in the arcade game Donkey Kong. The movie also features spots by various referees and friends of the competitors including Walter Day, the owner of Twin Galaxies, Robert Mruczek, the chief referee, Brian Kuh, a close friend and student of Billy Mitchell, Steve Sanders, another close friend of Billy's, and Doris Self, a women who had held the record of world's oldest video game champion.

Analysis: The story of this documentary surprised me. It definitely focuses on video games, but at the same time the highlight and focal point of the movie is the way these games have affected the people who participate in them. Billy Mitchell was introduced first, and his background detailed fame and success at video games from a young age to the present day. He is shown to have a very arrogant, self righteous attitude towards basically anything and anybody. He is often seen or heard speaking on how he's the greatest game player of all time, or that he is a winner... you get the idea. His personal life is shown somewhat, he is married and runs his own business making and selling hot sauces. He is very close with both the people at Twin Galaxies, considering he was their poster boy since they started out, and with Steve Sanders and Brian Kuh.
Just the opposite of Mitchell is Steve Wiebe, a married with two young children, unemployed at the start of the movie, all-around nice guy. He is shown to be the everyman, having to deal with raising a family and finding a job to support said family. He is very competitive, although it is explained early on that while Wiebe has competed in many things from sports to music all his life, he was never able to get the recognition he deserved. So Steve sets off on his quest to top the high score of Billy Mitchell in the game Donkey Kong, an idea he had while thinking of ways to unwind after job hunting.
We also get a look at the "company" Twin Galaxies, which is the official record holder of all things related to video game high scores. The company was founded by Walter Day in the early 1980s. During his entire life Walter Day wanted to be part of the video game culture, and so he began spectating, commentating, and finally became an official referee to the video game community.

Interpretation: During the whole movie, Billy Mitchell is portrayed as the high and mighty bad guy while Steve Wiebe is the tragic underdog whom everyone loves to root for. Those roles couldn't be more spot on with these men and their actual personalities that are shown during the film. Mitchell is very cocky and even at a point states that next to his family, he considers his game high scores his greatest achievement in life. On the other side of that, it is eventually shown that Wiebe becomes a school teacher, and still spends a lot of time with his family. So classic good guy vs. bad guy scenario.

I really did enjoy the character analysis of this film, but for the sake of my project I have to focus and bring up the video games primarily.

That's in no way saying that the movie did a bad job of this, its completely the contrary. I was a little surprised to see that even in the year 2007 there were still so many people who were so devoted to these classic games. The news media even did reports on the rivalry between Mitchell and Wiebe, and there was not a negative word about games in them. What I found very interesting as well, is the flash backs to when video games were first becoming massively popular, and scenes of a young Mitchell and Steve Sanders showed that video games in the past had received mostly overwhelmingly positive reviews. Compare that with the media of today which includes blaming games for everything from suicides to school shootings. It makes me wonder, what happened between these times that changed everyone's minds about video games? In the movie as well that showed the scenes in the arcade, there were mostly grown men competing in these games. All of the stars of the movie were adults, most of them with children, and yet they don't see very much fault with playing these games.

Evaluation (Figured I'd head here before my interpretation got more Evaluation-y): I very much enjoyed this documentary, and I would recommend it to anyone. You don't even have to know much about video games to enjoy it.

I also think this movie would provide a valid argument for my justification paper, "What has happened between games and the media since video games first became popular?" This was the question on my mind constantly as I was this film. It was because I am used to the way the majority of the world views video games now; as being violent and blamed for any violent thing that happens. In this movie however, they had public news teams, cheerleaders, full news reports all starring normal guys who happened to great at a video game. That is unheard of nowadays, at least on mainstream media.

This movie gave me a good insight into how the world used to see video games, and how some people still see them today. It will prove to be very useful for arguing that video games should be viewed in a more positive light.

I do also think I am going to have to find another artifact that relates closer to the media eventually, and I could use any suggestions if people have one. I am thinking of watching the documentary Second Skin that looks at people immersed in the world of MMORPGS. Let me know what you think!