Ben: Hey, what's up, holo everyone and welcome back to another episode of Simply Podlogical, a Simply Nailogical podcast
I'm Ben and Cristine looks very yellow today
Cristine:You mean banana sexy 
Ben: Audio only listeners are missing out on how yellow Cristine is today
Cristine: I am wearing banana earrings, necklace, gold like lip gloss
Cristine: Gold highlighter and a yellow hoodie all for Ben because it's his birthday
Ben:Yeah, this Taco Tuesday when you're hearing this
Cristine: Happy birthday to you
Ben: Please, please stop
Ben: Cristine stop!
Cristine: Simply's Greatest Hits
Cristine: Volume Ben 
Ben: I don't think you can sing happy birthday. It's still copyright, isn't it?
Cristine: By who?
Ben: Isn't that crazy that there's actually laws
Ben: That's why a bunch of famous movies, like they're not singing the traditional happy birthday song. They're singing some like generic replacement
Cristine: Information I didn't know I needed but thank you.
Ben: Anyway when you're listening to this on Tuesday. Yeah, it'll be my birthday. I'm
Ben: 32 years old
Cristine: It's Ben's birthday. Everyone wish Ben a happy 32 year old birthday
Ben: Um, yeah I'm okay, you don't have to do that. 
Cristine: The year 2020 is all yours Ben.
Ben: I don't want to take ownership of that
Ben: Strange strange times. But yeah, we thought it would be fun to have a more Ben centric episode
Cristine: In other words,
Cristine: It's Ben's birthday. He's gonna talk about whatever he wants
Ben: [laughter]
Cristine: Which and so what is Ben's favorite thing in the world?
Cristine: Aside from you know, hanging out with me. It's?
Cristine: It's? 
Ben: What is it Cristine?
Cristine: Playing video games?
Ben: Is it?
Cristine: Well, specifically Donkey Kong, and I know you don't really play that much today
Cristine: But we'll get into that
Ben: I'm retired from competitive Donkey Kong
Cristine: It is a huge part of Ben's history that we haven't really talked about in depth before. I think I've mentioned it in passing
Cristine: On my channel. I know many years ago for your birthday. I did a Donkey Kong inspired nail art. 
Ben: Oh, I remember
Cristine: Do you remember? I posted it on my blog simplynailogical.com, its dead now
Ben: But I did Donkey Kong nails as a tribute to you. 
Ben: That's right 
Cristine: So long ago
Ben: So yeah, I guess people who have been following a long time or who've ever googled us exhaustively would know this
Ben: But yeah before I was known as
Ben: Mr. Nailogical
Ben: If you were to google my name what would have come up? Is that at one time
Ben: I was one of the best Donkey Kong players in the world. 
Cristine: Yeah, and then you were just under Simply Nailogical's shadow
Ben: [laughter] Cristine: Its awful
Cristine: No! You want the first search result to be the Donkey Kong
Ben: Yeah. Yeah, it's a weird thing to Google your name 
Cristine: So everyone go Google Ben Mazowita Donkey Kong
Cristine: We're gonna get that search result just like above the Simply Nailogical boyfriend ones, let's do it. 
Ben: That's okay
Ben: It really does feel like a lifetime ago and it's in preparation for this
Ben: I was trying to think back to what it was like around that time and it's it's been a bit of a trip
Ben: So I guess a good place to start is
Ben: Around the end of high school or when I was just starting University this movie came out called
Ben: King of Kong A Fistful of Quarters
Ben: and that movie 
Cristine: That almost sounds like a porno
[laughter]
Ben: That documentary has a lot to do with why
Ben: Donkey Kong, an arcade game that came out in 1981 became really popular again in
Ben: uh, around
Ben: 2008-2009 
Cristine: Do you want to just explain first to all the people including myself previously. What is Donkey Kong?
Ben: Yeah, so Donkey Kong is an arcade game that came out in 1981. 
Cristine: Before you were born
Ben: Yeah, I was born in 88
Ben: So neither of us were around for the Golden Age of arcade games as they call it in their early 80s before games
became about
Ben: Like when there were arcades when we were kids that were mostly about like putting in a bunch of quarters and trying to get tickets
Ben:And then you could exchange 100 tickets for like a little bit of
Cristine: Dave & Busters
Ben: Yeah, like Chuck E. Cheese type places, Midway in Ottawa
Ben: But there was like this Golden Age of arcades before home consoles became really popular
Where yeah, the place to play video games was down at your local arcade
you could put in a quarter and play all these really awesome retro games so
1981 Donkey Kong came out and it was the it was the game that basically made Nintendo successful in America. 
Cristine: It wasn't...
Mario?
Ben: Well, here's the thing. So Donkey Kong you play a little a little man
Who's trying to save a woman from
Cristine: A man or a monkey? 
Ben: No you play a person, jump man
He later became known as Mario. By the sequel he's being referred to as Mario
so it is I guess technically the first Mario game but
People didn't really know at the time
Cristine: I thought the monkey was just like friends with Mario in the same universe
Ben: Well
They all exist in the same universe now because what we have in that game it really
Established three characters that have become an important part of Nintendo's
Roster of characters in their universe, right? So Jumpman is Mario.
In this game, he's saving Pauline, but she basically turned into Princess Peach and later versions essentially, right I think something
Cristine: Always gotta save those females. We need all the men playing video games to save us
Ben: It's kind of funny cause a lot of people  point to Donkey Kong as one of the first games that even sort of
had a narrative because it had like a few cutscenes of the monkey taking the woman and running away and
Like showing you Mario has to go climb the structure
Cristine: It sounds like Tarzan
Ben: But even like cutscenes in video games weren't really a thing back in 1981
So the game was kind of groundbreaking in a few ways
But yeah, so you had Mario established in that game. He's trying to save Pauline and then Donkey Kong also became a very prominent character
Cristine: So what kind of game is it?  It's not a puzzle. It's not a race. It's like how would you describe it?
Ben: Yeah, so I think it's an early version of like a platforming game 
Cristine: Kind of like jumping up levels?
Ben: Yeah, so the Mario games you probably know and are more familiar with 
Cristine: Mario Kart
Ben: Not Mario Kart
Cristine: That's all I know
Ben:But just like Super Mario Brothers where you're jumping on things trying to get to the end of the level
It's sort of very roughly follows that same concept basically you're a little guy trying to climb to a top of a structure
to save a woman from a big ape and there's
There's different stories
Cristine: From the Donkey Kong?
Ben: From the Donkey Kong. 
Cristine: Okay. Now, I understand. 
Ben: So Donkey Kong, I think basically it was a mistranslation
Ben: I think the creator was trying to figure a way of saying like angry or dumb ape or something
But like the translation they came up with was Donkey Kong. 
Cristine: Okay. 
Ben: Something like jackass monkey. There's maybe like a
King Kong tie in there. Although King Kong tried to sue them at one point and they lost that lawsuit
I think they were trying to sue for copyright or something
Ben:But yeah, so the game is essentially you're a little guy running up the top of the structure
You're jumping over barrels smashing things with hammers and you're just trying to save the lady from the big angry dumb monkey
Cristine: So is Donkey Kong only played on those classic big arcade games?
Ben: So because it was so successful in arcades
They they ported it to home entertainment system
So the first time I ever played it when I was a kid would have been at home on my Nintendo Entertainment System
Back in the early 90s, I guess right
Cristine: But you prefer the classic arcade version. 
Ben: Well, I remember
Before this documentary came out that made it popular again. I remember in Donkey Kong 64
For the Nintendo 64 there is a minigame within that game
Where they made you play the original Donkey Kong, I think than an NES version of it briefly
But I remember my friends and I were really into Donkey Kong 64 whenever that came out when we were like 13 or something
but a lot of them had trouble at that part of the game where you had to play the retro version of the game and
like they would call me over and I would like finish that part of the game for them so they could keep playing like
The new 3D version. So I think I always realized I was good at the more retro kind of games
I don't know what it is
Cristine: Is that just like a hand skill with the old school
equipment, like? 
Ben: I don't know what it is. I think like the same reason 
Cristine: It's a joystick right? Like it's a old like ball
Ben: So arcade itself. Yeah, you're playing with a joystick and just one button.
Cristine: I know because we have one of these giant arcade machines
in our garage
Ben: Well we'll get to that I
Bought a Donkey Kong arcade machine. It's been sitting in the garage unplayed for many years now
Cristine: Just taking up space in the garage
[laughter]
Ben: I'm gonna pull it out one of these days and get back into it
But uh, yeah, I think like the same reason I'm good at and enjoy drumming
Also lends itself to like the sort of fast muscle twitch, you know hand-eye coordination
Response time that also makes me good at some of these retro games as well
Cristine: So you're good at old games
Ben: I bought a PlayStation 4 recently and I realized I am not good at modern video games
Cristine: Why cause there's just like too too many buttons and too many weapons to choose from?
Ben: You know, it's yeah
There's a lot more buttons. It's confusing for this old man, and I almost feel like
There's something about them that's just less appealing to me in the sense that they're trying to simulate a reality more
Cristine: Like Halo
Ben: I don't know what reality that
Is that just the first game that came to your mind?
Cristine: I remembered Halo
Ben: Do you know what I mean? Like if I pick up
like a first-person shooter now and there's like a bunch of guns to choose from it's almost like it's escapism in the sense that like
It's simulating what it's like to be a soldier and I have to know how to cycle through ten different guns
Cristine: You have to consider your health and like all these other elements to the game, right?
Ben: Yeah I'm not looking at video games as an excuse to like
wish fulfillment of living someone else's life and the complications that come with that. I don't like complicated video games
I like difficult video games but simple video games. There's a difference between complicated and difficult
So I prefer these older games that it's not a ton of buttons or different paths
You have to know or different, you know, I know I have to use this weapon at this time blah blah blah
I don't care about that
I want a simple game
That I can that is really difficult and that if I play really well is difficult to do
Cristine: Like Sudoku like game
Ben:  no, no
Like  the original Mario Brothers, that's a game like everyone can play it's super accessible
but if you want to try to beat the whole game in under six minutes that takes a lot of skill
even though at the end of the day
You're just going in a few directions and just pressing one button to run and one button to jump
It's a very simple game but it's very difficult to be one of the best people at that game
Cristine: So why don't you tell us I know it's it has been a while but as
Far as the Internet is concerned. What does the record say about you and Donkey Kong?
Ben: I don't know. Actually should we Google myself on the fly?
No, I think we should explain that this documentary is actually really important in the story
Cristine: In your story specifically?
Ben: Yeah, or the story of the game as well and why all of a sudden in
2008 there's a revival of interest in Donkey Kong which came out in
1981 so this documentary came out around 2006 or 2007 again, it's called king of Kong even if you're not interested in video games
I would recommend this documentary because it's really the story about the two best Donkey Kong players in the world and
One of them is a giant asshole and one of them is this like the the prototypical
Runner-up the guy who can never quite win the prize
He's all yeah, he's always the runner-up and it's them in competition to see who was the better Donkey Kong play
Cristine: It's kind of like that new Netflix series Tiger King but less insane and about video game players
Ben: It is less insane
but
Cristine: It shows a
Culture of like something that a lot of people just have no clue of like I had no idea about the tiger and lion
culture in Florida
Ben: It's the subculture of guys who are still super invested in 80s arcade games today
And yeah, you're seeing that subculture. Yes, actually, I like that comparison. It's not as insane as there's no Exotic Joe in the King of Kong race
Actually we should hear here's just a few seconds of the trailer for king of Kong
Adam Wood: I don't drink I don't smoke I don't do drugs
I play video games. 
Todd Rogers: It's the constant drive to be the best at something 
Billy Mitchell: When you want your name written into history
you have to pay the price
Cristine: And that guy's like a big deal right, 
Ben: Yeah, so that's Billy Mitchell
So he's known and wants people to know of him as the best classic arcade
Gamer of all time
Cristine: Is that what a lot of gamers in this realm are after like they just want to be number one?
Ben: Yeah, I think it's a lot of
frankly like losers and this is their way of being
Amazing and great at something
Cristine: Their way of being a winner
Ben: They don't have a lot of success otherwise in their life
But I mean to each their own right but yeah
I think the prestige that comes along with it and a lot of these guys
I don't want to get ahead of myself
But a lot of these guys it turns out we're actually faking records and cheating scores people found out years later
Because they just craved so much the notoriety of being known as some of the best 
Cristine: That's sad cause then it's like not a game anymore
It's not real. 
Ben: It's more serious than a game
Yeah, some people play games just for fun 
Cristine: It's supposed to be in good fun and in honesty who has the high score
Ben: It's supposed to be but yeah, like with anything if there's fame that comes along with it
People are gonna try their cheat their way to the top
Cristine: No cheating. Cheating is bad
Ben: Anyway, so King of Kong
Maybe skip the next two minutes if you're gonna actually watch the documentary because I guess I'll give a brief synopsis of it. Cristine watched
It - we watched it together recently
Cristine: yes Ben made me watch it
Ben: What did you think did you enjoy it?
Cristine: It was, it's definitely interesting. I guess. I've never really been that into video games
But I am aware of your history as being at one point, you were number eight, for with highest score
I don't know why I remember that specifically obviously that changes depending on who else gets higher scores but years ago
I remember looking it up when I was googling you. 
Ben: Oh, is that before we were dating and you were googling me and thats what you found?
Cristine: Yeah thats what I found
He was number eight in the world for Donkey Kong, I'm like he's a winner
Ben: That didn't scare you away?
Cristine: No, didn't you give me a copy of this Donkey Kong documentary for - not our first date but
Early on?
Ben: When we were first dating as a gift I gave you this documentary. 
Cristine: But like why because you're not in the documentary, right?
Ben: I thought it was just like a funny thing at the time like hey, by the way
Like I was I wasn't in the documentary,
Cristine: But I'm close enough. Yeah that really impressed me Ben
Ben: I was in the first wave of players who kind of came onto the scene after
The King of Kong documentary played
Cristine: But you must have been so young then when you got that 8th world record or whatever. How old were you
this was a long time ago. 
Ben:Okay. So this is I guess jumping ahead to like I played it on the computer for a while through emulators
Right, and that's also a controversial thing a lot of people
So the popularity of the game actually has a lot to do with the fact that computers
Became capable of emulating these old arcade games
So a lot of people are just playing them on their their Mac's or PCs. I did that for a few years
Before because it's hard to get your hands on a Donkey Kong arcade. There aren't a ton of them. They're hard to come by
It's a giant box that weighs like 300 pounds. I had to drive down to Philadelphia and buy it from a really strange guy
I found on eBay
Cristine: When you were 20 years old? 
Ben: That was a whole experience and that was in
2009 I want to say
Because I had actually driven down to Washington DC to visit my cousin and then on the way back with my brother
We picked up the arcade from some guy in Scranton, Pennsylvania who I found on the Internet
He sold it to me for only like $300, but it was in pretty rough shape
but yeah, that's how I got my hands on a Donkey Kong and then it's
If you google me now and you see that I have a high score associated with it. It's probably because in 2010 I
went to
Flemington, New Jersey
To Richie Knucklez arcade because he was hosting the first annual Kong Off tournament
Cristine: Kong Off
That's what it was called?
Ben: It was called the Kong Off
So I showed up to that and I put up a pretty respectable score there. 
Cristine: Which was?
Ben: I think it was like eight hundred thousand a little over eight hundred thousand 
Cristine: And eight hundred thousand just to give a reference
Category the top people in that documentary we're getting like 800 thousand or a million
Ben: Yes, so I think yeah in the documentary there
That million point threshold was really important. There were at that time
There were like two people in the world who could get a million points on Donkey Kong
by the time the Kong off was happening a few more players had come onto the scene a
Plastic surgeon from New York I think actually had the world record at the time Hank Chen. 
Cristine: What? He's really good with hand-eye coordination it makes sense
Ben: He's actually a really nice guy
and even though I'll say like I wasn't really involved in the community online like a lot of these guys would
Just like hang out online all day streaming each other's gameplay and talking and coming up with strategies and stuff together
I didn't look at Donkey Kong as like a social thing or a way to make friends on the internet so much
I just kind of wanted to get really good at it and it was almost this thing where I
Didn't want anyone to know I even did it until I was really really good at it
so I wanted to show up to the Kong off
with most people who don't really know me and just throw down a really good score the issue with that is because of that I had to register
Like as a competitor and I had to like even share a machine with another guy there
Whereas a lot of these other guys who were more well-known just had their own dedicated machine in the arcade
Cristine: So what happened when you got your high score?
Ben: I got my high score and I've vanished into the night never to be seen again
Cristine: While you were there did you meet those other top players like the guys from the documentary? 
Ben: Sure. Yeah. Yeah
so I I had talked a little bit to Hank the world record holder at the time before because I had a friend in New
York and I would occasionally go down there and that's where he's from and I had asked him just like
are there arcades in New York I could play at when I'm down there because at that time I was I
Was trying to get my hands on practicing on a machine
So I wasn't just playing on an emulator on my computer
Cristine: Just for my own reference what stage of life were you at?
was this in high school or university?
Ben: University. So we're talking
2009 ish 
Cristine: So you're like 20 years old or something like that. Okay. 
Ben: Yeah, we're we're in the middle of undergrad
Cristine: I'm just picturing you driving to like some random town to go play the Kong Off
Ben: Driving to New Jersey driving to New York. Yeah, so I talked to Hank the world record holder a bit and I should I
appreciate that guy and I should thank him in a way because
The legitimacy of myself, I never really submitted scores in any sort of official way
There was actually a pretty rigorous process by which you were supposed to record your full gameplay submitted to Twin Galaxies or some other
Online database have like a referee watch it. I never really did that because I just
Knew myself that I felt comfortable my scores
I didn't really care about other people's recognition
But I know I can still find and I recently came across it again on some of these forums Hank sort of
Standing up for me in a way and saying like my score should be recognized as legitimate because based on the gameplay of mine
He's seen he he knows it's I was a legitimate player not somewhat faking it somehow
So like and at the Kong off, I think that kind of proved that
Like over the course of two days to show up in a live
competition setting and be able to throw up a score that is
You know above eight hundred thousand like I scored I think pretty close to the same thing Billy Mitchell scored that weekend
So I think a lot of people
recognize that
Cristine: Did you talk to Billy Mitchell?
Ben: I observed Billy Mitchell a lot
Cristine: Did he ignore you?
Ben: He very much had that aura around him of 
Cristine: I am Jesus. Don't talk to me. 
Ben: Yeah, well, you know what
I noticed I kind of felt sad for him that weekend because it was very clear that it's super important to him
That people think he's amazing and it's kind of pathetic
and
He wasn't playing the best
He wasn't at the top of the leaderboard and you could tell it was driving him nuts
Like he was getting pretty angry at his machine and then on conversely I was at the machine right beside Steve Wiebe
Yeah, who like yeah
it's intense and you're getting into it and you're trying to throw up a great score and I actually got good footage of
Him getting a kill screen and and getting a high score at the end of the weekend but in between games
I remember I like briefly had a conversation with him about basketball because it was like during March Madness and Steve's really into
The Huskies he's really into college basketball
So I remember him just like being able to turn a switch and he's just like talking about basketball on how he wishes he could
Be watching basketball right now. 
Cristine: So Steve has a family right like when he was playing these games
He had young kids and a wife?
Ben: So yeah
Billy and Steve both have families
And I'm sure it's caused some stress and in the documentary king of Kong. It does show how it does put some strain on
Steve's home life that he's spending hours in his garage trying to get the world record on a video game while his wife is like
Could you just help me raise our kids and make some money? Yeah, and it was even it's kind of embarrassing
Cristine: Actually that's a good question. Was anyone making money from participating in these competitions like you guys have sponsors or something
Ben: No one was making money people are doing this for the love of it. But Richie, the arcade owner
I remember he's a interesting guy
He's like a former punk musician actually if anyone knows how to get ahold of Richie Knucklez. Let me know because I'd love to buy
Cristine: Not buying any machines
Ben: If I could get my hands on the Donkey Kong machine that I actually played on in
New Jersey or one of the Donkey Kong machines that were used at the Kong off. I would love to get my hands on that
as a keepsake 
Cristine: Where are you going to put it we don't have any room here
Ben: We got we got some I'd find a place
So yeah, Richie if you're listening to this reach out to me, but uh, no one's making money Richie
I'm sure Richie probably lost money on that. He was doing it for the love of the game
Cristine: Even if you got a top score and you were streaming this stuff, or putting footage somewhere
The only way you might be making money is once maybe YouTube came along and people were uploading these videos
Ben: I think the Kong off may have had a cash prize and I remember he got
Like redbull to show up and give us like free redbull drinks like, you know, I mean it was probably like pretty small-scale stuff
I think there was a cash prize for the winner, but you're right people aren't making money live streaming
Cristine: Do you have to put like 25 cents into begin playing?
Ben: You can set the Machine to free play but here here's the beautiful thing about being amazing at these old arcade games right is
one quarter can
Start a game for you that will last like two or three hours if you're really good, right so
Arcade owners worst nightmare actually are these people who are amazing at games
Because you just walk and put in a quarter and then you're not giving them any more money
Cristine: Actually yeah, good point
Cuz any time we ever go to an arcade like in New York
When we were in Brooklyn and we went to an arcade
Ben just goes and plays on an arcade machine
He's gone for like an hour and he's been playing the same game like like Ben. Come on. Let's go
Ben: There's uh
There's an arcade slash bar in Brooklyn
Called Barcade that we try to pop into or I try to pop into when we're down there
We went as a the whole the whole gang went down last time
We were at Creators Summit and I think we spent a night at Barcade. Yeah, that's fun
Cristine: So no one is making money from playing video games. They're just loving it although today
That is very different. A lot of people make a lot of money
Ben: There are a lot of people online making a lot of money from playing games now 
Cristine: But in the 90s or the early
2000s.
Ben: It's not even that right. It's like if you're the best Donkey Kong player in the world like yeah
Maybe your local newspaper is gonna write an article about you. You might get some
Attention that way but you're not like making Ninja money streaming on Twitch or something
Cristine: So why did you, you eventually stopped competing for the title of Donkey Kong world record holder
So kind of how did that unfold?
Ben: Yeah, I mean I
always felt I was really good at the game, but I wasn't one of these guys who wanted to
invest the days and days and days of time needed to really be at the top of the score the
high scores 
Cristine: You were in school, so you were busy
Ben: So yeah, I was in university. I also had a job
I didn't have a ton of the social life at the time and as that changed and I you know
Started meeting people dating people and dating you all of a sudden Donkey Kong became a lot less important in my life
Cristine: Don't blame me. You weren't actively playing Donkey Kong
Ben: I know but yeah
there was a time where I think I had a legitimate shot at getting the world record and
there came a
Moment where the world-record got to like 1.1 million and then started getting higher and higher
where I realized
Even if I had the skillset to get there
It's kind of unfortunate that they, like there are 20 people in the world today
Probably who probably could get the world record if they just put enough time into it
because
Yeah, it's 99% skill but there is that 1%
element of luck, right
and actually that's probably a little conservative say it's only 1% because there's a few random elements in the game when you
Smash a barrel with your hammer it can award you 300 500 or 800 points
For example that that there is a random element to that
So if you have a barrel board where you get 13 smashes of a barrel
That's a huge difference. If those barrels were giving you 300 points versus 800 the blue barrel or whatever
so of all the best players in the world
the people with the world record today are probably the people who were just able to invest the most time into it
Cristine: And are all those world record
There are all those world record holders
How were they proven to have gotten the world record?
Ben: Well thats the thing, so after the king of Kong a big
Element of that storyline is controversy over the legitimacy of scores
because Steve has a score invalidated at one point because
someone observed a little gummy substance on like his game board and it came from a guy who
Doesn't like the referee and like, you know, I mean like there's a lot of controversy over how scores got approved. Where's Billy Mitchell?
Who was friends with all the guys approving the scores?
he submits like a fuzzy video tape to an arcade doesn't even show him playing the game and
That gave him the world record for it
Cristine: So there's corruption in this industry
interesting
Spill the tea Ben I've got my Pac-Man mug here spill it
Ben: Well, yeah
so there was a
Part of the reason I wasn't submitting official scores is that there was a very rigorous process of what you had to film
before and after your gameplay to have that score legit and recognized as legitimate by Twin Galaxies or
That was basically the organization that maintained the record books was called so I wasn't doing that
I wasn't ending my games resetting the game opening up my board showing the game board all that
I wasn't too interested in that if you could see my gameplay and see that nothing fishy is going on
I felt good enough about that and I wasn't getting the world record anyway
right
But your there was a lot of controversy over some of these scores at a certain time 
Cristine: Some of the top players like Billy Mitchell
Who had a world record
People contested it right. 
Ben: Are you aware of this?
Cristine: Well it was in the documentary
Ben: So in the documentary, all you see is that he has a tape get approved for the world record
Even though you don't see him play it and it's a little sketchy how that comes to happen. It's approved very quickly
It doesn't go through the same process it should but actually years later
I could link people some resources if they're actually interested in this but there is a lot of credible evidence that Billy actually
Didn't achieve those records legitimately that he cheated
Cristine: What did he do to cheat or like what's the conspiracy?
Ben: So there's
It's really important that you achieve these scores on an actual
arcade machine like some people or argue that there's not a huge difference in gameplay between
The arcade and playing it on an emulator on the computer
Cristine: But it's hard to cheat on an original arcade machine
Ben: Yes, it's much. I don't even know how you could cheat on an arcade board itself, but with an emulator
Yeah, there's a difference in the controls slightly that I would argue actually makes a keyboard easier than a joystick
But as well on an emulator if you screw with the footage if you splice things together if you have savestates
You could play the game in a way where if you die, you just load the last level and keep going for example
so notice in Billy's tape, even the one in the King of Kong documentary
There's no sound on the tape. It's clearly a recording of a recording and
One reason there might not be sound is that at the time the emulators didn't do a very good job of reproducing the sound accurately
But someone like 10 years after the documentary came out
Really broke down his footage and they found that if you've stop but frame-by-frame and watch how the level loads
The way you can see like sort of the level come together in the sequence of like three frames
It looks the way MAME constructs the gameplay rather than the way it comes together on
Actual arcades
Cristine: Whats MAME?
Ben: So MAME is the computer emulator way of playing the game
so it is almost certain that Billy Mitchell
was achieving those scores on MAME where he could have been using save states and a lot of people have been
Even back in Kong off days. I remember in 2011
There was a lot of talk and a lot of people doubting Billy and I think seeing at the Kong off him not being able
to get
great scores live made people question it even more and people had always been a little suspicious too of the fact that
Like in one of his
World-record game plays you see him getting a lot of good luck in terms of how many points he's getting from certain
barrels or sequences and patterns some of the random elements and it's just like either that's like a one-in-a-million chance or he was just
Reloading the levels in a way where they were going in his favor
So yeah, he's so since then he has come out and played live and shown that he can get like million points scores
He's still an amazing player
but his ego was so fragile that I
Think it is very likely that he cheated on those scores just so he could say he was holding on to the world record
Cristine: Are you going to get sued for this?
Ben: He is a very litigious person so we should be careful that this all alleged
Cristine: What's the disclaimer?
Ben: Yeah, what is, I'll call the lawyer after this
We're alleging that Billy Mitchell cheated on those scores. There is strong evidence that
Cristine: Hey you're alleging, I don't know shit
I'm not in this game. I have another question though
Has there been any like sabotage of trying to ruin someone else's game?
Ben: Yeah, unplugging machines in the middle of a high score. 
Cristine: Is it possible to fuck with someone else's gameplay
Somehow like can you rig something in the back of the arcade machine?
Ben: Well, you just you sneak up behind them and you start tickling them
No, I mean it would be pretty obvious
If you mess with people, I'm sure I've heard it happening although before of things getting
Accidently turned off and things are
Cristine: What if someone drops their coffee all over the joystick
Ben: Explodes
No, it's funny. No, I don't have any good stories about people completely messing up other people
Cristine: I was hoping this could be like next-level Tiger king, you know
video game
Ben: You know, I do think though one of these days I'm gonna pull  that arcade machine out of storage and play again
Cristine: It's broken though, right?
Ben: It needs some work. 
Cristine: It needs electrical work
which has me worried because the last time you tried to work on it didn't it spark?
I'm like I don't want that in my house it's gonna blow shit up
Ben: Yeah, it started smoking at one point and, when I turn it on now I hear this like ping and it starts making weird noises
that's why I got a reach out to someone and have them make a
completely refurbished one because there's something just so beautiful about just to kind of bring it back to the beginning the the simplicity but
Difficulty of these original games is such a I have a lot of nostalgia for it. And I really enjoy it and
It's hard to explain but like like you've never played sports, right?
Cristine: Dance?
Ben: You know, when people talk about being in the zone or being in a flow state
Do you know what that means or can you relate to that at all? Because I've never felt that more
This is gonna maybe sound sad or kind of weird
but in Donkey Kong, I felt like and I've talked to other players who I think agree with this that
You get into the state of
This almost like sort of Zen state where you kind of feel like
Everything is in control. You see where the barrels are coming. You can predict the random movements coming. It's kind of this beautiful
Calming flow state. Like euphoric feeling
Cristine: Like euphoria. It's like you're on drugs but it's video games
Ben: It's strange. It's like almost like an outer-body experience
Like when you're when you're driving a car and you just forget you're driving and then you realize
Cristine: Don't do that
Ben: But you know how you kind of go on autopilot and you realize oh shit
I've been driving the last two minutes and I can't remember what happened. It's almost like that
Except you're doing something really technically difficult on autopilot. That's like kind of the best analogy
I can have to explain because and you can play this game
Donkey Kong simply put is a game where you're just trying to run up a structure to get to the end to get to the
finish line
but if you look kind of past that
Yeah, you can get to the game as quickly as possible and just try to get as many points that way but then they realized
The best players in the world realized including Billy Mitchell in the 80s that the game actually has an end the designers of the game
Didn't want it to have an end. It has something called a kill screen
so you have a certain amount of time to finish a level and
That gets calculated based off how many levels into the game you are
Once you get to the twenty second level there's actually like an error in how the game calculates your clock for
How much time there is to finish the level and it doesn't give you enough time to finish that twenty second
The first barrel board of the twenty second level so people realize okay
There's a finite limit on how many boards I have to get a high score
So for a long time the best players in the world were just the people who could get to the end of the game
So if you can just rush to the kill screen as quickly as possible
You're only going to get like 700,000 points
But you'll reach the kill screen that way and you will have played a very safe conservative way to get there. For example
but if you really push the game to the limit and
Do what like only the best people in the world can do it's you're trying to maximize the amount of time within each level
To get as many points as possible and that involves jumping over the same barrel twice
You can control the barrels through very small
Movements to manipulate whether or not they go down ladders
So whereas someone might just look at the game quickly and at a very superficial level just see
Barrels falling down a hill and a guy jumping over them
Like me and the thirty other people in the world are the hundred other people in the world who are really good at Donkey Kong
we're like
We're like, you know that scene in the Matrix. You're like, I can see the code. Yeah, it's kind of feels like that
It's like you can you can make things happen that other people don't understand how you're making them happen. 
Cristine: You're so passionate about this
Ben: It's an amazing feeling to feel like that in control of that chaos
Cristine: So you've filmed yourself playing Donkey Kong before in order to participate in some of these things?
Ben: I guess I just wanted some legitimacy, to show some of my higher scores. I actually didn't film much at all
Cristine: Is there footage? There is a video that you uploaded on YouTube like eight years ago, right?
Ben: So the the highest score I uploaded was like nine hundred and seventy thousand and that was on pace for
Maybe in a 1 million 60 thousand type
Cristine: And you uploaded that to your channel 8 years ago
I uploaded the last few minutes of footage back to YouTube
Just so-so people on those forums of the time would actually have something to point to
Cristine: But you're not actually like physically you're you're not really in it, right? Cuz that's not how they're recorded. Right?
Ben: No I was just recording the gameplay
some people have like webcams or will just stream on Twitch their gameplay now and they might have like an angle of their hands an
Angle of them and an angle of the gameplay just so like no one is questioning
Cristine: Where did I see a video
Was it you in someone else's video?
Like I saw behind you like you were playing at the arcade
Ben: So you can find
clips of the Kong off there of the first Kong off in New Jersey
That I went to on YouTube 
Cristine: And like whose channel is that what is that? Because it wasn't yours
Ben: I don't know whose channel was I would play it now except it's full of like copyright like music
I think but yeah if you just google Kong or if you just type Kong off into YouTube one of the first results
I'll put a link in the description box, but
Cristine: to see Ben playing
It does show some of my gameplay
I'm wearing like this like trucker or 1up mushroom hat and they actually caught the exact moment. I died in my
On my high score. No, it's a really exciting moment. I came close to getting a kill screen live at the Kong Off
Cristine: But that's a big deal, right this kill screen?
Is that how the game programmers designed it like the kill screen is basically unattainable or they want to make it attainable only
to like a fraction of a percent
Ben: No, so what I was trying to explain before was that it's unintentional the designers didn't realize it
But they didn't really test the game to see they didn't anticipate being able to get that far in the game
Cristine: So that's why it's called the kill screen because it's like a dead screen. It's like the blue screen of death
Ben: It's literally a screen you cannot survive or pass or
Although there were rumors for years that someone had figured out a way of getting past the kill screen
Cristine: Sure there were
Ben: All sort of myths about this game the random barrels
but yeah, I'll link that video below and
You can watch it because it shows the moment
I die and I died in like a really
random barrel thing and it's also worth pointing out that when I set that high that score at the Kong off I
had only owned a Donkey Kong machine for like
Four or five months or something. So I most of my experience was on a computer playing with a keyboard and I'd only very recently
Gotten into playing with a joystick. Yeah. 
Cristine: So who is the current number one world record holder?
Ben: So yeah, the sad thing is I don't really know
I know there are basically three guys who are kind of trading world records for a while
And at this point there's a very small number of people who have clearly established themselves as the best and they're not Steve Wiebe
They're not Bill Mitchell
Cristine: It's like a whole new camp of people. Well younger people picking up games and like Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe
and all these people are how old now? 
Ben: Yeah. Yeah, they are getting older
they were teenagers in the eighties when this game came out, right so
Yeah, it's I guess I'm part of the problem, too
because I mostly came into playing this game because of the documentary but a lot of people are kind of
It's a little sad that the game has been taken over by this younger generation of people in a way
Because there's just something so fun about the rivalry between Billy and Steve
Cristine: Why don't the younger generation
Just stick to their Fortnite
Ben: Exactly, you know stick to your games
Let these
Cristine: Its like TikTok's
Ben: Let these
Classic gaming legends have their games
Cristine: Let the dads in the basement play the Donkey Kong 
Ben: And like I was saying too so there's a handful of people now who have
gotten 1.2 million scores, which a few years ago people thought was just
Almost impossible that you'd have to have a perfect game. And now we have a few people 
Cristine: And when they're getting these scores
It's always on the classic arcade game? 
Ben: Yes. I mean, most people don't really
MAME scores they only care about if you said it on an arcade, right? 
Cristine: And like you said the arcade
Boxes are hard to even find so people don't always have the opportunity
Ben: Yeah only a certain number were made
Yeah to play on an original board. Yeah, but
but like I was saying before like I think a lot of it now is that there are
Like a certain number of people in the world who have the skill set to get a world record
But it really just came down to who are the people who can stay home all day and play days upon days
Just trying to get that world record pace and get that world record score
Not trying to take away from the people who do have the world record now clearly like their skill level is amazing
Cristine: But they also dedicated a lot of time of their lives 
Ben: But they only could have been the people
Who had an incredible amount of time to dedicate to this and a guy like Steve
You know
maybe he had a lower ceiling than a 1.2 million score or
Maybe he just has a family and he has a job and he needs to support his family
So it just came a time where it make sense he didn't continue
Cristine: Did these people have jobs?
Ben: I feel like I think they all have jobs. I don't know
Cristine: Maybe they just like were born into wealth or you know, their significant other just made money for them
I don't know. 
Ben: Yeah, well, maybe I could just retire and become like a Donkey Kong player. 
Cristine: I don't think so honey
Ben: You could keep making YouTube videos
You're gunna pay your half
I'm gonna take some time off work just to play Donkey Kong
No, but yeah, I kind of miss it I might play and kick it around again
But yeah
The dedication it takes to actually set a world record score at this point is just kind of insane 
Cristine: Have you kept in touch with
Any of the star players?
Ben: No, and I was never really close to them
If any of them are watching this
They'll probably think it's kind of bizarre because 
Cristine: Like who the fuck is this guy?
Ben: I was definitely I was an outsider in that community
I'd talked to a few of them a handful of times
Cristine: You were just some kid to them cause they were older than you
Ben: No but there were some young guys involved
There's this french-canadian kid who was like always taking his shirt off who was 
Cristine: What? Ooh la la
Ben: Vincent something there were a couple good Canadian kids there
There was something weird about that
But I haven't kept in touch with them all occasionally poke around and look at the forums still though.
Cristine: Are they still actively playing?
Ben: Not not so much 
Cristine: Have they moved on to other games or is Donkey Kong their one true love?
I want a follow up
Ben: Donkey Kong will always be the true love
I feel like people have sort of moved on
the excitement that came along with the documentary and the Kong offs and everything after once Billy Mitchell kind of got exposed for
Allegedly, you know submitting those fraudulent scores. I feel like that kind of was a concluding chapter
To Donkey Kong being a super popular game. Like it'll always be like it is
It might be the most famous arcade game ever. So there will always be some prestige that comes along with playing that game
But between you know this sort of story between Steve and Billy coming to a close and people pushing the world record to a point
Where it would be incredibly difficult for people to improve it even by a small number of points
it kind of feels like the excitement around it has really died down and now it's just people who feel like playing and streaming the
Game for fun rather than this competition to other people
Cristine: Yeah
And if arcade games themselves are just archaic and hard to find inevitably it's kind of gonna die out
Ben: Harder and harder, but this happens in cycles, you know like the same way vinyl became really popular
in the last
Five or ten years again with people really into music
Exactly, you know hipsters are I don't like hipsters cause people use that as a pejorative
I don't mind hipsters, but it's this idea
Cristine: It's like bringing vintage back. 
Ben: Yeah things happen in cycles things come back into style
I wouldn't be surprised if one day there's another sort of resurgence in popularity
Of some of these vintage classic arcade games. We're kind of seeing it now with
The games we grew up with in the 90s now like I don't watch a lot of YouTube gaming
Content because I think most of it is
garbage
Cristine: Like the games that are out there like Fortnite? I don't even know what Fortnite is
Ben: It's not the games it
the kind of gaming content that
PewDiePie and Markiplier and those guys
Cristine: PewDiePie doesn't make gaming content anymore
Ben: I know but I'm talking back in like like three four years ago, right 
Cristine: Minecraft?
Ben: Not, minecraft is more recent
He's gotten into playing minecraft again, but he's actually kind of acting more like
I'm not trying to get into a Felix thing exactly here
But there was a type of Let's Play content that him and markiplier and a few other guys popularized
That was basically a guy in the corner
Screaming and overreacting to everything while playing video games and there is nothing I'd want to watch less than that
I hate that content. I can't stand it.
Cristine: It's just not for you
Ben: But who is it for? Just children that need stimulation though right?
Cristine: It's like TroomTroom its like weird and
cringy, but you know
Maybe it's not for you. 
Ben: And I almost feel like those guys kind of lost their mind making that
I think Felix has even talked about the fact that
It took a lot out of him and there was a point at which he hated doing it
but kind of felt like that's what people expected of him and markiplier like
Markiplier is a super sweet guy. We've met him a couple times. He's done some amazing charity work and stuff for uh,
For like make-a-wish. I think like he seems like a genuinely great person. So I'm not trying to say this is and
Just attacking him or insulting him
But there is a point at which like he was he would occasionally show up on the trending page posting a video of him
Basically having like a mental breakdown and it was very strange that he was putting that content out
I almost wonder if that's tied to the fact that he was
You know putting on this character and screaming playing video games on the internet
I just feel like he, I hope markiplier is okay because I saw some pretty alarming stuff from him at one point
Cristine: But thats sad, thats not just about being a video gamer
That's about being a youtuber and doing it for so long that you lose your mind
Ben: That's a lot to do with it
but  I guess my theory is that
Playing games and screaming at the camera and that being your thing probably also isn't good for your self-concept
So that kind of gaming content. I have no interest in the only time I watch gaming content on YouTube now is
There's this organization. They put on events called like Games Done Quick or like Summer Games Done Quick where basically they bring together
some of the best
video game players in the world
To livestream over the course of a few days them trying to set world records or like speedrun certain
Retro games and they raise millions and millions of dollars for cancer research. It's actually pretty amazing what those guys are doing and
to see people who are just like really excellent at video games like yeah, you still get some of the
Cringy characters people who are like way too into video games that happens
But it mostly seems like a pretty cool community of people who just happen to be
Like amazing at Super Mario Brothers 3 or Sonic the Hedgehog 2 some of the games I remember
Growing up on when I was a kid. 
Cristine: So what about you? Would you ever be a video game streamer?
You want to get a Twitch channel?
Ben:  Yeah, I kind of like the idea of keeping video games more of a
Cristine: Personal activity?
Ben: Yeah more more of an outlet that I just do selfishly for myself and rather than
Making that a product for consumption with so much of our lives ends up on the internet now 
Cristine: So much of our lives are monetized
Ben: Yes, and I mean that's our choice
Cristine: I don't mean us like
Ben: Oh you just mean within our culture?
Cristine: I meant our like as in youtubers in general so much of a youtubers life is
monetized and you can definitely decide to which degree and how much of your life you want to show like we only show
Not that much of our lives like our day to day life. You don't really see
Ben: Well, you swear monetizing it I would argue beyond just youtubers so much of our lives now are shared online
at least you and
Tana Mongeau and Lele Pons, they're making money
Why are you putting me in the same group?
Just some names that come to mind, you know, but you know, but okay but to get to the original point
yeah, I there are some things I just basically want to keep for myself
Cristine: It's like yeah, I get it
Sometimes I just want to paint my nails and not have to go downstairs in my studio and film it
like I just want to paint it up at my computer while watching Grey's Anatomy
You know?
Ben: Actually that's a really interesting parallel because there was a time where yeah
You felt a lot of pressure to just people wanted to see you paint your nails 
Cristine: And they wanted to see me paint my nails
and scream at things
Just like a video game 
Ben: Just like markiplier
Cristine: Oh my god killshot! Holo Taco!
see its the same
Ben: So like you rebelled against that and started posting a lot of non nail polish content, right?
Yeah, and I feel like when did you start posting nail art again? Basically when people stopped asking you to post nail art
Cristine: I'm just like a stubborn kid
never do what my parents ask of me
Ben: We should take advantage of this, Cristine will do whatever we ask her and ask her not to do 
Cristine: So what are you going to tell me not to do?
Careful I may just stop making videos Ben
Ben: Gotta keep this PG
I want you to retire from YouTube and I want us to never go on vacation.
Cristine: Oh shut up
What about you if I suggested that maybe you want to play video games soon I post that tomorrow
Would you?
Ben: Tomorrow I don't know what you're talking about whats tomorrow?
Cristine: Its just another day in the calendar in 2020
Ben: I guess we'll see. 
Cristine: We'll see
Ben: Alright everybody I think that's it
You got anything? 
Cristine: Well, do you have any like heartfelt thoughts you want to express on your past career as a pro Donkey Kong player?
like I don't think people realize
Everyone's you know, Simply Nailogical whatever famous Canadian weird nail art girl and was a child actor, but Ben was a Donkey Kong star
he was number eight at some point
Ben: I don't know if eight is right
I don't want people leaving this thinking I was actually like a world record holder or something like that
I was I was among the best in the world for a brief moment in time
But I was never super invested
Cristine: Well that's something most people can't say so don't undermine yourself
Ben: Yeah, no, no, I'm I guess I'm proud of it in some way
Cristine: Yes Ben, it's okay to be proud of your video game accomplishments
Yeah no, I'm happy I could say that I was really good at something even if it was something like Donkey Kong
Cristine: I think you know it's good to become really some really good at something that you're passionate about
That's fun. And that isn't just related to your work or what you do for a living, right?
A lot of people become good at their jobs because that's like what they do every day
But if you can find a passion project and become really good at it and you know
You're doing it just because you enjoy it. I think that's a good lesson, too
Ben: Don't be too supportive I'm gonna start playing Donkey Kong again
Cristine: No, no, but that Donkey Kong machine has to say in our garage because it does not fit in the house
I'll play in the garage just like Steve Wiebe. 
Cristine: We don't have any room, sorry, no we dont have room for it
Ben: But I would recommend that documentary it holds up we watched it recently I would recommend checking that out
Although people will say that it's not entirely accurate the filmmakers do take some
Creative liberties in the interest of putting the story before the factual accuracy of some of the things I would say
but I think fundamentally
It gets the story right that Steve Wiebe is a great guy who just keeps coming up short and Billy Mitchell is a prick
And I think the story is great from that perspective. Even if it glosses over some things that actually happened in reality and
Part of me wishes. We could go back to the simpler times of just
Billy and Steve competing for world records because that was a lot of fun 
Cristine: If they were ever listening or someone showed them this clip
Would you have anything to say to Billy or Steve?
Ben: I'd say hi to Steve. Hey, Steve. You're a good guy
That's all you can say
Hey Steve, what up, how are your kids doing
Hope your kids are good
Yeah, I don't want to get sued by Billy Mitchell so I won't say anything
Cristine: All right. I think everyone should wish Ben a very happy
32nd birthday, in the comments
Ben: I'm so old
Cristine: You're just so old. I'm not even 32 yet
and I won't be until later this year
Ben: All birthdays stop having meaning after I think like 25 to me because if you can say like I'm in my early 20s
That's one thing but as soon as hit 25, I feel like the number kind of stops
Cristine: Well, I forgot how old you were turning like just last week so 
Ben: Yeah, you thought I was 31
Cristine: I'm like how old are you? 
Ben: Yeah I'm the older man
Cristine: All right. Well
We should go enjoy your birthday. How about that? You want to play some Donkey Kong?
Ben: I would like you to bake me a cake
Wait no reverse psychology I don't want you to bake me a beautiful cake full of sprinkles. 
Cristine: Thank God
I'm glad you didn't ask
Ben: All right everybody thanks for tuning in
Cristine: Thanks for joining us on this Taco Tuesday Ben's birthday edition 
Ben: Our apologies to Markiplier
We were gonna have him on as a guest today though. We we actually ran out of time. Sorry about that
Yeah, I don't know if he's any good at Donkey Kong. Oh, so who cares, right?
Okay, all right everybody will see you next see you next Taco Tuesday, thanks so much for watching
Cristine: We'll see y'all later bye
