 2%. pppweeee Throughout my life, I've kind of always imagined myself to be pretty good at video games, better than average. There was this one challenging game on the Nintendo, it's Battletoads. For the average player, the game ends on the third stage. Somehow word got out in my neighborhood that not only was Sean past the third stage, but he was on level nine or something, this level that nobody had ever seen before. And suddenly all these strangers were crowded around the TV as I was playing it. I remember being really excited, you get this adrenaline rush from people watching you do this. Four or five years ago, it was getting late in the night and Sean's in his computer room or whatever. And I'm like, what are you doing in there, is it time to go to bed? And he's like, I'm not coming to bed for a while. I'm like, why not? And he goes, because people on Reddit think that I can't beat Battletoads and I'm going to do it live and I'm about to broadcast it right now. Before I saw the King of Kong, I had always believed that that was the hardest game ever. And I had beaten that game. Well Donkey Kong without question is the hardest game. It's ridiculously difficult on the first screen. The average Donkey Kong game doesn't last a minute. It's absolute brutality. There's a scene in the movie where Billy Mitchell is saying, the people who could get besides myself that have been seen getting to the end of Donkey Kong. Gee, now that I think about it, I don't think anybody has. I took it as a personal challenge. I almost took offense that nobody could do this thing, so I started saying, hey, could I maybe be good at Donkey Kong and get to the kill screen? There is a set number of levels and therefore a theoretical maximum score. And people just want to kind of push that to the limit. You have to stay on each board as long as possible, using really every available second to score points as efficiently as possible in order to beat the record. That's it. One million, thirty seven thousand five hundred. I did it. I did it. I did it. I did it. I wasn't working. I guess I should say I was a lot better at Donkey Kong when I was unemployed. If a good game that would potentially go all the way to the kill screen and win the record takes about three hours and maybe it takes like an hour to get a game going, I mean that's just a large time commitment. I had to play outside of my comfort zone in order to really compete and I put up a score that got halfway through the game, but it was on pace for like one point one million, the score that won the event. I think much of the community considers me to be a lucky player. People don't think that I deserve it, like I don't belong. Coming in this year, I have other priorities in my life. I'm working full time. This year we got married. Donkey Kong has definitely taken a back seat to other things that I'm doing. I really probably stand no chance to win, but it's all part of the, I think, greater good where we're not necessarily competing against each other and it's kind of like all of us versus the machine. Hey love, how are you? I'm good. Competition is about to start in like 15 minutes, so I'm going to turn my phone off and stuff. Before the dead air silence, I just wanted to call and say hey and I love you and wish me luck again. I'll let you know after the event has ended today how I did and how everyone else did, okay? I love you too. Bye honey. Bye. Welcome to the 2013 Kong Off. I really want to thank all of you for going out of your way to making it out to Denver, making the trip, making the financial commitment and making the commitment to just getting together again with what we all found last year to be a very uplifting experience. So again, give yourselves a nice round of applause for being a part of this great event. What really makes the Kong Off worthwhile and makes the whole thing worthwhile is bringing everybody together. We're a crazy community. Some of us are socially awkward, some of us are misfits, some of us, I don't know, all get along. When the internet became available to everybody, suddenly people were able to exchange information and bond as friends, but not only bond as friends, but bond as Donkey Kong playing friends. We all spend a lot of time interacting with one another through a chat room or a message board, but for the few that take the time to come to the Kong Off and meet one another and shake one another's hands, it's just, it puts this whole burst of energy back into this and it just, that's what makes it all worthwhile. All right, everybody's out here. All right, so you guys know the order that you're coming out in? You guys kind of know who you're next to? It'll definitely be the best Kong Off yet as far as the competition and the potential for someone to actually beat the world record live. We've got all the best players playing right now. We've got all of them shooting for top prize. Mr. Mike Grossbeck! Mike is another one of the top 12 competitors in Donkey Kong. He happens to live very close to me and through our mutual interest, we've kind of become friends. Mr. Sean Board! Good luck, Sean. It's like the nerves you kind of get before you go in for a job interview or something. It's just like the little bit of butterflies. All right, you ready? Go! When you're having that perfect game going, it feels very zen. You smash something with a hammer and time stops for a moment and it just feels good. Decent for my first game. That was your first game? Yeah. Nobody has a good first game. All right. I'll take a little break and try again. Thank you, Billy. First game, first quarter drop, got to 600,000 something, which is better than what I did all last year. So I'm feeling pretty positive about that. I mean, I think I'd just be happy if I put up a higher score than what I put up yesterday. I'm not going to run boards though. I don't want to do that. You want to at least have a shot at placing in the top of the league. Even a low kill screen would be cool in like a million ten or something. Okay, everybody on your machines on your marks, whatever that means. Get set and go! Call off three, day two is off and running. So, it's day two of the Kong off. I've basically been playing Donkey Kong like it's my job for the past two days. First day I think I did nine or ten hours. Never put up a million point score. Today we have even less time. There's like an hour and a half left until the final quarter drop, which means since a game takes like three hours to play, there's like one good game left. This is your last chance to take the lead in the Kong off. Last quarter. Donkey Kong is different every time. And although you can influence the game, you're not in complete control of it. You have to rely more on the random aspects of the game playing out in your favor continuously for you to ever come close to the record. Quarter drop and my game didn't go anywhere. Got to like 200,000 with three men left. But the pressure was too much and there's still people playing, but I'm out. Of all the players, I think I detected that Sean Boyd was the humblest and the most also frank in his assessment of his plausibility of winning this contest. He just wants to perform as well as he can and maybe break down boundaries and have new vistas of high score possibility, but doesn't necessarily come into this thinking he's going to be the winner. I was imagining in my mind what I'd say if I won. Walking along the lines of surprise. Me too. Like six screens from the kill screen. He's got one man in reserve. If he can cash in that man, it's probably worth like close to 10,000 points. So it looks like he's about on like a million 24,000. I won't put him in the prize rankings, but definitely illustrate, hey, I'm here to play. The next best thing is seeing Mike succeed. Nice job, Mike. Nice, nice job. Very impressed. Very impressed. He did get the kill screen and I think that's what he wanted. He wanted a million points and he did it. Congrats again, dude. I'm so happy for you. Thanks. Yeah. That's all you can hope for. I mean, just got to play consistent and hope for good randomness, I guess. Thank you guys, everybody for coming out and just making this such a great event. If it wasn't for you guys showing up and giving it your heart and all you guys coming out and spectating, we wouldn't have such a great turnout and such a good time. Hi. How are you? The event is over. I did not put up a score at all. The guy who won last year, Jeff Wilms, did back-to-back victories. He did it again. He is hardcore awesome sauce. It doesn't matter. I come here and have fun and talk with the players. It's a good time. I guess the other thing to mention is that Mike did real good. He was talking with me at breakfast this morning that he just wanted to put up a million points and that's what he did. I caught the final moments on my camera. That was pretty cool. I'm really excited for him. All right. Well, yeah, I will be safe and then I will talk to you tomorrow. I look forward to coming home and seeing you. I played close to every night for close to two years now, always aiming for the record at the time and I've still not done it. Is that a reflection of my skill as a player? Maybe. Is it a reflection of how brutally mean the randomness of Donkey Kong is? Maybe. Just that question that it's still possible, maybe, that keeps you playing.