The King of Kong and the Art of Conflict

I was less than thrilled when my husband announced that our movie night featured a documentary about video games. The documentary would cover two gamers fighting for the record high score in the original arcade classic, Donkey Kong.

The King of Kong turned out to be an engaging and memorable story, one that generated a lot of conversation and speculation after the film, and that days later is still on my mind. Given that I am not a classic video game fanatic, why did I get so excited about this documentary?

The King of Kong used conflict as the combustion engine of its story telling machine. But this conflict was made even more interesting by using three techniques:

1) The makers of the documentary clearly picked a "hero" and a "villain." As a viewer, I was rooting for the newcomer on the arcade gaming scene, Steve Wiebe, to overtake Billy Mitchell's long-standing high score record. Mitchell's machinations to preserve his record and shun Wiebe's acceptance to the arcade gaming community, made me feel that Steve Wiebe was a hard-working, genuinely nice guy, and that Billy Mitchell was a jerk.

2) Although they had clearly sided with Wiebe, the makers of the documentary left one niggling doubt about Wiebe's integrity. They also kept the conflict balanced by demonstrating that Mitchell was an extremely skilled gamer, and by including a sub-plot (coaching an elderly Q*Bert champ), in which Mitchell could show his human side.

3) Walter Day, the arbiter of the conflict (who was shown throughout most of the documentary in a black and white referee costume), faced trying to balance fairness to Wiebe and loyalty to Mitchell. Day's difficult emotional journey showed that successful resolution of the conflict was vital to more than just the contestants.

These techniques kept me engaged in the conflict and rooting for the hero. At the same time, I was intrigued by the possibility that Mitchell might have some honest (or at least not so blatantly self-serving) motivation for shunning Wiebe. I was also intrigued to watch Day's journey, as he made mistakes, agonized, then tried to live up to his pledge of integrity.